Have a Good Life

As a new principal, I want to get to know all my teachers. I also want to know what they see as the vision of our school. So, I am meeting with them all. I am really excited because meeting new people and getting to know them is something that I really love. In order to make that a reality, I had to something that I really don't like much: I had to use the phone. Despite the hours spent on the phone courting my wife, I have never liked talking on the phone. It is just not fun to me. I had to call people to set up the appointments, which, by how I was procrastinating and delaying, you would have thought was a much more difficult task than pushing buttons on a phone. 

My (former) school district recently hired a new superintendent, and I was able to sit down and chat with him. I think he is just what the district needs and I am really excited for what he will bring to the table. We talked about the following:

• Where Dr. Briscoe got his start in education and in administration
• His diverse experience as a leader of schools that were from incredibly high-achieving to greatly struggling.
• Engaging in the community by being involved in community issues (building new police station, hospital, etc.)
• The political struggles that lead Dr. Briscoe to retirement from his school district.
• Why he felt like Canyons School District was a good match for him.
• Why it is so important to be out and about and seen.
• How to build trust. Time.
• What happened in the past, is in the past. Let’s not worry about it.
• The culture he wants to create: Trust & Collaboration.
• Honoring the past.
• How he measures the success of his superintendency, not to be confused with his job description.
• Why that measure of success is so important.

Sponsor: Sanebox

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Transformative Principal on Stitcher

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New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

My wife and I decided that we wanted an adventure a few months ago, and so we started looking around for principal positions that would be new and different for us. 

 

We found one! 

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

In case you haven't heard, we are moving to Alaska. I will be the principal of Kodiak Middle School! My family and I are really excited! You can follow our journey here:  http://wearedrivingtoalaska.com

This second interview with Bob Sonju is really great. You will enjoy every minute of it! We talk about the following:

• How to deal with cynical stakeholders.
• Why people need to be ready to change to make things better.
• How to make a good school even better.
• Why you wake up with panic attacks in the middle of the night as a transformative principal.
• The best time to change education was 20 years ago, the second best time to change education is today!
• The excuses we make to not make changes.
• There is no such thing as an optimal time to make changes, but we need to have a sense of urgency.
• The state of Utah lost 19% of students (that didn’t graduate with a diploma). That is 1 in 5 kids! Unacceptable!
• If you don’t find a better way… You fall back to how you did it before. We need to focus on using research-based best practices to help our students.
• The importance of the Professional Learning Communities and Response to Intervention.
• We don’t need to find new things, we just need to get good at PLCs and RTI.
• There is no quick fix for schools.
• We need to remove the things that
• A super quick overview of PLCs and RTI in case you aren’t familiar with them. Based mostly on the work of DuFour and Eaker in Learning by Doing
• What a principal can do to be a transformative principal today: Identify the research that drives your day-to-day work and recognize the sense of urgency we have to ensure that learning is not optional.
• What he has in his office or a story: Simplify and focus. Story about teacher telling him that he is right in pushing forward.
• How to get ahold of him (He is not on the Twitter, but he is willing to help you by giving his email address. Bob [dot] sonju at wash.k12.ut.us)

Web Site

Transformative Principal on Stitcher

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Sponsor: Sanebox

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Bob Sonju is the Director of K–12 Learning in Washington School District in Southern Utah.

In this first part of the interview, we discuss the following:

• A little about Bob’s history and what he learned to help him become prepared for being a transformative principal.
• Bob focuses on making sure all students are doing their best, not just particular subgroups.
• What prepared Bob to be a principal: being a coach and a special education teacher.
• What barriers prevent a school from being ready for change.
• Three fundamentals that are needed to change:
  1. Why do we exist
  2. Describing a perfect school
  3. What are we going to do to make sure we get there!
• Conversations about structural change take time and informal and formal conversations with teachers, students, parents, and other stakeholders.
• All the voices have to be in the room!
• Establishment of norms are critical for the success of our school, and while we want to hear everyone’s concerns, we will move forward with the will of the group.
• The norms for Bob’s schools.
• The need for “critical friends”.
• How he deals with the fact of hearing that he is doing something wrong.
• One of the best interview questions: “Anticipate a mistake you are going to make, and how you will resolve that!”

Web Site

Transformative Principal on Stitcher

Refer A Principal

Best Tools for Busy Administrators Survey

Sponsor: Sanebox

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal