Guest post by Chris Koch

As a parent of three young girls, I was introduced long ago to the concept of “floor time,” or getting down on the floor and playing with your kids. Through the years, I have been a student in my daughters’ classrooms, a customer at their homemade arts and crafts store, and a judge in a spontaneous dance off. Quality floor time is fun and helps me build deeper relationships with my daughters. It means so much more to my kids than just sitting on the couch and casually watching them play.

As school leaders, we often find ourselves playing multiple roles and taking on new responsibilities as each school year begins. As a result, it becomes far too easy to lose sight of one of our most important roles: being instructional leaders. In order to truly support staff and grow a positive culture, leaders must build a foundation of trust. I have found that “floor time” with staff, or what I call immersive school leadership, is one of the most rewarding ways to achieve this foundation. The most meaningful work comes when we roll up our sleeves and do the work as part of the staff rather than as the leader simply directing them.

Floor Time in Action—Designing a New Course 

In 2016, we introduced four new senior English courses at our school and, as with any new course, the curriculum had to be written, aligned to standards, reviewed, tweaked, and approved. For one new course, Sports and Literature, two teachers from the department took on the responsibility of writing the curriculum. Most staff members know of my passion for sports, and I was thrilled when these two teachers asked me to assist them. Over the course of the week, we enthusiastically worked together to write the curriculum, build learning units, and create engaging activities.

On several occasions over the past year, the two teachers I worked with on the curriculum invited me to their classes to se the learning experiences we designed in action. “Remember, we created the activity around black and white sports photography? Today, we are introducing this to our classes, please stop in!” They spoke about the importance of me seeing our collaborative work firsthand, which was not only a great feeling but made me feel like I was truly a part of it all.

Faculty Book Club—Teaching Like a Pirate 

Another example that illustrates the power of floor time is our school’s first faculty book club, which I spearheaded. Over the course of six weeks, 26 staff members and I met every Tuesday and Thursday in our faculty bistro to discuss Dave Burgess’ Teach Like a Pirate, which explores student engagement and high-level instruction. Though I was “in charge” of the book club, my role was not that of a facilitator but as an equal participant. We talked about our own passions for engaging instruction and had some of the most meaningful discussions about children, teaching, and school culture. Our work culminated when, together, we presented during the last faculty meeting and set up our school gymnasium as a “Pirate Flea Market.” Staff moved from table to table in small groups and participated in engaging mini-lessons and activities from the book. Many commented that it was one of the best faculty meetings they had ever attended.

Throughout the spring, many teachers who participated in the book club sent me copies of lesson plans incorporating some of the takeaways from the book discussions. On some occasions, teachers would stop me or other book club participants in the hallway and brainstorm a new unit, asking for suggestions as to what might make the unit more engaging. It mattered to them what others thought, and I was a part of the group.

Conclusion

With all the different directions we get pulled in as instructional leaders, it is important to remember to grab some floor time with your staff whenever you can. It can become some of the most enriching work we can do as leaders and builds a strong positive culture.

What do you do as a school leader to immerse yourself in your work with staff?

Chris Koch is the assistant principal of Frank Scott Bunnell High School in Stratford, CT. He is the 2017 Connecticut Assistant Principal of the Year. 

Guest post by Bill Ziegler

How can principals lead learning in a way where students want to run to school rather than away from it? This challenge can be daunting, but it’s one that requires our full focus as we strive to design schools where students see a practical and relevant connection, creativity being nurtured, and real-world problems being solved. This requires school leaders to think differently, to innovate, and to lead with courage. 

The term digital leader should be synonymous with an innovative leader focused on learning. No longer can we lead in simply a digital framework; instead, we need to be innovative thinkers and leaders who are committed to student learning and growing an equitable and culturally responsive school.

This blog is designed to equip, encourage, and empower you as a school leader to innovate learning and your leadership in a way that empowers students and staff to new levels of growth and success. Over the coming months, you will hear from school leaders across the country, from diverse school settings and backgrounds, on how they are transforming their learning culture to empower every student through innovative leadership and learning. 

You will be equipped with practical and innovative strategies that you can use immediately in your school to provide real and sustainable change for the benefit of all students and staff. And, you will be encouraged to try and learn new things, to take risks, and to get connected with a professional learning network (PLN) of school leaders who are growing and learning together. You will also be empowered to lead learning and innovation in your school in a way that energizes your students and staff.

This blog will be an easy read, around 500-750 words, and written from practicing school leaders who are innovating in their schools to strengthen learning and their school culture through an innovative mindset. To start, the NASSP Digital Principals of the Year award winners will be writing these blogs, and as it grows, we will invite other exemplary, innovative school leaders who are doing what it takes to lead their students and schools toward success.

Below are four “mindsets” to LEAP into innovation:

• Learning mindset—School leaders need to be voracious learners who are constantly reading, networking, and growing as leaders and learners. This is why you need a PLN to develop as a leader and to stretch and grow.

• Empowering mindset—For true growth and sustainability to take place with innovation in learning, school leaders need to empower others to lead. Invest in your teachers, challenge them, and inspire them to try new things and to innovate in their teaching and learning.

• Advanced mindset—School leaders need to have a mindset that hungers to advance the learning and growth of students and their staff. We need to move beyond the status quo and into a culture of growth and progress for all. It’s critical that school leaders focus on nurturing, developing, and advancing their staff as much as students. A true learning culture focuses on both!

• Practical mindset—Innovation that inspires is innovation that solves real-world problems and makes practical connections to life. We can’t innovate to entertain; instead we must innovate to make a difference in our world. This reminds me of the student who desired to make a prosthetic hand for one of his classmates, so he and his teacher accepted the Prosthetic Kids Hand Challenge and did just that.

I encourage you to connect with this blog and to interact with the school leaders who are writing the blog posts. Follow them on Twitter, send them a Vox, or reach out to ask a follow-up question. Each writer looks forward to the opportunity to interact with and learn from you. 

Bill Ziegler, EdD, is an award-winning school leader, author, and speaker. He has been recognized as the 2016 Pennsylvania Principal of the Year and an NASSP 2015 Digital Principal of the Year. He is the co-author of Future Focused Leaders: Relate, Innovate, and Invigorate for Real Educational Change. Bill serves as principal of Pottsgrove High School in Pottstown, PA, and has close to 20 years of experience as a school leader. Follow him on Twitter @drbillziegler

Guest post by Melissa D. Hensley

Central High School, an 800-student school in rural Woodstock, VA, has felt the effects of the national teacher shortage this year. We replaced a third of our staff as teachers left for higher paying jobs or relocated to take positions closer to their family. This high turnover rate alarmed us and caused our staff to discuss the impact of teacher turnover and develop a teacher-led strategic plan to increase retention. These efforts have led to a renewed commitment from our teachers to support each other and strengthen our school community. 

Our faculty began by identifying key factors that are preventing them from being the best teachers they can be. The analysis revealed that teachers need support designed to meet their specific professional development goals, and they also need time to get to know one another to develop and maintain a collaborative environment where they could work and feel comfortable asking each other for help.

“Blockheads” Are Better than One

The “Blockhead” program was developed and named by the faculty to address individualized professional development. “Blockheads” are teachers who have a common planning period and agree to meet as a team at least once a month to identify and discuss areas of interest and concern. Teams are structured to include a variety of subjects, grade levels, and new and veteran teachers, which helps to provide additional assistance for new teachers. At the onset of the school year, each team established norms and a formal goal and measurement tool for its impact on student learning. Our faculty is in the first year of implementation of this teacher-led program; however, immediate feedback has been positive.

This Mug’s for You

Another goal for our faculty was to find a way to meet the staff’s social and emotional needs to aid in stress relief and build team camaraderie. Staff members take a reinforcement survey, which identifies what motivates them. To see this survey, click here. Our administrative team and the school’s social committee use the results of the survey to select appropriate individual and group rewards for the staff, such as positive notes, coupons for jeans days, no-duty days, and more. We also created the “I’ve Been Mugged” program, where one teacher gives another teacher a mug filled with things identified on the reinforcement survey. The “mugged” teachers are then asked to “mug” someone else who has not yet received a mug.

Teachers taking intentional steps to support one another professionally, socially, and emotionally has resulted in the most positive start to a school year that I have experienced in my 20-plus years as a school administrator. It is our hope that more supported and motivated teachers will lead to higher retention rates and a stronger overall school community.

What does your school do to help motivate and retain teachers?

Melissa D. Hensley serves as the principal of Central High School, located in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley in Woodstock, VA. She is the 2016 Virginia Secondary Principal of the Year and a 2017 National Principal of the Year Finalist. Central High School is a 2015 National Blue Ribbon School for Exemplary Academic Performance.

Guest post by Scott Long

It is the sixth and final period, and I am in the midst of my third pep assembly of the day. Two-hundred seventh graders are shouting and raising their hands, hoping I will call their name for a 7-on-7 football-bowling competition. Beyond the high-octane atmosphere of the gym, there are eight seventh-grade teachers engaging in content-area-specific data protocol to help drive future instructional decisions. Although not nearly as fast-paced as football-bowling, these PLC meetings have a similar level of enthusiasm. As I facilitate the final assembly of the day, I take great comfort in knowing that we are supporting our teachers with the gift of time.

Sixth-grade students at Orchard Lake Middle School involved in a relay race during their second pep assembly of the year.

Orchard Lake Middle School is one of two middle schools in the West Bloomfield School District in Michigan. Our district emphasizes the importance of meaningful teacher collaboration, but like many other school districts, time and money are limited. Due to staffing and scheduling constraints, most of our teaching staff is double prepped. None of our grade-level PLCs have a common planning period built into the school day. Budget constraints prevent us from using a paid substitute to free up teachers for collaboration. So, the simple but difficult question we faced was how to build in regular collaboration time for our teachers without increasing any costs?

To solve this challenge, our administrative team had to get creative. The first issue we had to address was finding a time during the school day for teachers to meet. I started by looking for an hour during the day that had the highest volume of core content-area classes for a given grade level. For example, eight of the 10 teachers with eighth-grade classes taught an eighth-grade class during third hour. If our school counselors cover the two eighth-grade teachers who didn’t have a third-hour class, all of our eighth-grade teachers would have the same common planning time. We used the same process for evaluating our sixth- and seventh-grade teacher schedules and selected three periods where each group of teachers could meet that required the least amount of staff substitution.

Now that we found time for teachers to meet, the next problem we had to tackle was what to do with an entire grade of students while their teachers collaborated. After considering a variety of ideas, we decided to bring together all of the students from each grade for a pep assembly that would recognize our students’ efforts and build positive school culture. As the assistant principal, I plan and facilitate the assemblies to celebrate student success and recognize students who model our schoolwide behavior expectations. Each high-energy assembly builds school spirit with performances from our cheer team, presentations of our clubs and athletic teams, and exciting games like football-bowling.

This creative approach has benefited the entire school. With the pep assembly occurring twice a quarter, our teachers now gain eight hours each year to work together on lesson planning, common assessments, and instructional best practices. In addition, our students have some fun while we recognize their success in the classroom. And as an administrator, I receive satisfaction in knowing that I am giving collaboration time to the teachers and cultivating a strong positive culture for the students. It’s truly a win-win for all.

Can you think of creative ways to find more collaboration time for your teachers?

The 2017 Michigan Assistant Principal of the Year, Scott Long was assistant principal of Orchard Lake Middle School in West Bloomfield, MI, for the past four years. He will begin his first principalship in the fall of 2017 at Doherty Elementary, a K–2 building, in West Bloomfield.

Guest post by Darren Ellwein

Stanford’s d.school has had a major impact on how I view learning in my school. Founded in 2005, the d.school is an institute that brings students and faculty from different backgrounds together to tackle real-world challenges and develop innovative, human-centered solutions using design methodology. 

When I had the opportunity to attend d.school and learn about the design thinking process (@k12lab), I was particularly impressed by how every square foot and piece of furniture had a thoughtful purpose.

I thought about my home school, Harrisburg South Middle School in South Dakota. There was a tremendous amount of unused space. Classrooms, hallways, and little nooks were wasted opportunities for learning. What if we were to design these spaces in a flexible way that promoted collaboration and multiple modes of learning?

I shared my ideas with Scott Doorley, the creative director at the d.school, who encouraged my work and helped me envision a new life for these spaces. After leaving Palo Alto, this vision has morphed into a passion to construct the ideal learning environment for our students.

The Beginning

When I returned to HSMS, I walked through the entire school and evaluated every square foot of space in my building from a new perspective. Then I used the design thinking framework from Stanford to develop a plan to maximize hallway and classroom space. Next, I gathered student input to better understand what our end users actually prefer. Their response? They wanted flexible personal places, somewhere outside the learning studios (what we call our classrooms), to be able to work with friends in an upright space.

I thought carefully about their wishes, spent time observing students working, talked with teachers and students, and researched furniture and seating options. The solution we needed was a coffeehouse-style setting with high-top tables where students could stand and work together in the hallway.

Creation

Now that we knew what we wanted, it was time to get to work and create our vision. If your district is similar to mine, I don’t have a massive budget to buy furniture from companies marketing flexible working environments. This project had to be homegrown with parents, community partners, teachers, and students involved in the process.

First, I collaborated with two parents who helped to build a prototype of the table with an industrial look and a whiteboard/dry-erase surface. Next, we worked with various community partners and local businesses who generously donated the supplies we needed. Then, a group of parents met on a Saturday morning to build 10 tables and install them in the hallway.

Physical Improvement Sparks Positive Student Reaction

These efforts paid off when our students immediately began to gather and collaborate around the new furniture. The physical improvement sparked such a positive reaction thatwe now regularly survey our physical campus looking for opportunities to unlock additional enthusiasm for our learning environment. In fact, we will be finishing our next piece of furniture later this fall, complete with five different prototypes each specific to a different learning function. Follow my blog for updates on our builds or direct message me on Twitter (@DEllwein) if you want to chat further or need the cut dimensions of this table. As I like to reply when people say “think outside the box”: There is no box.

Think about how you can apply design methodology on your school campus to build better learning spaces.

Darren Ellwein is the principal of Harrisburg South Middle School in Harrisburg, SD. He is the 2017 Fall Digital Principal of the Year. Follow him on Twitter @DEllwein.

Guest post by Steve Carlson

This year, the Carlson family finally all takes the same path in the morning. Now that my youngest is in kindergarten, my wife, three children, and I spend our days in the Sandusky Community School District. I know that many others have enjoyed this experience, but having it happen in our family has given me a new perspective. For starters, it is nice to know that the long hours I put in as Sandusky Junior/Senior High School principal have a direct impact on my family. More than this, having my entire family under the same “school roof” has motivated me to lead our school to benefit all families and taught me some valuable lessons.

Supporting Teachers
My wife Erin is (in my biased opinion) one of the greatest teachers that a student could have. Her classroom experiences give me a constant reminder of what I need to do to lead our teachers. Great teachers need administrators who support them taking risks. They need us to remove obstacles in order to allow them to focus more on their students and less on distractions. Most important, they need us to never forget what a complex and taxing job that teachers have. As principal, I want our teachers to feel valued, supported, and served. This is not easy work and I worry often that I’m not doing enough in these areas. As a result, I constantly tweak my approach, trying to make things better for the staff. It’s not easy but the hard work is made even more meaningful knowing that my wife is one of the beneficiaries of the effort.

Gaining Perspective on the Student Experience 

My oldest son, Matthew, is now a freshman and in his third year of having me as a principal. Despite occasional challenges, being the principal of my son’s school has allowed me to view the student experience through his eyes. I think that I’m pretty good at identifying areas of curriculum and instruction for improvement but getting a sense of the student experience has not yet been a particularly strong suit of mine. Through conversations with Matthew, I get a greater sense of what works and what doesn’t, what engages and what merely leads to compliance, and what inspires compared to what simply bores as a student at SHS. As a result, I can better direct feedback to teachers but, more important, I can better work on the climate and culture of our school to make the student experience more memorable in ways that go beyond our teachers’ lessons.

Designing for the Future

I don’t yet get to lead David’s or Rachel’s educational experiences. I certainly hope to someday, but the reality is David is four years away from SHS and Rachel is seven years away. But I try to be an architect as an educational leader. It’s a high benchmark to try to hit, and I don’t claim that I’m there. However, I try to maintain a long-range outlook to make sure that the work I do now—work that too often keeps me away from them and their earlier bedtimes—does in fact have a meaningful impact on their secondary education no matter who their principal might be.

Advocating for the “School Family”

I hope to not make this sound like my work is self-serving and I only do it for my family’s benefit. The truth is I’m blessed; I would love the work that I do no matter where Erin taught and no matter where my children went to school. Having my family benefit from my work is merely an added bonus. My main takeaway from all of this is that as educators and as educational leaders, we must always act with the guiding question of, “Is this what I would want for my family?” In my position, I get to advocate directly for my wife’s teaching experience and my children’s educational experiences. Obviously, not every teacher can have their spouse as a building leader and not all students can have their parent trying to shape the climate of their school. But even in the toughest hours of our jobs, we have to advocate for teachers and students as though they are part of our family.

As the pressures mount and the deadlines creep in, such a perspective keeps me focused on why I do what I do and why I am blessed to be doing it not just for my family, but our entire school community.

What personal and professional relationships could you draw on more to enhance your perspective on teacher and student experiences?

Steve Carlson is the principal of Sandusky Junior/Senior High School in Sandusky, MI. He is the 2016 Michigan Principal of the Year and the current MASSP President-Elect. Follow him on Twitter @MrCarlsonSHS.

This post is adapted from Steve Carlson’s blog, Sharing My Learning.

Guest post by Alison Maurice

Across the country, schools are celebrating National School Lunch Week—a time to shine a light on the important role school lunch plays in supporting students’ academic success and health. 

School breakfast and lunch keep hunger at bay, providing the fuel to keep students learning throughout the school day. But for various reasons, too many secondary school students miss out on the academic and health benefits that school meal programs provide.

Community eligibility is a federal provision that allows high-poverty schools to offer lunch and breakfast to all students at no charge, increasing participation and eliminating the stigma that only “poor kids” participate. If you lead a school with high concentrations of low-income students, find out if community eligibility is a good fit for your students and school.

Other important strategies principals can use to increase school lunch participation include ensuring students have enough time to get through the lunch line and eat, scheduling recess before lunch, and engaging students in their menu options.

Principals can do their part to increase student access to school meals by partnering with their school nutrition department and students. With strong principal leadership, the lunchroom can be a place that offers free meals to all students and gets students excited to eat school lunch with their friends. Strengthening school meal programs ensures that your low-income students have access to the nutrition they need to thrive in and out of the classroom.

Alison Maurice, MSW, is a child nutrition policy analyst at the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC).

Guest post by Heather Daubert

Several years ago, a colleague asked what professional book I was reading. I rattled off the name of a popular educational author and then shared that my greatest professional growth came through my professional learning network (PLN). The response from my colleague left me with feelings of inadequacy. Was I viewed as an ill-informed administrator because I sought professional growth from non-traditional avenues? Even though I could articulate the thinking of highly respected peers, because it did not come from a book, was it not valued? 

Fortunately, today’s leaders recognize that our profession does not exist in a vacuum and a diverse professional network is more enlightening than a few static resources. Books are fine. Classes are good. Conferences are refreshing. Peers are exceptional. So, what is a cost-neutral, efficient way to combine all of these resources into one? Establish a PLN. 

A good PLN combines people, pedagogy, experience, and more. It’s a place we can take our questions and experiences and place them alongside peers (and mentors) from all over the world. It is personalized learning that stretches our creativity, curiosity, and critical thinking. I’ve been working on my own PLN for several years now, and because it is real-time professional development, it continues to evolve. How did I get started? Using the same steps you can. Here are 10 tips for building your PLN:

1. Start small! It needs to be something you can manage and commit to.

2. Subscribe to a few blogs, email newsletters, and publications. Some of my favorites include: ASCD SmartBrief, NASSP Principal’s Update, PDK Kappan magazine, and George Couros’ The Principal of Change.

3. Expand your face-to-face opportunities. Attend local gatherings such as your regional principals association or even LinkedIn offerings. Get to know your colleagues at the state and local levels.

4. Build your online PLN. Twitter is a great place to start! On Twitter, begin with following your school, NASSP Digital Principals of the Year, educational gurus, and local school leaders. Most important, follow who they follow.

5. See something that resonates? Retweet it or hit “reply” and comment back. Both actions will increase collaboration with others, and build your credence with fellow educators.

6. View #chat archives. #edchat, #satchat, and #APchat are good ones to start with. Notice the lingo? You’ll find that the archives are filled with great insights from school leaders and a wealth of practical resources.

7. Participate in a live #chat. Once you get a feel for the flow, consider attending #chats live. It may seem awkward at first, but stick with it.

8. Attend a national conference. If you’re fortunate enough to attend a national conference like NPC or ASCD, attend sessions of those individuals you follow on social media. It rarely disappoints!

9. Follow the event online. Don’t see a national conference in your future? No worries! Find the #hashtag of the event, and follow along. Consider using Tweetdeck to enrich the experience.

10. Make a commitment to check your feeds. This is perhaps the most important advice I can give you. Five minutes can refresh, inspire, and re-engage. You may even find exactly what you’ve been looking for.

PLNs offer educators easy access to a multitude of ideas, resources, experiences, and people that help us grow professionally and be the best instructional leaders we can be.

How do you grow your PLN?

Heather Daubert is an assistant principal at Beadle Middle School in Millard Public Schools, Omaha, NE. She is the 2017 Nebraska Assistant Principal of the Year. Follower her @heather_daubert. 

Guest post by Mike King

Located on the rolling plains of Southwest Kansas, Dodge City is a town with Wild West roots where Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Doc Holliday used to rule the land. Today, Dodge City is less lawman and gunfighters and more meatpackers and manufacturers with Cargill Meat Solutions and National Beef as the community’s top employers. As principal of Dodge City Middle School (DCMS), I am on a constant mission to cultivate opportunities for our students to develop college and career readiness skills and help them take ownership of their learning. 

Student-Centered Learning: A Collective Challenge 

How do we place students at the center of their own learning? In 2012, our faculty took on this collective challenge and sought ways to provide students opportunities to take ownership of their education. We believed that if our students could be at the center of their own learning, they would find relevance and purpose in it. We asked ourselves:

• How can we provide an opportunity for students to have a voice in why, what, and how learning experiences take shape?
• How can we provide avenues for students to express their existing talents to fit what they are learning?

From these driving questions, we sought a universal solution that moved students away from passively receiving information to actively participating in their own learning process. After much research and discussion of the best student-centered practices, our faculty restructured our existing programs and adopted a new student-led conferencing initiative.

The Story of Student Growth: Curating Student Artifacts 

Our student-led conferences provide students an opportunity to reflect upon and showcase their growth as learners. Once every year in the spring, students meet with a teacher and their parents/guardians for a conference that allows them to lead the group through their portfolio. This portfolio is a purposeful collection of each student’s work telling the story of their growth as a learner. Students use the work in the portfolio to explain what they learned and provide evidence or demonstration of the skills they acquired. In addition, they reflect on the progress they made toward their goals and commit to new ones for the next period.

To support students in the creation of these portfolios and preparation for their conferences, we restructured a daily 26-minute advocacy class. During this dedicated time, teachers work with students both collectively and individually to help them set realistic goals, reflect upon their progress, collect artifacts for their portfolios, and prepare for the conference. Students use the following guidelines to help them in their preparations:

• Students will self-assess their progress based on learning goals.
• Each student will have a new learning goal every nine weeks and measure their accomplishment on the previous goal.
• Each student keeps graded artifacts in the appropriate binder or the student work folder.
• Students complete self-evaluation checklists for each academic class. They reflect on their progress and the areas in which they need to improve.
• Students will be coached on ways to share goals and strategies to obtain these goals with their parent or guardian.
• Students will write a formal invitation to their parents to invite them to the student-led conference.
• Students write a formal thank-you note to their parents for attending the student-led conference.

Student-Led Success

The conferences and portfolios have helped to tell a story of student growth and discovery. The journey of preparing for and participating in these student-led conferences have brought students greater awareness of their personal and academic strengths and of the areas where they need to improve. Parents appreciate hearing directly from their children about their academic progress and love to listen to their children discuss what they are learning in each subject. Teachers appreciate seeing students take responsibility for their learning and find that the experience helps students be more engaged learners throughout the school year.

How does your school help students take ownership of their own learning? 

Mike King is principal of Dodge City Middle School in Dodge City, KS. During his 38-year career in education, he was named a 2012 NASSP National Digital Principal of the Year, and his schools have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Medal of Excellence, designation as an Oklahoma National Blue Ribbon School, and various Kansas educational honors. Mike is committed to advancing learning with technology and firmly believes that digital tools can help students unleash their creativity and construct knowledge.

Guest post by Duane Kline

I have an admission to make. It turns out that after 31 years as a public school educator, I think school culture is the most important part of schooling. More important than curriculum, more important than assessment. Additionally, its importance is not solely for the benefit of students, but for the teachers and staff members who make the school what it is for the students.

As a principal, I am always pondering how to improve the culture of my school and how to make that culture work for the benefit of everyone in the building. I have found that whenever I have tried a program or a one-off strategy to “boost morale,” students and teachers can see the effort for what it is … usually an effort to get everyone to cooperate and smile. Of course, the results are temporary at best, and usually not effective in terms of real improvement.

PLCs to the Rescue

I have to admit, too, that my relationship with data has been sketchy over the years. I am suspicious, I suppose, of what numbers mean in our human context (“lies, damned lies, and statistics,” anyone?), though I find myself addicted to perusing and analyzing the work we do with teachers and students. Professional learning communities (PLCs) have given a core structure to that work and have served as a key tool for enhancing our school culture. Teachers are every bit as social as their students are and they covet the chance to work together. This collaboration is enhanced when the object of the work is meaningful to teachers and students; this is precisely what the PLC structure affords.

How Can We Enhance PLC Work?

The work of leading a school is largely developing the conditions for this meaningful work to occur. Giving teachers the opportunity to work together, and then supporting those opportunities with structures and resources, greatly enriches the working culture in the school building. When we started to introduce PLCs at Owen County High School, we looked at how we could combine teachers to approach students, data, and larger school issues as well. We have brought teachers together around content areas to focus on curricular and assessment data and issues, and have created common planning structures to facilitate this work. We have constructed PLCs around grade levels to address specific student-centered issues, and we have created a PLC to study how changing to a standards-based grading structure would improve the feedback loop we share with our students.

As principal, I ask that the PLCs have a core meeting structure that holds them accountable to produce actions and needed information, and I meet with the PLCs and review their meeting minutes to ensure that resources are being given where they are most needed. This support serves to magnify the positive aspects of teacher collaboration and to help ensure that PLC meetings remain positive, solution-centered opportunities for teachers to work together to make our school more effective and meaningful for all of our students.

Family Counseling

Another major benefit we see coming from our PLC work is that the small, nagging issues that often accumulate as we work together are dealt with in an immediate fashion. Teachers will bring their concerns to the table at our weekly/monthly PLC meetings and are able to build and maintain honest, clear and supportive relationships with their colleagues through dialogue. I sometimes find myself in the role of patriarch/family counselor, helping teachers to navigate the personal and professional relationships that they have to forge with their peers and colleagues, all the while working to encourage teachers and staff so that the school can maintain a positive, forward-looking, student-centered culture. Getting teachers to work together on behalf of their students—the thing that truly matters to them—is not only the key to effective practice, but to a healthy, positive school climate that impacts everything we do for students.

What does your school do to support teacher collaboration? Does your work with faculty and staff emphasize the importance of their work together for the benefit of students and school culture? What is one thing you could do to enhance the way your teachers work with each other?

Duane Kline is in his 31st year as a teacher and school leader. He is the proud principal of Owen County High School in Owenton, KY, and the Kentucky Secondary School Principal of the Year. He is Anne’s husband and dad to Hannah and Aaron. 

Guest post by Alexis Tisby

The NASSP Student Leadership Advisory Committee launched a global citizenship initiative in November 2016, and Alexis Tisby is one of the initiative’s global change ambassadors. She is from Lakewood, WA, and a senior at Harrison Preparatory School who has completed over 260 hours of volunteering and service in her community. In the future, she plans to major in art and minor in computer science while obtaining her private pilot license.

She encourages others to join in on this global citizenship initiative and make global change. Local efforts count! As she shares, projects don’t have to be done on a global or international scale—the things you do locally can still contribute to making a global impact.

Alexis Tisby helping at the United Way Summer Reading Program and Book Drive. We encouraged kids to read during the summer.

I feel that I am a global change ambassador because I have done so much around my community. I have given my time, money, talents, and volunteer hours, beginning with when I first joined Girl Scouts. Since I was a young girl, I have been so passionate about helping people in my community. I have watched my mom and dad give so much of their time to the community and others through their jobs and at church—it has definitely rubbed off on me. Their love for people and the community has inspired me to do the same over the past year since I sent my application into NASSP to become a global change ambassador.

My parents have inspired me so much that I started a scholarship in my dad’s name, after he passed away three years ago. I wanted to honor him because he was a great dad and community member. The scholarship—called the Lieutenant John F. Tisby Scholarship—has helped some of the high school students in my community with some of their college funding.

I have also helped out in my church for nine years in the kids ministry, where I volunteer my time doing praise and worship, games, arts and crafts, and Bible stories. I absolutely love it and have seen it change small children’s lives. I have also been a member of the YMCA since I was 3 years old. It made such a difference in my life that I wanted to volunteer at the branch that I am a member of. I have been a counselor-in-training for their summer camp and, just this past year, a volunteer swim instructor for the swim team. It was so awesome to teach the kids safety and swim techniques.

Alexis helping to tutor new friends at the Eastside Boys and Girls Club

Other work that I’ve done with kids includes tutoring some at The Boys and Girls Club who were homeless at one time or live in low-access areas. I helped with reading and math, which was such a benefit to kids who were struggling in these areas.

Overall, being a global change ambassador has taught me the value of giving back to the community. It shows that being a leader makes a huge difference. It has been a life-changing experience making a positive difference in my community and around the world. I have no idea who these kids I’ve helped will become in the future, but these kids are our future.

Guest post by Tom Dodd

It was an honor to help facilitate the 2017 NASSP National Principals Institute, assist with Principal of the Year finalist interviews, and attend the awards ceremony. It brought back great memories of last year’s Institute, the outstanding leaders I was surrounded by, and my own surprise announcement as the 2017 National Principal of the Year.

It also gave me a chance to create new memories. I caught up with U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos as she left the awards ceremony after delivering her comments to the State Principals of the Year. I reintroduced myself and gave her one of my gold challenge coins. The secretary’s confidential assistant offered her coin in return, accompanied by the potential of an audience with the secretary the following morning. (I offered to bring Secretary DeVos a pumpkin spice latte if she could make it happen, my treat!)

So, you might be curious about the coin exchange. “Challenge coins” are common in the military and law enforcement to remind officers of the gravity of their work and acknowledge a job well done. I got the idea from Bradford Hubbard, when he was principal of Antioch Community High School in Illinois. Adopting the practice, I carry a set of custom gold coins to hand to students, staff, or parents who display character and integrity while going above and beyond. The coins come exclusively from me, and our school community really values them. It appears Secretary DeVos does as well.

The following morning, I arrived for what I thought might be a five-minute photo op at the U.S. Department of Education, pumpkin spice latte in hand. Fortunately, the photo op evolved into a 30-minute conversation about school choice and education in America. Some background: Parents are savvy education consumers in the Poudre School District of Fort Collins, CO, where I’m proud to be the principal of Lesher Middle School. We have open enrollment and a variety of options—International Baccalaureate, Core Knowledge, project-based learning, STEM, STEAM, expeditionary learning, etc. Parents do their homework and “vote with their feet” in trying to find the most personalized fit for their child(ren). While this dynamic adds a level of competition to our public system, we maintain a greater focus on serving our families and helping them get what they need. So my message to Secretary DeVos was: We can build diverse choice opportunities for each student and provide an education with equity and excellence within the public education system, not despite it—if we’re willing to work hard enough and think through the barriers.

Finding common ground, I expressed appreciation for the secretary’s priority to reduce “federal overreach and prescription” in accountability, a consistent lament by public educators throughout the No Child Left Behind era, especially considering less than 5 percent of funding in my district comes from the federal government. I too value local control, putting the decisions and resources in the hands of the people closest to solving the problems. In the words of career analyst and author Daniel Pink, people need purpose, mastery, and autonomy. In my district and at my school, we have plenty of the first two, but we could use some help with the third. Yet I’m concerned that where I see local control at the district and school site level, she sees local control as “the family’s living room.”

My worry, which she may not anticipate, is the unintended consequences and potential discriminatory practices that can emerge from a lack of transportation; exorbitant school tuition and fees; limited understanding of how to navigate the choice system and available options; etc., if choice is done selfishly. My apprehension is she doesn’t see the single parent working multiple jobs just to hold it all together, who may not know how to have the well-researched, thoughtful, living-room-choice conversation she envisions. Choice available to most but accessible to few increases inequality. We need to guard against creating a system in which our neighborhood public school becomes the default school of last resort. This responsibility does not fall solely on our secretary of education, but on all of us to lock elbows around a common belief … that as much as we may want our child(ren)’s education to be a personalized, individual pursuit, we must not lose sight of the ideal that a free and appropriate, vibrant, and vigorous public education is not only a common good, but the cornerstone and promise of our American democracy.

I’m hopeful my discussion with the secretary goes beyond the photo op and this blog post, and becomes the first step toward further dialogue about school choice and today’s most pressing educational topics. Thank you, Secretary DeVos, for your time (and The Vanishing American Adult book recommendation. I bought it on my way home.). When can we meet again? I’ll bring the Starbucks.

As our conversation wound down, Secretary DeVos asked me what two to three things I think she should do. I told her I’d like to think more about that and get back to her. So colleagues, what advice should I offer if I get to meet with her again?

Tom Dodd is principal of Lesher High School in Fort Collins, CO. He is also the 2017 National Principal of the Year.

Guest post by Donald Gately

There is an event that every principal anticipates with varying degrees of trepidation. It is something students are excited and nervous about as well: the year-opening school letter telling kids who their teachers are going to be. 

Students are eager to know who their new teachers are and which friends will be in their classes. Principals are nervous because students and parents sometimes complain about the teachers they are assigned or not having certain friends in their classes.

For the past 12 years as the middle school principal, I have employed an interesting approach to this dilemma. Much of students’ unease about their teachers is based on information they’d get from other kids and 99.9 percent of it wasn’t true: This teacher gives too much homework. That teacher gives detention. The other teacher is mean. So instead of sending students their entire schedule prior to the first day of classes and create this apprehension, we would send home letters—now emails—just three or four days before school commenced, telling them to which room they should report on the first day of school. I knew that when students had a great experience on the first day of school, and they realized how nice everybody is, it would mitigate any anxiety they may have before opening day.

This year, my superintendent made the decision that we would send students their entire schedules prior to the opening of school. I tried to make the case to stick with the prior system, but it was no use. I will admit I thought this plan was going to be a disaster. If I received 15 complaints before school began in previous years, I was convinced that this year I would receive hundreds!

But the opposite happened.

This was the smoothest school opening we have ever had. I handled only one or two concerns from parents, and kids arrived on day one happy and excited for a new year. A system that I had expressed considerable allegiance to was simply wrong. To paraphrase Walt Kelly’s “Pogo” comic strip, “We have met the enemy and it is us.” It turns out that the drama surrounding students and their schedules was created by me! Not knowing who their teachers were or if they had classes with any of their friends, students and parents writhed in uncertainty and anxiety in the days prior to school. We are weeks into the new school year, and I continue to ponder the fact that I could hold such a deeply rooted idea of the “best way” to do something and been so utterly wrong.

Some reflections:

• Transparency is always better. The more you know, the more honest you are with your families and students, the better.

• Examine everything you do to see if there is a better way to do it. Just because we had been doing it this way for the past 12 years doesn’t mean there’s not a better way.

• Take a risk even when it goes against your instinct. I hate to admit this, but I didn’t want to send the entire schedules; the superintendent made me do it. Sometimes you can trust others to have better instincts than you do.

• Just because something seems to work doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. There are ways of doing things that seem fine but can be improved anyway. “Good enough” is not good enough.

• One of the reasons we made this change was because of input from parents. Listen to the ideas and concerns of your stakeholders. I have amazing PTA leaders who help me to understand the school experience through the eyes of kids and parents.

This experience illuminates the dynamic and exciting nature of school leadership. It has me wondering what other assumptions need to be challenged about the way things are done. How about you? Are you subjecting all of your school’s practices to the highest level of scrutiny? 

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 Chris Chitwood

As a coach, I believe that motivation is everything, and everyone is motivated by something. When our administrative team at Wilbanks Middle School in Demorest, GA, wanted to transform our culture to one of excellence in attendance, behavior, and academics, we decided to utilize competition as a way to motivate students and shift everyone’s focus to these three key areas. 

Game On

To tap into our students’ competitive spirit, we created schoolwide competitions where different teams earn points for attendance, behavior, and academics and are rewarded for being the top team. All of the teachers in our building lead a small team of about 15 students and become the team’s “coach” for the year, motivating and monitoring students in the three key areas. Student teams are determined based on their state test scores from the previous year. Each team meets every morning for 30 minutes to start the day and participates in previewing activities for math, language arts, and STEAM.

Practice Sessions

Grade-level content teachers communicate with each team’s coach on what content to preview for the day. Sometimes, it may be skill building so that struggling students can successfully attempt the new concept for that day in class. Content teachers communicate each student’s progress on standards and concepts using individual data sheets and share information from a weekly data meeting with every coach. Coaches use data tracking notebooks to tailor instruction to meet the needs of their students.

Scoreboard

Coaches fill out a scoresheet every Friday and submit it to me through Google forms. To see a sample scoresheet, click here. I record and sort scores in Google Sheets and update the Google slide scoreboard every week. Then, we show the results on a compelling scoreboard in the atrium of the school where students pass through several times a day. This way, students can always see where their team stands.

To the Victor Go the Spoils

The team with the most points at the end of the competition period wins. We change up the competitions to keep students interested. Sometimes we have a four-week competition, sometimes a nine-week one. We group teams into three flights and take a winner from each flight, which allows students to compete with academically similar groups.

When a team wins, students on that team can earn a variety of rewards ranging from class pizza parties, ice cream, and field trips to the bowling alley. You can choose anything that motivates your students to award as prizes. We ask the students for ideas on prizes and let the teams choose their prizes.

This year, we’ve added a new component to the competition to coincide with our school-wide PBIS: Patriot Bucks to recognize individual positive behavior. Teachers award individual students a Patriot Buck for positive behavior they show both in and out of class. Students can then decide to bank the bucks for their team or cash them in for personal items at our school store.

To get our older students on board, we added a game room called The Patriot Hangout that has a pingpong table, arcade basketball, lots of board games, darts, and three televisions with gaming systems. Teams who earn the most bucks each week get a class period in The Hangout.

Keeping Score of Positive Growth 

After a year of competitions and focus in the areas of improvement, we have seen substantial gains in the areas of attendance, behavior, and academics. Our student attendance rate was 96.2 percent, which ranked us the top middle school in our Regional Educational Service Agency. Our discipline referrals decreased by 28 percent. We also saw increased proficiency in both math and language arts.

Students and staff alike have found the competitions motivating. A teacher came to me and said, “I never knew that I was a competitive person until we started these competitions.” Anyone can be competitive. The key is to find something where each person can experience some success with the right amount of resistance. If it’s too hard, some may quit. If it’s too easy, some won’t play.

It’s like the old arcade games where you would put a quarter in and if you beat the first level, you see that message on the screen asking you to insert another quarter. Education is like that. Engage your students and get them to keep putting in another quarter.

How does your school motivate staff and students? 

Chris Chitwood is the assistant principal at Hilliard A. Wilbanks Middle School in Demorest, GA. He is the 2017 Georgia Assistant Principal of the Year.

Guest post by Mike King

Last time I posted, I discussed Dodge City Middle School’s (DCMS) student-led conference initiative, which places students at the center of their own learning. This post, I will share how we’ve continued this important work and integrated digital portfolios that help students apply their learning experiences to the real world and foster digital citizenship and 21st-century learning skills.

In 2016, four years after DCMS implemented student-led conferencing, our faculty considered ways to expand the program’s original goal of student ownership to include 21st-century learning preparation and digital citizenship, inspired in part by the Kansas Can initiative for Individual Plans of Study and our own school’s data.

In our discussions, we talked about how today’s students are “wired differently.” 21st-century students want to understand why they are learning something and know its real-world application. They take connectivity and social networking for granted. They are natural collaborators and multitaskers. Perhaps, most significantly, today’s students would rather “do to learn” instead of “learn to do.”

So how could we adapt our successful student-led conferences to accomplish these new goals? The solution our faculty determined was to replace the three-ring binder of physical artifacts with a digital portfolio, which would allow students to:

• Receive digital badge awards to highlight individual accomplishments.
• Use social media as a self-promotion tool and share accomplishments and goals.
• Track academic, personal, professional, and volunteer projects.
• Share experiences in real time with parents and teachers, and invite mentors and family member to view feeds and receive notifications.
• Reflect on required career assessments, and choose skills to develop to fulfill goals.
• Understand the importance of maintaining a positive digital footprint, and practice safe and responsible social media and internet use.
• Acquire “netiquette” literacy skills to become responsible contributors to social media.

The digital format allows students the same opportunities to reflect on their own learning like the three-ring binder did, but it does so in a 21st century format that engages students more and has a greater real-world application. Furthermore, the digital portfolio gives educators a way to foster digital citizenship and to stress the importance of maintaining a positive digital footprint.

The Digital Portfolio as an Individual Plan of Study 

To assist students in creating their digital portfolios, we use our daily 26-minute advocacy period where teachers coach students to update their profiles, post their achievements, and challenge themselves with new learning goals. The digital portfolio is an electronic record of each student’s individual plan of study in these four distinct categories:

1. Academics/Achievement Goal: Students will demonstrate an understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses and how they have grown as an independent learner.

2. Relationships—Personal & Professional Goal: Students will demonstrate an understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses and how it affects their relationships with others.

3. Careers—Awareness & Real-World Applications Goals: Students will identify their personal skills/interests to help them explore career/life opportunities for the future. Students will demonstrate what they have learned in their classes and how it applies to the real world.

4. Community/School Involvement—Service Learning Goal: Students will reflect how they have been a productive and positive citizen within school and our community.

Students use their digital portfolios—like they did with their three-ring binders—to showcase their accomplishments and give evidence of their learning during their student-led conferences every 10 weeks. The 2016–17 school year was the first for the digital portfolios, and it was a big success. Students, teachers, and parents alike raved about the new format. The digital portfolios tell a powerful story of 21st century learning where students have choice in what and how they learn.

How do you promote 21st-century learning skills in your school? Could digital portfolios help your students apply their learning experiences to the real world and foster digital citizenship?

Mike King is principal of Dodge City Middle School in Dodge City, KS. During his 38-year career in education, he was named a 2012 NASSP National Digital Principal of the Year, and his schools have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Medal of Excellence, designation as an Oklahoma National Blue Ribbon School, and various Kansas educational honors. Mike is committed to advancing learning with technology and firmly believes that digital tools can help students unleash their creativity and construct knowledge. 

Guest post by John Bartlett

It was a normal morning during my second year as a teacher. I got to school early and went to the office to get my second cup of coffee before school started. On the way back to class, it happened—a girl fight. As an educator, you know what I am talking about. You also know that generally girl fights are much more difficult to separate than boy fights. As I stepped in between the two female combatants as their hands clutched at each other’s hair, one of the duelists knocked my coffee cup out of my hand to meet its ultimate demise on the tile floor. Coffee went everywhere including on the two girls. Long story short, their parents were not happy. They reported to the principal that I had poured coffee all over their “innocent” young ladies. 

I often tell that story to my students or my staff or even an audience, and I always follow with the same question: “Do you know why the young ladies got burned with coffee?” The semantics of the answers vary, but they are all basically the same; the ladies got burned because there was hot coffee in the coffee cup. If there was water in the coffee cup, they would have simply gotten wet. My point? Whatever is in the coffee cup is going to come out when it is bumped. It is simple physics. The same is true about students, staff, and humans in general: When we get bumped, whatever is inside is coming out in one form or another.

This simple truth leads the conversation at Bearden High School about how we relate to one another and how we administer discipline. In the most basic terms, whatever is inside our students is bound to come out if we bump them emotionally. Many times, we see this manifested as anger; other times, it’s frustration or disrespect; and sometimes, it’s withdrawal. This simple understanding has been our launch point in working with our student misbehavior and our foray into redemptive practices.

Many of our efforts in dealing with student misbehavior or student life issues have traditionally focused on shaping student behavior through a series of rewards and punishments. I experienced that a few years ago, when a student was absolutely boiling over with anger. Every time another student or teacher “bumped her”—either literally or figuratively—she would explode. The resulting behavior resulted in multiple suspensions, both in school and out of school, with little behavior modification. It wasn’t until I witnessed her explode that we were able to get to the bottom of the issue. After a screaming match in the hallway with another student where she used a few colorful words—some that would make my Marine Corps Drill Instructor blush—I took her to the guidance office instead of the assistant principal’s office. It is in this quiet setting that this wounded young lady confessed to me that she had recently been raped and had not told anyone. No wonder she exploded. She was full of anger and wounded. If I had not taken the time to find out what is going on inside this young lady, there is no telling what her future held.

This year, we have embarked on the journey to help our students empty their hot cups of coffee and deal with the issues going on inside of them that prevent them from being successful within our classrooms and hallways. Our faculty took the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) survey and engaged in several hours of ACE training, helping us realize the impact that adverse experiences such as divorce, abandonment, and abuse (sexual, physical, and emotional) have on a student’s ability to be successful and productive. The outcomes of this training are still to be determined; however, the conversations around the question of “What happened to this student” or “What is going on inside of this student that prevents him or her from being successful” have at least started.

As we embark on this journey, a couple of key points stand out:

1. The principal must lead the way. A change of this magnitude cannot happen unless the principal and the leadership team are completely committed to the cause.

2. Reshape in-school suspension. To help students deal with destructive behaviors, what used to be a warehouse of student isolation must become a center for redemptive and restorative practices.

3. Enlist your community. Community partnerships with your parents and stakeholders, including drug and alcohol rehab centers and the juvenile authorities, creates a 360-degree focus on therapeutically solving internal issues within our students.

4. Don’t forget about the adults. When we took the ACE survey, I scored a 5 (people scoring 4 or higher are more susceptible to destructive behaviors and four times more likely to commit suicide). Many of our teachers score above the 4 threshold. When we focus on creating a healthy culture, we must also provide avenues for the adults in the building to deal with internal stresses and issues.

As we continue on our journey to deal with the emotional “hot coffee” that fills our students’ cups, we are hopeful that the inclusion of restorative practices will lead to more successful, productive, and healthy students.

What are your experiences with restorative practices? What can you do to raise awareness and understanding of the impact of ACEs?

John Bartlett, EdD, is principal at Bearden High School in Knoxville, TN. A husband, father of two wonderful children, and father figure to many more, John is honored to be recognized as the 2016 Tennessee Principal of the Year.

Guest post by Derek Fialkiewicz

I teach math as my father did before me, so I have always considered myself to be a “math nerd.” I find math fun and am proud of my students’ achievement, but when I became an assistant principal, I was forced to consider student achievement and learning outside of my math bubble. I came to better understand that while my students achieved in math, many were struggling as readers. This was a perfect opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and entice students to read.

After months of research on how to increase students’ desire to read, I eventually learned about a principal who led a monthly Principal Book Chat with her students. That sounded like fun and something I could handle. Iimmediately began collaborating with my librarian, Ms. Madeline Noetzel, to design our book club. We needed a catchy name. Ms. Noetzel and I brainstormed for days until she asked a student, “What do you think about Cranium Crunch at Lunch?” The student loved it, and we were off and running.

Design

First, I must say Cranium Crunch at Lunch would have never left the ground had it not been for Ms. Noetzel’s assistance picking the first books and establishing the initial structures. Cranium Crunch is a monthly book club. To join, students and parents must sign an agreement to read the book and attend the discussion during lunch. Students receive a copy of the book with about a month to read it before the next lunch discussion group. The discussion occurs in the library during the students’ lunch. Tables, covered in butcher paper, are arranged in a large rectangle. Students, as they filter in and eat, draw or write their answers to my initial questions about the book. Once students are settled, we start the discussion. I begin with predetermined questions but allow the students to morph the discussion with their comments, ideas, and questions. At the conclusion of the lunch, I give a brief synopsis of the new book and then students receive a copy on their way out.

Growing Cranium Crunch at Lunch

We began with 40 (out of 1,500) students spread out over three different lunches, and we were ecstatic. As the second year began, I looked for new ways to promote Cranium Crunch. I happily made a fool of myself each month advertising the new book on our daily video announcements. I spoke to students about the book on campus. Mostly through my passion, having fun, and good books, word about Cranium Crunch traveled quickly. It soon became “the cool thing to do.” We were not prepared with enough books when year three began with 100 students. Teachers began reading the books and attending the lunch discussions. By the beginning of year four, over 150 students (10 percent) regularly participated in Cranium Crunch.

Increased Reading Levels

As the number of students in Cranium Crunch grew, I became curious if there actually was a positive impact on student reading levels. Data showed over 80 percent of students who regularly participated in Cranium Crunch increased well over one reading level during the school year. About 75 percent of students who participated for three years entered high school reading at or above grade level. The data confirmed that this club is not only fun but also helps to improve student performance. 

Captain’s Club

I am now the principal of a middle school, which already had a recently established book club called Captain’s Club when I came on board. My first Captain’s Club as principal drew over 120 (of 900) students—up from 40—five teachers, and one parent. In my experience, a successful book club can be built and maintained at any middle school when passion and fun are the keys.

What programs could you develop to enhance reading and increase student engagement?

Derek Fialkiewicz is principal of Lied Middle School in Las Vegas, NV, which serves a diverse population of about 900 students in grades 6–8. He became an administrator nine years ago after teachinghigh school math for 12 years. He is the 2017 Nevada Assistant Principal of the Year and a National Assistant Principal of the Year Finalist. He is an avid participant of #APChat on Twitter. Follow him @derwood73.

Guest post by Winston Sakurai 

At my school in Hawaii, we embrace the native mentality of “aloha”—which means we always welcome new people and ideas no matter where they are from. But at the same time, as we are literally living on an island, it can be hard to keep up with what is going on elsewhere. To overcome these challenges, I have worked hard to develop connected leadership behaviors that leverage technology to maximize time and performance. 

In education, there is another kind of island mentality that can be dangerous—when veteran educators can feel like they have seen it all. Mention change and some people cringe. Whether they throw their hands up or roll their eyes, educators often have unconscious obstacles to their own development.

Sticking with “what works” is often easier than trying new things. But the mentality of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is not always appropriate in education where we are tasked with nurturing the next generation. Simply put, we have to be open to change and innovation in order to serve our students and society effectively. Given this reality, the real question is, “How do we find the time?” I don’t have all the answers, and there is no silver bullet, but here are a few suggestions that have helped in my experience.

Connected Leadership

First, accept that you cannot do everything. The good news is, with technology these days, you don’t have to do it all. The secret to maximizing your time and performance is to be a connected leader. Technology has changed the playing field and the pace of which change happens. Forming a strong network of other forward-thinking innovative leaders is crucial. I am able to gain many insights and ideas from the power of the collective thoughts of the best educational minds out there. Utilizing the technology available today, I am able to instantly connect with people around the globe even as I lead a school in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Technology has overcome geography when it comes to connecting people together.

It is essential to create an environment where innovation is embraced, people are on board, and momentum is continual. Communication—an open avenue for feedback—and taking the temperature are imperative to implementing the change. Being empathetic as to how the change is affecting the school by monitoring and understanding how people are feeling is key to the long-term health of the organization.

Be the Change

Second, it is vital for you to actually be the change that you want to see in your organization. Modeling innovative ideas for my faculty and staff helps them to see for themselves how we can go from ideas to action. That means continually learning and growing as a professional. Be humble and understand that we don’t know it all. Take risks and have a growth mindset, knowing that not all the innovative things that we implement will work. Change begins with the leader first.

Whether you live on an actual island like me or just find yourself stuck in a routine, I hope these tips will help to liberate your mind and get you thinking about how to move toward a more collaborative style of connected leadership.

Think of three ways you can use technology to become more connected to staff and teachers in your school community as well as peer educators in other places. 

Winston Sakurai is the upper school principal at Hanalani Schools in Mililani, HI. He is the 2016 Digital Principal of the Year. Follow him on Twitter @WinstonSakurai and join him every Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. (ET) for a Twitter conversation using the hashtag #prinleaderchat. 

Guest post by Amber Schroering

Brownsburg East Middle School (BEMS) is a community that takes great pride in the achievements of its students and staff. For many years, BEMS has topped the rankings for academic excellence in all of the areas of the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress (ISTEP). In fact, many visit our school and district to learn about our “secret sauce,” or how we consistently get high achievement from our students. One of our “secret ingredients” involves a commitment from our faculty to incorporate three classroom management techniques that ensure a strong culture conducive to high levels of learning. 

Meaningful Relationships: Show Students You Care 

The first element of creating a strong classroom is establishing meaningful relationships with students. When teachers show students that they care on a personal level both in and beyond the classroom, they create an important foundation of trust with students. Students who see that their teachers care about them show more engagement in the classroom and strive to meet teacher and classroom expectations. To build meaningful relationships with our students, our teachers:

• Welcome every student into the classroom every period possible, every day possible and make sure to be in the doorway or in the hall right outside of the classroom
• Talk one-on-one with a student after class or during independent work time
• Ask students questions about life outside the classroom, such as sports, activities, their family, hobbies, and interests
• Make positive phone calls home to let parents know the positives they are seeing
• Share concerns with parents and students, and brainstorm solutions

High Expectations and Clear Boundaries: Assume Nothing and Teach Everything 

As our teachers build meaningful relationships with students, we also work to establish high expectations and clear boundaries in their classrooms. Students perform at their best when expectations are high and boundaries are clear. Though some of our students may already understand them, our teachers explicitly teach the expectations and boundaries to students at the start of the year because we know that each student comes to our classes with different experiences. The result? When teachers carefully regulate the environment, students feel safe and secure, which paves the way for learning. To establish high expectations and clear boundaries, our teachers:

• Write out expectations and boundaries in a formal document
• Share the document with parents so everyone is on the same page
• Post the expectations clearly in the classroom and give each student an individual copy for reference
• Teach and practice the expectations regularly so that by the third or fourth week of school, the students have no question what will happen if they do A,B,C and will know our response if they do X,Y,Z
• Monitor behavior and hold all students accountable closely so that students see us treating everyone the same way

Engaging and Rigorous Instruction: Hook Students on Learning 

When students feel safe and secure in their environment and know that we care about them, our teachers can deliver the third ingredient of strong classrooms: engaging and rigorous instruction. Without meaningful relationships, high expectations and clear boundaries, our teachers would never be able to reach a place where they can focus on instruction and learning. Now our teachers are ready to have fun with students and explore content, discover new ideas, solve problems, and learn together. Isn’t this why we all became teachers?

How do our teachers deliver engaging and rigorous instruction? This is the facet where individual teaching styles and PLC creativity come into play. As school leaders, look for ways to support your teachers to hone their instructional preferences and give them the time to work with each to develop new ideas and cultivate best practices.

Practice Makes Progress

So, it sounds easy, right? Just build relationships with your kids, hold them accountable for high expectations, and teach well. Piece of cake? Of course not. We know it is incredibly hard work. Even our veterans must work every day to keep this delicate triad in balance. However, even hard work can become routine when we seek help, surround ourselves with support, and ask questions anytime we encounter bumps. Our faculty works together diligently to practice these management techniques and makes steady progress every day to create a classroom culture most conducive to learning.

Share these three classroom management techniques with your teachers and discuss what is or is not working for them. Then work together to identify ways to increase their support and further strengthen your classroom environments.

Amber Schroering is an assistant principal at Brownsburg East Middle School and the 2016 Indiana Assistant Principal of the Year. She presents regularly at state conferences and hosts site visits to teach others how to build a successful PBIS model like the one her team has built at Brownsburg East.

Guest post by Lenore M. Kingsmore

When I received the call that I was the New Jersey Principal of the Year, I was elated. Receiving my award in the nation’s capital would be a highlight of my career—and it was —but what was more important were the rich professional development opportunities I received that I had not imagined were possible. The NASSP Principals Institute breathed new life into me as a school leader, expanded my vision of leadership, and catapulted me into the 21st century of professional learning. 

This experience opened for me a whole new world of professional growth. I learned how to lobby House members and senators; I learned how to communicate better with technology; and I learned creative ways to engage my students from other nationally recognized principals. I thought I was “high-tech” until I met the principals who wrote weekly blogs to their school community, tweeted out daily to parents about school events, and frequently published short digital newsletters. Most of all, I learned that if we don’t leave our schools for a few days during the school year to network with other principals, we become isolated and stagnant.

I was transformed by this experience, and it propelled me to immediately sign up to attend the National Principals Conference (NPC) in July 2017. The NASSP conference was combined this year with NAESP, and so I encountered creative and dedicated K–12 leaders from all over the country. It was overwhelming, but in the best way possible. Not only could you select from over 25 topics daily but there was a great vendor floor with new, creative ways to engage your students. I was excited to buy literature from Scholastic for me to read.

One of the best professional development activities happened before the official start of the conference. NAESP has an ongoing tradition of building a playground for a local school near the conference location. It felt good to perform this community service for a fellow professional and her students, and it helped me grow professionally as well. During the project, I met two principals who shared a book that they each had just read: Unselfie by Michele Borba, which discusses the lack of empathy today with our adolescents. Reading the book helped to reaffirm my conviction that community service is an essential part of education. Again, professional development for me, and life lessons for my students.

Lastly, I was fortunate to gain valuable professional development digitally. I was part of a cohort of principals who took a series of online courses in management. If you are wondering why I needed to take management courses after 14 years in administration, I felt that way too. However, it was a new way for me to learn; it mirrored the way many students are learning every day. The topics provided by McKinsey & Company, and the collaboration that ensued with other principals from across the nation, was another great growth opportunity. I learned to use Google Hangout and be a leader of leaders in discussions.

Professional learning helps us grow as school leaders. As the tone-setters for our school communities, it is crucial that we take time out to “sharpen the saw” and keep current on literature, creative ideas, and unique ways to lead our schools. It is important to meet other principals, network, and learn from one another.

What have been your best and most relevant professional learning experiences? 

Lenore Kingsmore, principal at Henry Hudson Regional School in Highlands, NJ, has been in education for 33 years as a teacher, counselor, supervisor, and director. She has presented at several conferences in New Jersey and has two nationally recognized programs: a therapy dog program for students with special needs and a game design mathematics program. She received the New Jersey Visionary Principal of Year award and is the 2016 New Jersey Principal of the Year. Follow her on Twitter @HHPrincipal.