Lead Lit Topic: School Community
Results
Slicing Up the Pie
I had just sent my email response to a parent when the phone call came in. “Are you still able to step in for Sarah’s classroom? Her students are coming...
Building a Schoolwide Coaching Culture
Anytime I ask for qualitative feedback about my performance as a school leader, I risk a negative response. This is especially true when I create a space for open comments....
Coaching Minute: The Gift of Time
Instructional coach Mary Brower shares an idea to give the gift of time to teachers.
Coaching Minute: The Importance of Patience
Instructional coach Mary Brower reminds us of the importance of patience, especially with ourselves.
Coaching Minute: Taking Risks
Instructional coach Mary Brower encourages us to notice leaders and teachers who are taking risks. Couple a quick note with an inspirational story, and you will build strong professional connections...
Coaching Minute: Supporting a Principal’s Vision
Holly Wenning attests to the importance of instructional coaches knowing and supporting a principal's vision. Holly is a secondary instructional coach.
If Your Walls Could Talk
I plopped myself down on the couch for a moment of mindless television watching before continuing with our family’s nightly routine. As I turned the television on, a commercial for...
Critical Questions that Lead to Powerful Change
“Does this practice, policy, or decision help or harm students from marginalized communities?” This is one of the questions that Alex Shrevin Venet wrote in her book Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education...
Encouraging Instructional Confidence
Teachers are teachers because they know everything . . . right? Teachers have all the answers. But what happens if we do not? What can you do as an instructional...
Choice, Voice, and Rejoice: Looking Back and Looking Forward
In speaking with my colleagues and “teacher friends” these past few weeks, I keep hearing the same thing again and again. After the year we’ve been through, many teachers are...
Books Need Space
I’ve always personified objects. I grew up on a farm, and on those stifling hot summer days baling hay, I would beg my father to give the tractor a break....
How Well Do You Know Your Team? Checking In On Our Relationships with Teachers
It’s all about relationships. Take the time to create and nurture your relationships with teachers. Creating relationships is top priority. I recall words such as these flowing repeatedly from the...
The Daily GIF
Each morning, our school’s administrative assistant, Jenni, sends out an email with the morning’s daily update. It summarizes the day’s staff absences and reminds everyone of any big events for...
The Power of a Confession: What Readers Really Do
Wait time can totally be the worst. Or maybe I should revise that sentence to say that 24 years into teaching, I am still impatient with silence. Two weeks ago,...
Virtual Icebreakers: Maintaining Human Connection (Part 2)
In a world of algorithms, hashtags and followers, know the importance of human connection. —Mama Tribe Marketplace If you are looking for ways to inspire teachers to think outside the...
Plan It, Don’t Wing It
Plan it. Don’t wing it. I drive by this message daily, posted in big, bold print across a billboard. This message is brought to us by a local bank with...
Defining Through Experience
The topic for our professional development: providing feedback to our students to help them persevere through any complex task. Up to this point in the year, our staff had experienced...
Saying No
Before leaving work, I sat down to review the various meetings I'd attended and the tasks I'd done that day, jotting a few notes and follow-up emails I needed to...
Maintenance as Leadership
Every August, a calendar event reminds me to check for hornets' nests on the playground. I go outside and investigate each slide, swing set, and jungle gym, sometimes kicking equipment...
Flipping Negative Stressors
One summer, in a frigid conference room in suburban Florida, I stood in front of a room full of educators to discuss how to manage the stresses of being an...
How Do Literacy Leaders Supervise and Support Online Instruction?
In our district, we have been talking about reentry in the fall for months now. How many kids can we physically have in the school? Will students need to wear...
