As your school year gets under way, we wanted to share some favorite #PrincipalHacks from your fellow leaders, covering everything from family connections to must-have supplies. Thank you for everything you’re doing to support teachers and students right now – from big undertakings to small, meaningful “hacks.”
I stopped holding staff meetings three years ago. You know, the kinds of meetings where a school leader makes a series of announcements about deadlines, and teachers passively listen (or maybe do a little grading). After some serious self reflection and feedback from my staff, I replaced them with “Faculty Huddles,” where our team gets […]
I hadn’t planned to answer the secretaries’ phones – but I’m so glad I did.
Two letters. One powerful message: You matter to me.
As my district’s director of equity and inclusion, I know how much school leaders care about promoting success for every student, beginning on the very first day of school. This year is off to a complicated start, and I also know that it can be easy to feel like we’re already behind on planning anti-racist […]
My journey with restorative practices is similar to that of a lot of folks who believe in the power of student relationships. After years as a teacher, assistant principal and then as a principal in Baltimore, I’d seen the impact that investing in relationships can have on school culture and on students’ futures, and I […]
“When our students are planning their futures, they count on the adults in their school communities for guidance. But for many of us, our own college application experiences happened a long time ago – and career and college planning processes have changed immensely. We might be able to tell our students, ‘Back when I was […]
As you lean into planning for a new year, I know you are thinking through how best to support students in what will hopefully be a more normal year. I’ve worked in several schools as a leader, and what I’ve learned is we have to teach to the heart before we can teach to the […]
Take a community approach to boosting FAFSA completion and increasing opportunity.
As a school leader, I know that if my team and I can promote academic success for our students, we can set them up to achieve so much in high school and beyond. If I want to encourage students to excel, I have to equip teachers to excel – and that means working deliberately to […]