I believe that being “busy” is the slow death of the school leader.
Being “busy” cannibalizes the things that you should be doing.
Being “busy” causes us to focus on the wrong things.
Being “busy” minimizes productivity.
Being “busy” can actually cost you time, money and progress towards your goals.
As a principal, and now business owner, I am extremely active when it comes to work.
I look busy. I act busy. People definitely think I am busy because that’s typically how they acknowledge me when they call or see me, “I know you’re busy so thanks for taking my call.”
But what has been brought to my awareness recently is that being busy creates empathy.
Other people empathize with being busy, because we have all been there.
When you communicate busy - people affirm your busyness. Most of the time when you ask someone “how are you?”
They answer...
At 9:22 a.m. on December 21, 2019, I was lounging on the couch as it was the first day of the holiday break. Dorsey, the family dog, was giving the look. If you have a dog, you know the look.
On went my shoes, grabbed my ear buds and tuuk as I hit the garage door opener. Dorsey took a sprint out the door and into the driveway. Yelling for her to come back I noticed something looked different.
The driveway had tons of space. I walked out thinking I parked the car on the street for some reason.
Nope.
At 9:34 am I dialed 9-1-1 with one phone, and Googled “What to do when your car is stolen” with another.
You might be asking, how could your car be stolen...from your driveway!!!
For the next 60 hours, from the car being stolen until it was found, here is what I learned:
For things to change, you need to change: Don’t leave your car unlocked,...
This is one of those topics that I could write about all day every day. Goal setting, goal achieving, goals goals goals!
Some of us think we gave up a long time ago and don’t have any but we do. Every day we wake up with the goal to live another day. Ok, maybe that is a stretch but don’t we all have goals to some extent? And why is it so important to have goals?
The most successful people on this planet didn’t wake up one day with an idea and a few minutes later after they got dressed became successful… No way. They had an idea and they developed a plan. Within that plan there were goals – some big, some little – some attainable, some way out there.
We have had goals from the day we were...
Hey leaders, Dr. Tom Miller here and I want to share with you something I believe is critically important to your short and long term success.
Best selling author John Maxwell teaches a "Year in Review" process that I have been implementing over the past four years to double my income but work less days. Travel to different parts of the world, reduce personal debt so I could increase retirement contributions, and improve my personal health (40 lbs. weight loss) as well as lowered cholesterol.
Without evaluative experience I am basically doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result. That’s the definition of insanity.
As the days on the calendar end for 2019, it’s critical to look over the last year and determine:
What made this year...
Hey School Leaders,
I know you are swamped with work and holiday planning, but I’ve got an idea I want to share with you today:
Possibility thinking is changing the question from Can I? to How Can I?
Some time ago, a charter school was in a challenging financial crunch. During the board meeting, the principal announced that the school needed to find money to invest in a game-changing curriculum and program that would improve their academic programs and really help their teachers save time and energy.
The principal explained to the board that the teachers were creating most of the lessons and materials and spending lots of time and energy searching for content rather than focusing their time on connecting with students, analyzing data, and mastering their craft.
Hey fellow school leaders!
I have a thought I wanted to share.
This is true in ALL aspects of your life. As a middle school director we had strong academic results but a high turnover of our staff based on our unhealthy school culture and micromanaging leadership style.
Despite having a pretty solid administrative team to lean on and being enrolled in an Education Leadership doctoral program with a dozen other principals and higher education leaders to learn from...
Many hours were spent hiding in the office closet with the public school law guide book hoping to find answers!
It wasn't until the opportunity to visit other high performing schools and strategically collaborated with more effective school leaders did the school's results change for the better (healthier culture, trust, teacher empowerment, increased...
As the Spelling Bee Champion for Litchfield Elementary School in 1981, I know the feeling of triumph well. However, my glorious spelling bee win ended at the school level because in order to win at the district, state, and national levels, you actually have to show up, and I didn’t. I meant to. I was all set. Then I talked with first runner up.
On the day of the district spelling bee, I went to school knowing that after announcements and the Pledge of Allegiance, I’d be called out of class to meet my mom in the office. From there, a school bus would drive us to the district Spelling Bee. My mom drove a perfectly fine yellow station wagon with that 80’s wood siding, but the school wouldn’t let her drive us there. We had to ride the bus. I guess even the school was embarrassed by that wood siding.
Giving Away My Chance
The first runner up was a stranger to me, but on that morning of the district spelling bee, she came up to me on the playground,...
If you are one of the 55 million people who travel on Thanksgiving Day you may want to take something or someone to listen to pass the time.
Our Principal Office Podcast has over 50 hours of content that has been downloaded over 17,000 times.
I've linked some of our most downloaded below, plus two that will work well for the holidays!!!
Travel safely!
Learn Directly from Henderson Collegiate Executive Director Eric Sanchez
Steps to Effective Teacher Feedback
Setting and Achieving Goals
Have that conversation with the difficult adult in the room!
Connect with Everyone!
Did you know that 62% of students with disabilities spend 80% of their school day in general education classes (OSEP, 2015)? This doesn’t even take into consideration the at-risk students who didn’t qualify for services. They of course spend 100% of their day in general education.
How about the complete other side of the spectrum; your academically gifted students, or your twice exceptional students. They too are in those same classes.
So, my question for you is: How much professional development, feedback and training during the school year are you providing your general education teachers on how to effectively lead students who are disabled, at-risk and/or academically gifted?
Before you go questioning whether or not you should be leading the school realize that you are not alone here. The first two years I spent as a principal our school was great for 50% of our population, good for 35% and the other 15% we did our best with. Our strategy for the last 15% was more...
Charter schools make a commitment to their community, building hope. When they keep these commitments by creating safe, engaging school environments, they build trust.
Despite having some flexibility, public charter schools must follow the same laws as public district schools in these three critical trust-building areas:
1. Serving students with disabilities;
2. Student accountability; and,
3. Health and safety standards.
Serving Students With Disabilities: Charter schools must serve all students who enroll. Whether this student requires a one-on-one assistant, full-day specialized instruction, or private transportation services,...
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