Principles of Principals

Strike. Walk out. In my 22 years in education, I never thought I'd hear those words. I remember marching along McDowell near 35th Avenue, signs in hand, speaking out about the lack of support for teachers. It was 1997. I remember gathering in the cafeteria of Isaac Junior High and hearing our Superintendent tell us that there was no money, that the State's funding model for our zip codes was broken and that there was a law suit pending.  I remember veteran teachers voicing deep frustrations, tears shed, and wondering when I could just go lead wrestling practice....and then go home to my family. Fast forward to this morning, sitting in my rental car, in a Salt Lake City parking lot, on a conference call talking to my leadership team back in Phoenix about closing school for 3 days. Managing food services, where will the kids go, who's going to be open, should we cancel our neighborhood clean up, will this work, what other scenarios should we run? Then I get a text fro...

I've sat in my fair share of parent conferences. You all know the one, 15 minutes of forms, fliers, sheets you don't fully understand...only to finally see a letter grade that might or might not tell you how your child is performing. It's a 200 year old way to keep parents and care-givers in the dark about public education. There's a better way. Academic Parent Teacher Teams , or APTT. Attended by all the parents in your child's classroom. Led by the classroom teacher. Data driven. Performance measured. AND...wait for it... collaborative . Done the right way, and I've done them the right way . You get 70 minutes to dive into instruction, standards and mastery. You learn a skill or strategy that can be done at home WITH your child. You're around other parents and can feel safe asking questions like, "I don't understand that word, what does it mean when you say _____?" For more information on Academic Parent Teacher Team (APTT) implemen...

Big picture to small, here are 5 key questions that can guide nearly every single leadership scenario a school administrator will encounter. Every. Single. One. Seriously? Seriously. What is it that I want my (district, charter, staff, parents, students, child) to be able to know and do? How will I know that my (district, charter, staff, parents, students, child) is able to do it? What's one thing that I can do, or have done, that contributes to the success of the (project, lesson, assessment, evaluation)? When I reflect on that one thing I did, how can I improve? What happens when my (district, charter, staff, parents, students, child) doesn't perform? Let's scaffold shall we? Question one is pretty simple, straight forward. It emphasizes doing.  Taking the proper tools and acting. Question two demands some form of accountability . For the classroom, this might look like an artifact or assessment. At the 30,000 foot view, we could be talking about a...