Teacher Pay I believe that the biggest elephant in the room is the lack of adequate pay for our nation’s teachers. This past year, teachers from Oklahoma, Arizona, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Colorado, walked out of the classroom to protest low wages. It is growing increasing difficult for teachers to be able to afford to … More The 5 Elephants of Education
The end of the school year can be an emotional time for teachers, students, and administrators. All parties are tired, but hopefully satisfied with the progress made during the past nine months. While it would be easy to coast through the last few weeks of instruction, it is best for all to push through and … More 5 Ways to Finish Out The School Year Strong
Principals plan for every possible situation that can happen during a regular school day. By doing so, they can prepare to pivot on a dime to meet the current needs of staff, students, parents, and the school at large. Principals worth their salt can quickly organize recess on a rainy day, serve lunch when the … More How A School Administrator Can Deal With Unexpected Hiccups
A school’s vision statement is often overlooked, hidden, or inexplicitly non-existent. It can be found on most school’s websites, hidden among bells schedules, lunch options, teacher websites, and PTA pages. Teachers, administrators often don’t know what is written in their school’s vision statement. Parents don’t either. Students … well, you get the picture. However, shouldn’t … More 5 Ways to Reimagine Your School’s Vision Statement
The educational technology business is a multi-billion dollar industry. Every year, districts spend tens of thousands of dollars on new programs, devices, tools, and gadgets. Sadly, many schools receive these new programs, devices, tools, and gadgets, and let them sit in boxes or unused on desktops. Not only are precious funds being wasted, but opportunities … More 5 Ways To Increase Technology Use for Teachers and Students
One of the most important books that I have read in my career is The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. In his book, Lencioni outlines the elements needed to build strong, cohesive teams. Here is a link to the book: Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Trust is the foundation in which productive teams are … More 5 Ways Principals Can Build Trust
It has been a year since I published the article, “5 Educational Concepts We Need to Eliminate in 2017”. It has been read and shared over 40,000 times since its publication. The feedback received from this article has given me much to write about over the past year, with many other articles from The Principal’s … More 5 Educational Concepts We Need To Eliminate In 2018
The role of the teacher has changed greatly over the past few decades. Teachers have to take on more and more responsibilities with fewer and fewer resources. Gone are the days where teachers only had to focus on content delivery. In today’s educational landscape, teachers take on a wide variety of roles and wear many … More 5 Jobs That Teachers Do Other Than Teach
It is Open House season! Every year at this time, teachers invite parents into classrooms to view student work, projects, and to share successes from the year. This year, spice it up a bit. By the time that parents get to the upper elementary grades, they have seen it all. All Open Houses will blend together … More 5 Ways To Use Technology at Open House
Many educators indicate that mastering classroom management is one of the most difficult parts of the profession. Teachers who struggle with poor classroom management skills will never get their students to learn at their highest potential. Their students are seen off task, talking to their friends, defiant, and disrespectful. These students are often assigned consequences … More 5 Ways to Decrease Disciplinary Issues in the Classroom
