Transformative Principal

Jeremiah Newell founded Alabama’s first charter school, Accel Day and Evening Academy is Alabama’s first charter school. It serves grades 9–12 and specializes in supporting youth who are disengaged in the traditional high school, have fallen behind, or dropped out all together. I’d like to discuss how ACCEL’s model puts unique supports in place, including academic instruction targeted to the needs of youth, mental health/counseling supports, and postsecondary options to ensure opportunity youth find success. 300 students in grades 9–12 How to manage split schedules. Be very intentional about who you’re serving when. regular day school and evening school. Working as partners with community leaders. Got graduation rate up, now how do we prep them? How to hire the right people. Mission alignment. We lead with being unapologetic with our mission. Create the space for them to do their best work. Half day Friday for students so teachers have time to get better. Teachers request professional development. As we recr

Emma Turner is the author of a new book called “Be More Toddler” Co head teacher in 2009. 5 babies in 5 years, multiple maternity leaves. Flip leadership and think about it differently. Chocolate buttons - What is it that means the most to you that you are going to hold on to no matter what? The Magic Weaving Business - passion, wisdom, righteous indignation Finding things you think are wrong help you see what needs to be right. Leadership is for the many not the few. Leadership doesn’t have a uniform. It was just us getting on with the work as it needed to get done. You can’t just have one kind of person leading. More people need to learn For some people, experience brings confidence. Leadership is a state of mind. The greatest thing a leader can do is develop an organization that can run in their absence as well. Leadership isn’t difficult - kids do it all the time. Toddlers’ evidence is everywhere. Toddlers lead all the time and they can’t speak or go to the bathroom. Moral buy-in - doing the right thi

Vijay Ravindran is the creator of Floreo, an app to help kids with Autism understand social interactions. Vijay’s son inspired the app. Combines iPhone with VR headset VR therapy. help in 2 ways. 1. Opportunities to create fun characters. Therapy can get patronizing and monotonous; we make it better. Don’t have a lot of practice in giving kids One of the fascinating things is that professionals use the scenes in ways that we haven’t predicted. Student who is afraid of going outside. Never seen child interact in traditional therapy. Big emphasis around research. Research partners Celebrate the Children, CHOP Center for Autism Research. Work on eye contact with students. NIH Fasttrack grant - helped fund groundbreaking research around Autism. What are the barriers you face? Helping families and professionals think about how you can schedule and integrate when they are already scheduled to the max. VR is still not commonplace. We carry the burden of being the first time adults and children experience VR. Suppor

Amber Dembowski (Twitter) is a principal of two elementary buildings and founder of emBOSSed Leadership. Mindful leadership embedded within instructional leadership. Amber’s podcast Worked in many different facets of education - from para professional to teacher to instructional coach to university to principal. Bringing staff together for professional learning opportunities Article 1. Focusing too much on student outcomes 2. Staying out of teachers’ way 4 types of teachers: notables (top 20%), classics (40% of teachers, need development), interim amateurs (20% of teachers, not living up to potential right now because of…), sideliners ( We're so grateful to our sponsor AI Coach by Edthena. AI Coach enables your teachers to go through coaching cycles based on their own needs. The virtual coach guides teachers to reflect on their teaching, set a goal, and create an action plan… all based on gathering classroom evidence. It gives support between PD days  and other coaching cycles. Get a free trial for your

Amber Dembowski (Twitter) is a principal of two elementary buildings and founder of emBOSSed Leadership. Mindful leadership embedded within instructional leadership. Amber’s podcast Worked in many different facets of education - from para professional to teacher to instructional coach to university to principal. Bringing staff together for professional learning opportunities Article 1. Focusing too much on student outcomes 2. Staying out of teachers’ way 4 types of teachers: notables (top 20%), classics (40% of teachers, need development), interim amateurs (20% of teachers, not living up to potential right now because of…), sideliners ( We're so grateful to our sponsor AI Coach by Edthena. AI Coach enables your teachers to go through coaching cycles based on their own needs. The virtual coach guides teachers to reflect on their teaching, set a goal, and create an action plan… all based on gathering classroom evidence. It gives support between PD days  and other coaching cycles. Get a free trial for your

Sarah Levy and Mark Parmet are the co founders Einstein Academy in Colorado. K–5 and building out to 8th grade Four components of the school: for kids, family, community, today and the future. I got sick of hearing people say, “It’s school, kids shouldn’t have fun.” Setting an environment where kids can be the best they can. While working on things they’re good at, we can also work on things they struggle with. What do you love? What do you enjoy? What gets you excited? Until we’re feeling good, we’re not going to push ourselves. You gotta get to know your kids and their families! Parents have fears also. As educators, we’re the deciders. We tell kids what is important to learn. Teaching students and not teaching curriculum. How can we integrate hockey into the curriculum? Packaged curriculum. We’re really trying to build a program around our students. Curriculum adheres to Colorado state standards so it does provide some framework. Personalized learning profile. Private school instead of charter school. Onl

Literacy nerds Beth Lawrence and Deena Seifert cofounders of infercabulary.com Infercabulary is a web-based k–12 interactive tool for helping kids improve vocabulary and skills. speed up learning by making learning vocabulary like Avidly reading. We tend to make words simpler with oral language than authors when writing. SLPs by trade. Why should we help kids learn vocabulary? TedX talk 65% of students aren’t capable of comprehending text on grade level. Unless you know 95% of words in a text, it will impact your comprehension. A foundational skill that needs to exist is a strong vocabulary. Breadth and depth of vocabulary. If you only have a surface level understanding of a word, you can’t link it to more A child needs 10–12 exposures to a word in a variety of contexts to understand the word. Tiered words. Tier 1: These are the common, everyday words that most children enter school knowing already. Since we don’t need to teach these, this is a tier without tears! Tier 2: This tier consists of words that a

Evidence-informed for Real Learning with Eric Kalenze Transformative Principal 334 Social Media: Evidence-informed means looking at what has worked. Eric Kalenze is the author of “What The Academy Taught Us: Improving Schools From The Bottom Up In A Top-Down Transformation Era.” How to teach practitioners to put this into practice. High school teacher, English, coach, journalism. Help educators around the country become evidence informed. Education is upside down. ResearchED Evidence-informed - looking at what has worked. More fascinated with planning instruction according to the evidence we have based in cognitive or behavioral science. “There’s contrary evidence that the reading program didn’t work in another district.” This is an evidence-based program, well show me the evidence. “What has worked” is an incredibly complex study. Humans learn incredibly similarly to others, regardless of our backgrounds. Repetition is the mother of all learning. Practice can make permanent. How do we learn, and how can we

How We Nearly Doubled Math Scores with Kevin Finnegan Transformative Principal 333 Social Media: When we saw Math could be a discussion, it totally changed everything. Kevin Finnegan is the principal of Prairie Hill School in Illinois. His students recently showed a 77% growth in Math, and we talk about how he made that happen. Prairie hill is the school and the community comes together around it. Northern Illinois, PK–4th grade. 9 years as the principal. Mission statement: Students first, always. PLC school Reformed schedule so that every day (4 teachers per team) have an hour of common collaborative time every day. Why are we making this decision? The students are always the bringback. Norms: imagine the students you are talking about are here. To be a great principal is easy. You just have to have a great staff. PE teacher said, “I want students more.” Each class has 10 half hour blocks each week: Art, PE, STEM, Always been a high performing district. Makes change really hard when you have had success in

Jaime Casap is the Education Evangelist at Google. Jaime evangelizes the power and potential of technology and the web as enabling and supporting tools in pursuit of promoting inquiry-driven learning models. Jaime collaborates with school systems, educational organizations, and leaders focused on building innovation and iteration into our education policies and practices. He speaks on education, technology, innovation, and generation z, at events around the world.
 
In addition to his role at Google, Jaime is also an author and serves on a number of boards for organizations focused on education, innovation, and equity. Jaime teaches a 10th-grade communication class at the Phoenix Coding Academy in Phoenix and is an adjunct professor at Arizona State University, where he teaches classes on policy, innovation, and leadership. Education evangelist. Launched Gmail, G-suite for education, and chromebooks. Transforming education Facts - education is not broken, graduation rates higher than anywhere else 21st centu

JC Pohl is the co-founder and CEO of TeenTruth.net/schoolculture Young filmmakers looked at coverage of Columbine, and we always saw adults telling the story of what happened. Look into teenage life. Giving students a voice. How to give kids voice? Control - told what to do, what classes to take, and everything else in between. Lack of control really causes a lot of stress in students. Are we doing a disservice to kids by not giving them control? Three major buckets (school assemblies, ) These kids made a movie, what are you going to do? Students can take ownership by getting involved. How do you want to solve it? It’s about creating culture of agency and ownership for kids. There are so many kids on our campuses that it’s easy to get lost. Kids desperately want to be there. It’s up to us to create an environment that makes them want to be included. Finding their thing. Open up as many opportunities as we can for kids to get involved. What were some of the data points that came out. Principals get caught up

Dr. Wendy Oliver serves as Chief Learning Officer for EdisonLearning, a leading international educational services provider with nearly a generation of experience creating effective and sustainable solutions to raise student achievement.  In this role, her experience in digital learning and curriculum design, paired with her expertise in assessment and evaluation, are leveraged to design an innovative, learner-centered curriculum. Expectations around online learning How good design applies to online learning. Teachers are working themselves into the ground to reach students! 19% of teachers said they were adjusted! Also have an 8 year old in her second grade studies. Everyone is in survival mode. Edison learning offering free courses to seniors. Where to go to get help. quality matters and common sense media. How to make things look better? Less is more. How to be a transformative principal? Care about kids. We're so grateful to our sponsor AI Coach by Edthena. AI Coach enables your teachers to go through

Ryan Gottfredson, Ph.D. is a mental success coach and cutting-edge leadership consultant, author, trainer, and researcher. He helps improve organizations, leaders, teams, and employees by improving their mindsets. Ryan is currently a leadership and management professor at the Mihaylo College of Business and Economics at California State University-Fullerton (CSUF). He holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources from Indiana University, and a B.A. from Brigham Young University. Ryan is the author of “Success Mindsets: The Key to Unlocking Greater Success in Your Life, Work, & Leadership.” (Morgan James Publishing) How a school changed their growth mindsets. We take on the mindsets of our collective culture. When people have a fixed mindset they focus on looking good. When we are emphasizing grades and not learning and growing, we are emphasizing a fixed mindset. Fixed vs. Growth mindset 90% of our thinking feeling acting is driven subconsciously. What drives that? Our mindsets.

Nhon Ma is the co-founder of numerade.com Mom was an educator in South Vietnam, Chinese immigrants who then moved to LA. Grew up in LAUSD system. Better Chance program in middle school. Placed me in a top private school. Shaped my thinking around education. Ride bus to school in a completely different culture. Close educational opportunity gap Prices for tutoring for synchronous doesn’t drop. Largest STEM video library. Jethro’s YouTube channel from when he was an English teacher Mass adoption of synchronous learning through zoom. Participation rates are much lower. Office hours, daily creation, Students consume content at their own time. Anonymous q&a feature. Especially with STEM students, if there is a fall-off, it’s very hard to make up lost ground. Stitching together playlists of math and science for students. How to be a transformative leader? Always focus on the why! We're so grateful to our sponsor AI Coach by Edthena. AI Coach enables your teachers to go through coaching cycles based on their

Ryan Gottfredson, Ph.D. is a mental success coach and cutting-edge leadership consultant, author, trainer, and researcher. He helps improve organizations, leaders, teams, and employees by improving their mindsets. Ryan is currently a leadership and management professor at the Mihaylo College of Business and Economics at California State University-Fullerton (CSUF). He holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources from Indiana University, and a B.A. from Brigham Young University. Ryan is the author of “Success Mindsets: The Key to Unlocking Greater Success in Your Life, Work, & Leadership.” (Morgan James Publishing) How do we tap into the “being” element of leadership? different types of mindset: Fixed vs. Growth mindset Open vs. closed mindset Prevention vs. promotion mindset Inward vs. outward Continuum of positive and negative. The more we are towards the positive, the better we interact with our environment. Innate beliefs about our ability to change affect how we inter

Ross Romano is Managing Director of Communications & Public Affairs for MindRocket Media Group, a strategic advisory firm providing a range of services to companies and institutions operating within the K–20 education and education technology sectors worldwide. In his current role, Ross oversees all corporate communications for MindRocket, as well as communications and public relations strategy and execution for MindRocket clients. He supervises PR, media relations, social media, and digital marketing efforts, is creative director for editorial content development, and drives significant efforts in partnership development and expansion into new lines of business. Ross has built a reputation as a creative communications leader with expertise in telling compelling stories via diverse media. He has created and executive produced a number of successful podcast series, created and edited book projects, provided initial platforms to numerous authors, educators, and industry leaders, and more. Prior to joining M

Thom Gibson is a middle school math and robotics teacher and high school YouTube teacher in Austin, Texas. Budgeting, saving and spending How we should teach kids about money. Rafe Esquith - Teach like your hair’s on fire. Are you still using classroom economy? Moved away from paper money to all digital Automate a lot of things with it. Classroom jobs. Beginning of year is full of prep work. Jobs that free up your time as the teacher. Auctioneer takes a letter to local businesses. Virtual bank for the kids’ money. paygrade.io Forcing kids to do jobs. Get Thom’s course 20% discount code - transformative How to be a transformative principal? Look for an opportunity to let your teachers do something they would flourish in. Today’s Transformative Principal sponsor, John Catt Educational, has been publishing high quality guidebooks, magazines and educator-focused professional development books since 1959. John Catt’s mission is to support high-quality teaching and learning by ensuring every educator has acce

Tom Murray and I did office hours to support schools during this closure. Here are the questions we answered. If you were on a leadership team, what would you be focusing on right now? High school, middle school, elementary school? People, equity, vision for your school http://bit.ly/ToolsForEngagement  How are you managing fears and anxieties around fall planning? How do you build trust in this environment? Have a great network. Join the Mastermind We're so grateful to our sponsor AI Coach by Edthena. AI Coach enables your teachers to go through coaching cycles based on their own needs. The virtual coach guides teachers to reflect on their teaching, set a goal, and create an action plan… all based on gathering classroom evidence. It gives support between PD days  and other coaching cycles.Get a free trial for your teachers here.