Have a Good Life

Tessa works with teenagers, and has decided to take on parenting from a new perspective.   While patiently waiting for her book’s completion "For the Sake of Our Youth: A Therapist's Perspective on Raising Kids in Today's Culture" (due to hit the shelves Spring 2020) Tessa coaches and presents to parents her research on today’s teen depression, anxiety and suicide rate focusing on parent/child connection. You can connect with her at her website Tessastuckey.com or follow her on instagram @themomtherapist.

• Why she wanted to work with teens and parents.
• Kids came to me with suicidal thoughts.
• It scared me that they were going to grow up in a world where suicide was so common.

6 cultural influences that are happening in today’s world.

1. Social Trend - people see it and so they think it. Not being balanced with appropriate preventative care.
2. Immediate gratification - everything is just a click away. Teaching our kids how to struggle. There is no instant fix for an emotional hardship. You have to think a little unnaturally to slow things down a little bit.
3. Lack of personal connections are being made. Social media is meant for connection but it doesn’t create the same closeness and bond.
4. Attention seeking - longing to feel important. It has become an acceptable way to get attention in our society. Reacting to a lack of attention and lack of resilience.
5. Social media - 5 categories: don’t need to connect face to face, comparison, kids can’t turn their social life, cyberbullying (hurt people hurt people), phone addiction.
6. Pressure - we live a go-go-go lifestyle. No mercy and no grace. Everyone is striving to be perfect.
7. Be the supporter and helper for your child and not the fixer for all their problems.
8. How to be a transformative principal? Understand your own philosophies on the kids you interact with. What are the core values you want kids to have when they leave your school? This is not just mental illness anymore.

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Rachel Brown is a Curriculum, Instruction, & Professional Growth Strategist for Douglas County School District.

• Power in the missed opportunities
• You have the power of leading culture in your building.
• Even the opportunity of saying hello to a kid is really powerful.
• Each teacher had to own making a positive interaction with each child.
• When things were going unsaid, they festered
• Confronting with Kindness
• the things you don’t say could have a big impact on the climate and culture.
• Emotional intelligence - Elena Aguilar work on the art of coaching teams.
• Have to get rid of your ego, go in in a way that you open yourself up like a book.
• Buy the Communication Cards
• We didn’t do our best work.
• Kids couldn’t tell who was the principal
• New principal was very communicative and it changed the culture.
• How to be a transformative principal? This is a rough time for some kids and you can take the time to be an impactful person and not miss the opportunity to make a little adjustment to make your school feel like the safest home for those kids.

Turmoil with change in leadership because of lack of communication and emotional intelligence.
* Talking with team about how to make things better.
* People coming to say

• Lost sight of standards - using the standards as our base.
• student centered coaching - to try to come
• http://calendly.com/jethro-jones/transformative-principal-interview
• https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/03/personal-best
• http://www.jethrojones.com/presentations
•  

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Adam Bellow is a dedicated educational technologist and father of two young boys. Adam is the co-founder of Breakout EDU, the immersive gaming platform that enables teachers and students to turn their classrooms into a place of discovery and inquiry based learning. Today we will be talking about learning with AI.

• How AI will play into education.
• Metacognitive piece - technology is serving our needs.
• Really helpful to a teacher.
• Empowering kids to get access to their own information before you.
• Building a voice profile.
• The use of the tool will have to outweigh the fears we have of it.
• You likely have an assistant available.
• My kids are very comfortable with robots.
• Game Designer
• Askmyclass
• Giving them the open-endedness is really powerful.
• as we look at school as more than just work-produced.
• How to be a transformative leader? Have a conversation with a small group of students

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

My Grandma’s Kitchen with Dr. A. Katrise Perera and Dr. Kimberly Miles Transformative Principal 307

Social Media: Learning should be joyful. - @afewthingsworth

Dr. A. Katrise Perera peers acknowledge her commitment, her dedication, her courageous leadership and for being an “equity warriorette.” In 2015, the National Association of School Superintendents (NASS) named her the National Superintendent of the Year. Before being recruited and hired by the Gresham-Barlow School District (Oregon) in May of 2017, she served in a variety of school leadership positions in Virginia, Texas, and as an executive leader with McGraw-Hill Publishing Company.

Dr. Kimberly Miles is principal of East Gresham elementary, a turnaround principal and voracious reader.

In this episode we will discuss equity in leadership and how to have joyful moments.

• Be determined.
• Perspectives of many other experiences.
• Equity in a school system is that it involves more than just a student and a teacher.
• Giving kids what they need when they need.
• In the kitchen with my grandmother.
• To have equity, you have to look at what kids are actually in need of.
• Look at policies, practices, systems, and more.
• what little things should we focus on?
• Is my approach helping them thrive?
• The foundation is culture.
• Need to know social and political response as well.
• Community Success Act
• We’re all going to get what we need.
• how to change the culture of putting the newest teachers with the most challenging situations?
• New teachers to the profession, because I can partner them with a collaborative team.
• Mentor teacher leaders.
• Benefit for new teachers to be supported by master teachers.
• Starts with professional development.
• How to be a transformative principal?
• Kimberly: Share the responsibility of change with someone else. Bring along your community together.
• Katrise: commitments—commit to reducing disproportionate suspension rates, early college, cultural competencies - commit to one!

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Katie Novak, Ed.D. is an internationally renowned education consultant as well as a practicing leader in education as an Assistant Superintendent of Schools in Massachusetts. With 15 years of experience in teaching and administration, an earned doctorate in curriculum and teaching, and 3 books published by CAST Professional Publications, Katie designs and presents workshops both nationally and internationally focusing on implementation of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and universally designed leadership.

Today we talk about her book with George Couros, Innovate Inside the Box.

• UDL what is it?
• Multiple means of engagement
• multiple means of representation
• multiple means of action and expression
• Universal design stolen from architecture.
• The traditional model of education is there is “one way to do it.”
• We’re making content accessible as retrofits for really inaccessible lessons.
• Dinner party.
• Engagement is equal parts commitment and attention.
• Enrollment vs. engagement.
• When things get touch, I know how to manage it.
• Macro success looks like little bits of attention.
• Application for students with disabilities.
• If we want kids to be learners, we are much better slated to help kids create their own journeys to get there.
• How do we scaffold up to make it accessible and engaging.
• In my loyalty to that ____, I am excluding students.
• How do we teach empathy through these multiple means lenses?
• What do I have to do so every single student can do that?
• General ed teachers started referring to kids with special needs as their kids.
• When we see growth, it’s because of the teachers.
• How to be a transformative principal? In a classroom I believe in cocreation. Work with teachers to co-create professional learning and school improvement plans.

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

In this Jolt episode, Sarah Johnson shares about the transformative power of practicing gratitude for ourselves as well a those around us. She shares research alignment, stories, and illustrates points from stories features during the month of November on the In AWE Podcast. 

Check out the The In AWE Podcast or In AWE Website
Engage with Sarah at Sarah’s Website

Resources for Gratitude:
The Transformative Power of Gratitude Huffington Post
Four Gratitude Strategies Berkeley
The It’s Worth It Box

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

TJ Vari and Joe Jones are practicing Superintendents and coauthors of the book “Candid and Compassionate Feedback“.

• Result of fear of offending people is that it becomes offensive anyway.
• Ask questions to get them to see what they need to improve.
• The lack of candor can be what people are offended by.
• The candor is actually what is compassionate! TJ
• Turning the corner so your empathy is backed with concrete evidence backed with what to do better.
• Consistency is key.
• People are given that advice when they go into schools.
• Direct, sincere, accurate feedback.
• Identified the problem.
• Gave evidence.
• Provided a solution.
• Being clear does work.
• Learning walks are like formative assessments.
• Are the teachers using the “Goal” in their classroom?
• As teachers are teaching they’re often not aware of what they’re doing. Joe
• No way will a teacher ever grow through the formal observation process.
• We really should be getting into the mindset work among the staff.
• How to be a transformative principal? TJ: spend your time in the most important spaces in your school
  Joe: Disrupt your day. Speak to someone tomorrow that you haven’t spoken with this year.
• Bonus question: how to keep principals in the building?

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Keara Mascareñaz Managing Partner, Organizational Design at Education Elements. She helps schools and districts focuses build and scale a culture of innovation through leadership development, team habits, and human-centered organizational design.

• Learning, meeting, projects
• How do you create the environment of psychological safety?
• the team that is more effective would be making less mistakes.
• more comfort to talk about mistakes
• Amy Edmondson TED talk
• I didn’t say “I don’t know what I’m doing!“
• It can feel high stakes, even though it is not.
• Two types of leaders: one best ideas should strive - leaders are smarter and make fewer mistakes.
• Interrogating archetypes.
• Two books: Multipliers with Liz Wiseman As soon as a speaker starts speaking, everyone stops talking.
• Here’s my interview with Liz Wiseman.
• Talking about Failure is crucial for Growth
• Noticing it is the first step to change.
• It’s hard to make big shifts.
• What foundation have I laid and signal have I given to my team about this?
• “I’ve had good ideas before that haven’t worked out!”
• So much deference made to people in power and authority.
• Habit of talking about mistakes.
• The more people in power can model talking about mistakes the more you can model and give more power to your people.
• How to be a transformative principal? Next time you’re in front of your staff think about 1. Learning challenge, vulnerability, asking for advice.

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

A Story about Fish with Danny Bauer and Dr. Kelly Crane Transformative Principal 302

Social media: All of us are better than any of us.

Danny Bauer and Kelly Crane are co-conspirators of Better Leaders Better Schools

• What do principals need to know about being a superintendent.
• Legal, politics, finance.
• Network.
• How to start acting as if.
• All of us are better than any of us.
• When you’re so close to the situation, it is really hard to see.
• Instructional leadership knowledge.
• Following through.
• Being authentic.
• Empathy when visiting
• Vulnerability.
• Radical listening.
• The mastermind is a sacred space.
• You gotta learn from the mistakes of others.
• How to be a transformative principal? Danny: Join a PLN! Kelly: be vulnerable when it is necessary. We don’t know it all and we have to reach out to others.

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Adam Fachler has a proven process for planning amazing lessons. Take the 

• EMPOWER Method for planning amazing lessons.
• We are all searching!
• Little quality control

• Making inquiry method a little less messy.
• Envision - see the end in mind.
• Map - simplifies a complex process.
• Prime - prior knowledge, emotional aspect of learning
• Orient
• Walkthrough
• Explore
• Reflect
• Teachers’ time to plan is too little. Yes this does take time.
• Whether you win in your classroom is decided well before you enter the classroom.
• Do this at the unit level - a time investment.
• Crystalize your learning outcome in a GEM: goal, evidence, measure of success.
• You are envisioning a destination for them.
• Mapping the path to mastery.
• School in the Square
• How to be a transformative principal? Start from the beginning, what’s the GEM for your upcoming unit?

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Here's some excitement: Episode 300! I give updates on my professional life, the podcast, and more! Tune in!

Link to my speaking page

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Dr. Grayson Maas is the Director of Communications for the Art of Problem Solving, a unique solution to teaching math anytime, anywhere.

• Talking about dissertation - how we create scientific knowledge as a society - who can become a scientist and who cannot.
• Scientific knowledge and how it gets created.
• It’s no secret that there’s underrepresentation in science.
• What is funneling certain groups towards science and what is not?
• Science for all
• Tests measure what we value.
• Tests can be an unreliable indicator.
• It’s a common experience that the scores you got on classes and tests to tell you if you’re smart.
• All those tests are telling you, “are you good at that instrument on that day?”
• Extremely difficult to identify high-ability kids from disadvantaged backgrounds.
• Ability grouping is not a bad thing for the kids in the high group.
• Kids know who is in different groups.
• We need to reconfigure the labels we use.
• For us to lose sight of kids that don’t get extra opportunities is not working for those kids.
• It’s incumbent on us as a society to meet these kids where they’re at.
• Providing the “right” amount of challenge.
• We’re going to set the bar right above where you grasp it and help them reach the next level.
• You deserve to be challenged and we’re going to make sure you get that.
• Learning about the water cycle.
• Their version of learning about the water cycle was a youtube water cycle rap song.
• The kids in the low group developed low self-perception.
• Constantly reinforce these students and tell them they are capable and can accomplish the work before them.

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

I am super excited whenever I get to talk with Will Parker, and today is no different.

Today we are tackling three questions that principal listeners have shared with us from our podcasts, covering these topics:

1. What to do if or when your teachers give you the cold shoulder about learning something new. 

2. How to manage student dynamics in competency-based instruction. 

3. Ways to measuring student growth in Social Emotional Learning settings.

Listen-in for the complete conversation.

Questions for Jethro and Will:

1. My teachers give me the cold shoulder when I try to introduce them to new ways of teaching. What should I do?

• Jethro and I discuss the following:

• Modeling for teachers

• Observation of other teachers

• What is he/she doing well already? Praise first, then instruct.

• Lead with the question, “Where do you want to grow?”

• Creating an enviornment where teachers ask for help

• Celebrating innovative teaching

• Learning to say yes before saying no

2. How do you make sure that students who struggle don't feel embarrassed or ashamed that they aren't working with their peers? When competency-based, what happens?...

We discuss this question with suggestions about:

• Defining expecations so that students measure against standards, not other students

• They are already in different places! Your expectations matter in their perceptions...

• Help them identify where they are good. And celebrate!

• It’s not about competition with peers, but competition with themselves. 

3. How can Social Emotional Learning success be measured?

We respond with the following:

Discover the importantce of self-reflection. It’s okay to embrace different standards for everyone. 

Resilient students don’t really need more resiliency training. They need something else. 

A student with trauma needs different things than a student without. 

Creat an environment where you want your own chidren

You can measure the indicators like discipline, attendance and graduation/completion rates 

We share examples of SEL through FOMO -- karaoke cafeteria -- from Principal Kim Coody’s High School in Okahoma and Amy Fast’s emotional learning practices in Oregon

Recource recommended: Barb Sorrels - http://transformativeprincipal.org/episode269

Now It’s Your Turn

What is one new method or strategy you could model for your teachers or team? How can you instll in others the freedom to believe it’s okay to try and fail and in learning? And how can you celebrate the wins along the way?

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Akhil is the business development manager at ChargePoint, a fast-growing start-up in the San Francisco Bay Area that provides electric vehicle charging solutions to businesses. Prior to ChargePoint, he spent 5 years in the clean tech and consumer mobile app spaces. Akhil is an alumnus from the 2010 Conrad Challenge, where his finalist team from the North Carolina School of Science and Math designed a latticed pod system that generated electricity from wave energy using internally-housed piezoelectric ceramics.

Register for the Conrad challenge here

* North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics
* Didn’t know what I wanted to do.
* Always wanted to be a doctor and ended up doing a ton of work in environmental areas.
* Starting out with very little information.
* Students start from two different places.
* 1. Technology they are really excited about.
* 2. We have a group of students really passionate about a specific problem and start to ideate about how to solve that problem.
* We knew we wanted to build a wave energy device.
* Knew nothing about piezoelectric ceramics.
* Spent hours learning about the physics behind the technology.
* Chemistry professor - her job was keeping us accountable.
* What has changed since you did Conrad Challenge?
* Shifted from focus on medicine to product management.
* Conrad in college admissions process.
* Spoke about the spirit of creativity.
* most capable people I’ve ever known. Still in touch with many of them today.
* I discovered my purpose. It challenged me to be a change-maker!
* Group of students created a device to put out fires by sound waves in forests.
* We champion no-box thinking.
* How to be a transformative principal? Embrace divergent thinking.

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Jayme Hull helps schools and churches make millennial friendly environments. She also mentors millennials so that they can be successful. Check out her free resource for principals at her web site.

• They want to be connected and work somewhere they can make an impact.
• They have heard their parents talk about how bored or angry they are at work.
• Very few parents and grandparents were actually happy.
• The fear of change is strong!
• Millennials don’t even have the choices like they had in the past.
• More than 50% cannot stay where they grew up to find work.
• Completely consumed with staying up on the digital happenings are.
• They have to be learning or they’ll lose their jobs.
• You give and you receive. Build a relationship first.
• Mentorships are really beneficial for millennials.
• Care about the person first, not what you can get from them.
• We’ve forgotten how to encourage our new teachers.
• Make sure they have downtime
• Their deepest heart’s desire is to have a desire.
• The millennial are a gift to us. They are demanding that we get back to what we used to do.
• We have forgotten how to teach what is essential.
• Mentoring program - The older generation will be blessed. Don’t tack on any more paperwork or extra hours.
• 2 kinds of mentors - someone on staff willing to pour into the next generation. Group of retired teachers. Never more than 30 minutes for 6–12 weeks.
• Their words and encouragement.
• Millennials are so tired of being on a checklist.
• It’s not about the nail
• How to be a transformative leader? Look three teachers in the eyes and tell them thanks!
• Face to face mentoring podcast.

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Michael Horn is the co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute and author of Blended and Disrupting Class, and the new book coming out this week called “Choosing College!”, which is the book we are talking about today!

• The book is about more than just choosing college, right? Tell me about that.
• There are a few stats about college that are just appalling, so many people not finishing, so much debt. Why do we still support it?
• boost in wages, employers require it.
• military or college!
• Personally fulfilling
• A lot of people don’t know.
• What language do people use to describe what they did.
• A lot more students should be taking a gap year.
• Working on the newspaper in high school.
• Let’s talk about quality assurance. I hear people give advice that it doesn’t matter at all where you go or what you major in.
• What’s the value I’m getting from this experience?
• We don’t have enough data while we do have too much data!
• I am not a historian, even though my major was history.
• We don’t know what we don’t know.
• We have to give kids experiences about what they can be doing.
• Make it tangible with an emotional connection.
• Give kids immersive experiences in those fields so they can see themselves in that setting!
• Do your strengths and abilities allow you to get into that field?
• Learning starts with engagement.
• What do you think about something like Lambda school, which doesn’t offer a degree, but rather a skill, and you don’t pay for that?
• More than a coding bootcamp.
• Might ultimately replace college.
• Purdue university has an income share agreement.
• University of Utah.
• Traditional top universities are going to continue to drive up costs.
• Price competition among universities.
• understanding your “why” is important.
• Understanding what progress looks like for you.
• Find out what you want and work backwards.
• Not seeing distinct spheres but rather integrated parts of our lives.
• Kids look more at what you say than what you do.

• Loves this from the Forbes’ piece:

  “Because no one understands the precise mix of what external supports cause student outcomes to improve, a theory of innovation—the theory of interdependence and modularity—suggests that schools must integrate to control every critical component of a student’s life that isn’t “good enough” to ensure academic achievement. In other words, when driving toward greater performance with moving parts that are unpredictably interdependent, in order to do anything, schools must do nearly everything.”

  “From the vantage point of our theory, it appears one of the reasons for City Connect’s success is that its school-based coordinator starts with the teacher and each student’s academic goals. That is, the organization integrates the supports it provides in a tight, interdependent manner with each teacher and around the needs of each individual student in a personalized way—not in a tiered way that treats cohorts of students judged to have similar risk profiles in the same way.”

• Much to love about the personalized approach,
• Let’s play to your strengths and support you in your weaknesses.
• How to be a transformative principal? Principals ought to step back and ask, how do I integrate more authentic experiences?

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Brad Barber is a former business owner who is now an educator who founded a school called the Tesla Academy. At the Tesla Academy, they coach students rather than teach them.

• We are an academy, not a school.
• Agnostic about the school kids attend, it just needs to be good.
• We can react very quickly and give support to kids.
• We diagnose their problems.
• Sometimes they take notes to impress someone else.
• When you get into the business world, you have to learn really rapidly.
• Why would kids want to come to the Tesla Academy?
• It feels so weird to do something different.
• There’s a generation gap in parents: younger parents totally get it.
• How to be a transformative principal? My model could really take off in special education. My model would work perfect with 20-40 students.

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Brad Barber is a former business owner who is now an educator who founded a school called the Tesla Academy. At the Tesla Academy, they coach students rather than teach them.

* Business process outsourcing.
* Went back to school as a teacher.
* Started at a charter school.
* Not the primary person who delivers the content.
* Education is so inefficient.
* I can teach it, but I want my students to learn how to learn.
* The difference between a coach and a teacher.
* They’ve been surviving school for 9 or 10 years.
* The teachers become babysitters (in other classes) and that’s not what we’re about.
* We’re observing the entire time.
* Kids understand that the technique wasn’t right

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Dr. Grayson Maas is the Director of Communications for the Art of Problem Solving, a unique solution to teaching math anytime, anywhere.

• Motivated students in grades 2–12.
• We are the place students come to to learn math that they aren’t going to learn in school.
• Instill motivation in kids to want to do math.
• By and large math is traditionally taught with an emphasis on procedures, memorizing, and pattern matching.
• We are losing the art and beauty of mathematics by how we teach math in schools.
• We challenge them and ask them to rise to the occasion.
• We give them puzzles.
• We get a flood of serotonin when we solve problems.
• It’s not wrong to have the wrote, it’s wrong if that’s all you have.
• If you don’t move beyond the basics, you won’t be able to apply it later.
• If you take a problem-solving approach…
• We need to carve out time for kids to be uncomfortable with a problem.
• But how do we make time for that?
• It limits the incentive for kids to take intellectual risks.
• We can do this together. Education doesn’t just have to be teachers in a classroom alone.
• There’s a dissatisfaction because there is still a lingering question about how I would have done that.
• Rigorous activities early on!
• ASTE Keynote
• How to be a transformative principal? Carve out time and space for students to do some thinking without a goal in mind! gmaas@aops.com

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Creating Better Learning Environments with Kevin Stoller Transformative Principal 291

Social Media: Every school has defined their vision, the space should reflect that.

Over the past 10 years, Kevin has visited over 1,000 schools and spoke with educators and students to learn how student outcomes are impacted by the learning environment. As CEO of Kay-Twelve, a company committed to improving learning environments for 10,000,000 students, Kevin wants to share his findings with others involved with education.

• Came from a family of educators.
• Hesitant to get into education furniture business because it was all the same.
• If you’re implementing change, it’s really difficult to do without changing the environment.
• Start small, learn from it, and then make the changes needed.
• The furniture is preventing me from doing it.
• It’s not about the furniture.
• Every school has defined their vision, the space should reflect that.
• Need to establish some rules around chaotic furniture.
• Space can have a big impact on driving change.
• Start with shared spaces.
• Flex seating or student choice seating.
• Get your free copy of “Creating Better Learning Environments”
• How to be a transformative principal? Find a network where you can be talking to other people. Join the mastermind

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

Buy Communication Cards

Show notes on TransformativePrincipal.com

Download Paperless Principal.  

Take Control of your email

Web Site

Transformative Principal on Stitcher

Refer A Principal

Best Tools for Busy Administrators Survey

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Communicating to Create Happy Families with Jennifer Larson Transformative Principal 290

Social media: If you have a good communication system and everyone is engaged, there’s a positive buzz to the school.

Jennifer Larson is he co-founder and CEO of Hive Digital Minds, which provides parent-school communication solutions through schoolbzz.com

• Completely overwhelmed
• Couldn’t keep up.
• Shift towards personalized learning means there are a lot of different adults supporting a student.
• “I don’t even read the newsletter anymore.”
• Parents want to know what the two or three places for information.
• Grades communication is an important part of it as well.
• School website is a great marketing tool to recruit students, teachers, and families to your school.
• Figure out what information you want to share with the public and put that on the web site.
• Find tools that work well for your enrolled families.
• Build a communication strategy that gets information to the families quickly and efficiently.
• Do a communication audit to see what you are currently using.
• Which have information that parents might want access to.
• Need to implement a multi-year strategy.
• Talk to your parents.
• When schools jump into parent engagement, they are probably meeting the needs of those who were already having their needs met.
• Challenges around native languages spoken.
• Focus on mobile.
• Recognize that not all parents can be there physically at the school.
• Parent engagement is about making sure the families understand the value of education.
• Volunteer hours.
• Parents want to be engaged but they don’t know how.
• If you have a good communication system and everyone is engaged, there’s a positive buzz to the school.
• If you have happy families at your school, there is no other better testimonial.
• How to be a transformative principal? It all comes down to communication. Connect with each of your staff members and parents.

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

Buy Communication Cards

Show notes on TransformativePrincipal.com

Download Paperless Principal.  

Take Control of your email

Web Site

Transformative Principal on Stitcher

Refer A Principal

Best Tools for Busy Administrators Survey

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Danielle Nuhfer is a teacher who helps other teachers focus on self-care and you can find more information about her at teachingwell.life

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Kip Motta is a principal in Rich Utah.

• You have to deal with people.
• Everything is about relationships.
• Doing what’s best for the team.
• Everyone is different, and you need to adapt your leadership to that person.
• A history of four-day school weeks.
• Change based on school district transportation costs.
• Waiver to reduce day requirement (152 vs 182) and still meet 990 hour requirement (now meet over 1000 hours)
• Start school at 8 am, out at 3:30.
• Parent teacher conferences count as
• Very few breaks - Labor Day, thanksgiving, Christmas for 1 week.
• Student and staff attendance increased.
• Ask staff and community to do personal appointments on Fridays
• 4 day school week is much more difficult for elementary school.
• Helped us go down the road of standards-based instruction.
• Struggles with 4 day school week
• Finding coaches is difficult
• Daycare for Friday’s with no school.
• You have to do everything through the lens of what is best for the most children.
• Kids are more recharged after a 3-day weekend every week!
• March and April can be long months with no break.
• Restorative practices, mindfulness to help kids cope with added pressure.
• How to be a transformative principal? Find someplace to go and learn!
• Contact kmotta@kipmotta.com

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

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New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Revolutions Start with Relationships with Darren Ellwein Transformative Principal 286

Social media: Tailor everything to the learner - via @dellwein

Darren Ellwein is my dessert bro and principal at the middle level in South Dakota!

• Revolution is about a group of people.
• From a staff culture standpoint: there was some kickback.
• It’s so much fun!
• Personalizing learning - what small steps do you need to take?
• Tailor everything to the learner.
• Mastery projects - success criteria
• You have to give up control.
• Relationships “it feels like my family.”
• Let the kids decide the norms.
• Waiting on content for 2-3 weeks.
• Done with our standards before we get to the standardized tests.
• personalizedlearningtools.com
• Personalized Learning is not about sitting in front of a computer all day.
• Starts with a relationship, then goes on to flexible content.
• Those kids broke in adults every year!
• Hannah and Alex - there was a pace set for everyone, even though it didn’t match.
• She would tell you she wouldn’t go back to the way it was.
• How to be a transformative principal? Be your own person. Hold on to your beliefs. Have the mindset of serving kids.

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

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New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

After a career in innovation, Ted Dintersmith is most well-known to educators as the executive producer of the movie, Most Likely to Succeed, coauthor of the book of the same, and the man who traveled all fifty states to see What Schools Could Be.

• How to change schools?
• Changing everything overnight - the sharp knives come out.
• Thoughtful, supportive resources at innovationplaylist.org
• Have your community define essential competencies for your kids.
• Look for success points in your school.
• Encourage the innovators to do things.
• Ask them to keep an open mind.
• Native villages
• Carving up a moose carcass.
• How to be a transformative principal? Spend some time with young kids and recognize that this is the fight we can take on. change happens slowly right up until it happens quick
• What do teachers have in common that do innovative things within the system?
• What are you seeing China?
• Deleted scenes about kids not having homework from Most Likely to Succeed - share that story.
• http://teddintersmith.com/innovation-playlist/ *

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

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New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

After a career in innovation, Ted Dintersmith is most well-known to educators as the executive producer of the movie, Most Likely to Succeed, coauthor of the book of the same, and the man who traveled all fifty states to see What Schools Could Be.

• Education is the only antidote
• Machines are taking over so many jobs.
• Social media fueled technology is making it challenging to know what is real.
• What they could do vs. what they do.
• the people who get to the top of these bureaucratic systems are bureaucrats
• If we just focused on setting up the conditions for educators to do their best work.
• It’s time for us to be more like activists.
• What are you working on and why?
• The purpose of school is to rank kids.
• Why isn’t that the way we do it?
• New Hampshire portfolio assessment system.

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

Buy Communication Cards

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New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Mia Pumo is a former teacher and math specialist and currently is the cofounder of Constructive Learning Design, which supports teachers and learners by making learning joyful.

• Partnering with community organizations.
• Schools often don’t know how to partner.
• Businesses don’t know how to join in the work with schools.
• Use coaching skills to build relationships.
• Learning is much more beneficial when they come together and make a real impact.
• Experiential learning - year long process developing a plan around a real issue.
• You never know what seeds have been planted through that experience.
• How to start the conversation.
• Focus on quality partnerships.
• How to be a transformative principal? Active listening to create a shared vision.

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Mia Pumo is a former teacher and math specialist and currently is the cofounder of Constructive Learning Design, which supports teachers and learners by making learning joyful.

• Making learning joyful
• I was really starting to contemplate leaving the profession I love because the joy was not there.
• We believe that if we design and deliver powerful learning experiences for educators, they will design and deliver powerful learning experiences for students.
• Coaches can transform the learning and cultural experiences of a school.
• You can’t afford to not have coaches! There are many ways to incorporate coaching into a culture.
• Leaders with coaching skills are more effective and more impactful.
• Communication, active listening, developing a culture where coaching and feedback are part of the norm.
• Have leaders take on that coaching role as part of what they do.
• Developing culture falls on the leader.
• Set up protocols and structures to make that an enjoyable experience.
• Coaching cycles
• The best professional development is the teacher down the hall.
• Position coaching to the staff as a support, not another observation.
• Why is there a stigma related to coaching?

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Brittni Schroeder is the founder of Compassion Clubs, dedicated to the memory of her late son who passed away tragically at the age of 14.

• Started with a scholarship fund for students.
• Received hundreds of cards and letters from people who cared about Gage.
• The “Can Man”
• People wanted to be with our family.
• “We only suffer when we think about ourselves.” - Tony Robbins
• We have to serve. That’s how we heal.
• Gave kids pizzas and told them to sit with kids who didn’t have anyone sitting with them.
• Elementary and secondary curriculum.
• Secondary the kids lead it.
• Elementary is teacher/counselor/parent run.
• If they don’t know how to serve and think outside of themselves they are going to have a rough adult life.
• 12 different values: compassion, kindness, gratitude, charity, courage, etc.
• Teach about the value, share a story, then serve.
• Teenagers don’t seem to have coping skills.
• Nominate kids for scholarships and grants.
• My son’s legacy is compassion.
• Most successful club in Michigan.
• How to be a transformative principal? Look for those kids that need to belong.

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, @jchorvath is an educator and researcher with expertise in the areas of cognitive neuroscience, biological psychology, brain simulation, the learning sciences, and effective teaching/learning practices

• There is 1 learning process!
• It is the same for everyone.
• You don’t differentiate so students learn differently, you differentiate so students engage differently.
• If you want to learn something you have to engage in it, but not too much!
• Attenborough effect.
• Science of learning and craft of teaching.
• Thinking principle
• Learning principle - all learning has to begin with facts.
• Semantic memories for the key 10 or 15 facts. Three episodic memories for a fact.
• Episodic memories vs. semantic memories.
• All starting of learning builds episodic memories.
• How we use inquiry wrong in education.
• Surface learning is semantic facts. Binary.
• Conceptualization - how are you going to organize your facts. Forming a concept. Can’t be binary.
• Contextually emergent skills.
• Fear of failure
• Learning resilience
• Education gives you experience in learning.
• How to be a transformative principal? People who you don’t really know what they think at the end, because they are trying to get you to question your own assumptions.

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Michael Reichert is an applied and research psychologist who has long been an advocate for children and families. From counseling youth involved in the juvenile justice system through experiences leading treatment teams in a psychiatric hospital, all the while managing an independent clinical practice, Dr. Reichert has tested his understanding of children with practical, even life-saving, challenges.

• Every single kind of problem was transformed based on relationship.
• It’s the adult’s job to be the relationship manager.
• Live up to your goals.
• Relational breakdowns.
• How do we promote the relationship between the boy and the teacher.
• Breakdowns happen all the time.
• It’s the responsibility of the relationship manager to monitor whether it has broken down.
• The boy that simply checks out and underperforms.
• Book I Can Learn From You: Boys as Relational Learners
• I won’t learn from you
• You may have to develop new skills out of your repertoire to reach kids.
• Every type of boy can be reached.
• When a teacher reaches their end of their rope, they need to reach out for their help.
• You recognize that this is really challenging and it is frustrating. You have the power to change this boy’s life, and I know it is hard, If you can bear with him and continue to check in with him, you can reach him.
• How to be a transformative principal? Understand that you are asking your teachers to do this emotional work and validate the challenge that it is while saying boys are relational learners first!

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

Buy Communication Cards

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New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Michael Reichert is an applied and research psychologist who has long been an advocate for children and families. From counseling youth involved in the juvenile justice system through experiences leading treatment teams in a psychiatric hospital, all the while managing an independent clinical practice, Dr. Reichert has tested his understanding of children with practical, even life-saving, challenges.

• The stereotypes of women has changed significantly in the last 40 years.
• There’s been very little to counteract stereotypes of men and boys.
• Stereotypes shape boys’ lives early on.
• We cannot say that women are limited because of biology, but we still say that about boys.
• When Boys become “Boys” - Judy Chu
• Started out as direct, authentic and able to articulate themselves. Traveled from presence to pretense by way of posturing.
• Inauthentic and less willing to articulate their feelings.
• Conditioning comes from everywhere: teachers, parents, peers.
• A man box study - messages about being a man. Stoic, unemotional, strong, etc. Men more associated with man box stereotypes were more prone to negative behaviors, including suicidal ideation.
• Schools play a profound role in organizing the messages about what Men are.
• Every school is occupied by a hidden curriculum.
• Most educators feel as though they can’t get their arms around it.
• Boys have very little efficacy over the hidden curriculum. Policed by other boys. Often receive subtle and not-so-subtle redirection from adults and other boys.
• Student-teacher relationship and significance
• One-dimensional type of masculinity that is rewarded in school cultures.
• 1500-member study of boys and 1000 of their teachers. Tell us a story about a relationship that went well and oe that didn’t go well.
• So reassuring that the mask can be taken away when they do have a relationship.
• Relationships are transformative in three ways: practically, psychologically, existentially.

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

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New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Derek McCoy is a middle school principal in Georgia, and a fellow Digital Principal of the Year. He is also the coauthor of “The Revolution: It’s Time To Empower Change In Our Schools”

• We still sit in rows, we still deliver everything the same as we always.
• The time for shifting is over.
• Shift gives comfort, but we’ve got to make some change for our kids.
• We’re asking adults to change.
• 3 R’s is how we conduct business, and it always has been. That’s not going anywhere.
• We also know better.
• Shifting from the three R’s
• Passion - finding something that you’re passionate about. You might have some parents that can’t get into all the fundamental three R’s.
• When you’re passionate about it, you don’t give up.
• There is a disconnect with schools and parents now.
• We know better. We know how the brain works. Learning is more social than it is memorization.
• Don’t be the teacher you had as a student,
• It’s about learning new, and trying new for our learners.
• Change is going to happen, so we can embrace that change for our students.
• How do we get the whole system to change?
• The revolution@ries primary responsibility to build a vision!
• Committing to learner-centered change!
• Find your pusher who is going to support you through it and ground your thinking.
• Significant change is relative.
• Survey and talk to kids?
• Getting learner input.
• Control vs. Trust
• 5 core values: communicators, collaborators, __, have integrity, act with purpose
• Giving kids opportunity to provide input.
• Ask the kids, “How do you see this working?“
• How to be a transformative principal? Get into classrooms. Spend half your day in there talking to kids. Let that be the formative assessment for how you

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

Buy Communication Cards

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New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Christopher is a principal at Whitman Hansen Regional High School.

• Transitioning to a new high school.
• A new position gives you the opportunity to reflect on where you want to go and who you want to go.
• Sharing yourself first.
• I’m not a student-centered principal!
• I’m a staff-centered principal.
• Build staff meetings around getting to know each other.
• Building relationships
• Every day, with some exceptions, I’m in classrooms giving feedback to teachers.
• Out in front playing music with kids.
• Using Voxer to give immediate feedback and face-to-face meetings.
• Three simple questions: What’s working? What do I need to stop doing? What can I do to make your life better or easier?
• Start by supporting, then you engage them, then you empower them.
• A good leader is a servant leader.
• A good leader becomes a better leader by making others more successful.
• Clear the road for others.
• Experience is so important and we have to fail to keep learning.
• We don’t know how good we can be.
• Every student leaving the high school with something in their pocket to prepare them for the next level.
• Key components of S1 to raise failing grade to passing grade.
• Empowering teachers to give kids hope and keep integrity of the grades.
• Teachers choose most important units and then give kids an opportunity to make things happen.
• 92% of the kids who did winter school passed the year-long course.
• Summer Read Smackdown!
• Interdisciplinary days - kids don’t come back to a test on the book.
• How to be a transformative principal? Get into classrooms and give honest feedback to teachers so you can have a conversation with them.

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

Buy Communication Cards

Show notes on TransformativePrincipal.com

Download Paperless Principal.  

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Web Site

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New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal