Transformative Principal

In just one week, the biggest and best leadership conference for educational leaders starts! Please join me to hear from over 30 experts in leadership and education as we set the stage for our best school year ever! CLICK HERE to sign up. Rachel Yanof started the Phoenix Collegiate Academy with the express intent to get all the students to college. I hope you enjoy this interview, as I sure did. First time I confronted the idea that kids could go to a college or not. Trusting the system could make it so the kids don’t get what they need. Building Excellent Schools 97% receiving free and reduced lunch. 90%+ minority Find families through being in their area Every parent has dreams for their child. Homework Overcommunicate Parents need to be involved in education, active participant. Mandatory parent orientation, come to us or we will come to you because it is that important that you are part of the team. Homework is assigned every night. Not a secret what is happening in school. Perseverance, respect, integri

JOIN the #1 online conference for Educational Leadership: Transformative Leadership Summit. Join now for free access to over 40 educational leaders expert interviews!   Assistant Principal Dr. Amy Fast explores the responsibility of our schools to focus on the mission, not the mandates.   Microbehaviors Google Forms 6–8 questions Created statements based on national student Gallup poll hopeful teachers care connection to one staff member have friends I feel like I matter have you ever experienced discrimination? Would you report something bad that happened? Big changes around professional development what we do in schools has a lot more to do with mindset rather than skill set Simple ideas are the most profound Exit slips from teachers were more personal approaches Changing teachers’ mindsets What’s best for students is what’s best for teachers Collaboration How to be a transformative Principal? Teachers need to feel like they matter and feel hopeful about their future. Give staff a voice and let them know o

Join the #1 online conference for educational leaders: Limited Free Admission - Transformative Leadership Summit  Assistant Principal Dr. Amy Fast explores the responsibility of our schools to focus on the mission, not the mandates. Educators are humanitarians at heart NCLB made me a better teacher, but it got warped Focus vs. tunnel vision Venn diagram of academic achievement, soft skills, and internal drive Need everyone in schools to bring their A game every single day! Need to measure every single circle What we test gets taught How do we measure that success? Soft skills - measured through observation, should be part of curriculum. Measuring motivation - identify the constructs of motivation: purpose, autonomy, choice, rigor Student survey via google forms Want to know more about you than just your test scores Staff didn’t know them as individuals. Non-anonymous survey. Coded the data Created a high flyer list of kids who didn’t have a high connection to the school. 100 kids who were the most disconnect

Yes, that Seth Godin! What an amazing opportunity to interview Seth on the podcast. He was so very generous with his time. I asked him questions like the following: How do you teach kids to connect the dots? Failure freezes. How do you make failing safe? Can everyone succeed being independent? How can the little guy compete with someone like Walmart? How do you help teachers not want to be competent anymore? How do you measure the experience? How do you know if has been successful? If we give kids the ability to dream, they’ll figure out the grammar and history the minute it helps them reach their dreams. Also, please be sure to sign up for the Transformative Leadership Summit to learn from some of the greatest minds in education today! How to make a ruckus in a highly bureaucratic, slow moving monstrosity that is education. Has anyone done something that others were delighted by? We’ve all been impacted by teachers who made a difference. It is a mistake to first look at gravity if you are a beginning runn

Scott Beebe is the founder of My Business on Purpose where he teaches business leaders to be be successful. He also teaches families how to create a family vision mission and value at Create a Family Vision. Standard Core Values - Respect, honesty, integrity, etc. What are your unique core values? Top 10 words that describe you well. Three, four, or five key words. You want people to ask you that question about what your core values means. Run every decision through the filtration of core values. Core values are the curbs on the side of the road to get to your destination. Transference of knowledge, Systems - Free the leader up to not be the technician anymore. Hub for communication for all of the stuff you’re doing. Weekly meeting. How to find time? Block off time to work on vision. Bring somebody in to walk you through the process. How to be a transformative Principal? 1. Block out time and ask what we will look like in 3–5 years. 2. Decide if you really want to do this, recognize that something will chang

Scott Beebe is the founder of My Business on Purpose where he teaches business leaders to be be successful. He also teaches families how to create a family vision mission and value at Create a Family Vision. Being a pastor is like being a leader anywhere else. We want to change their hearts. What are those things? Vision Story - Vision statement is pretty pointless. Vision story is what is exciting. It’s ok for people to not be into the vision. Hiring. Need to give them the vision. Not hiring on a whim. Shareholder letter from Jeff Bezos Mission Statement - Not some catchy thing that sounds good. Highlight key action words in vision story. The mission statement is what drives you to get out of bed. It is the vision story in summary. Unique to who you are. 15 words max, memorizable. What is unique about your school? Use that to your advantage. What do we want our family to look like in 5–10 years? That will affect what our school looks like. What do we want our students to look like 28 years from now? “We ex

In this episode this week, we are listening to some principals share their core values as a result of what they did as an activity as part of "The Principal 50" book club. I hope you enjoy it.      Loading… Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher.  Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show. Buy Communication Cards Show notes on TransformativePrincipal.com Download Paperless Principal.   Sponsor: Sanebox Web Site Transformative Principal on Stitcher Refer A Principal Best Tools for Busy Administrators Survey   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.

Today I am honored to interview Kimberly Miles about our Mastermind Group. If you're interested in the Mastermind, please visit http://transformativeprincipal.org/mastermind to set up a call with me to join the mastermind. Narrow my focus to prioritize what I value and what is most Hold myself accountable Bounce ideas off like-colleagues Reflective Recommend it for those who are looking to refine your practice. Do your work at a more effective level. Narrow down to your priorities. Worth the time and money because I am investing in myself. We serve others so much, and this allows me to focus on improving myself, too! Not just about hard data, but also about soft data. Stories that students bring with them are just as relevant. Strengths finder and helps me Look at areas I could refine or enhance. Loading… Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher.  Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show. Buy Communication Cards Show notes on Tr

It's time to fill the Mastermind! I'm opening up some slots for the mastermind. Now's your chance to get in and experience what Terri has experienced. I can't wait for you to join! a href="https://calendly.com/jethro-jones/mastermind">So, click here to set up a call! Terri Walker is the Principal of Buckland School in Buckland Alaska. She is also a member of the transformative mastermind. Today, she shares her experience in the mastermind. Felt stagnant after 25 years in education, thought about retiring. Mastermind was breath of fresh air. Goals help you focus on things that matter. Ability to talk about what matters to us, and how we can work together to solve them. It does take some out of my income but it is worth it. This is something I need right now. I need the motivation and support of the mastermind. I would encourage anyone old or new to seek [this mastermind] group and it would be beneficial. If you’re thinking about joining the mastermind, click here to set up a call and let’s talk about gett

Livonia Michigan Suburban district with 300 students, 16,000 in district Pre-K–4th. 5 years, 21 years in 14 years as a principal @jon_wennstrom sparkoflearning.blogspot.com teacher blog http://wennstromweekly.blogspot.com parent blog PBIS rules are umbrella for 7 habits of highly effective kids. Home grown project for 7 habits. District is very invested in character education. 8 character traits for entire district. Fundamental belief that character education is vital. Empowering students rather than engaging them - George Couros Not another thing on the plate, it is the plate. Building fundamental skills: collaboration, perseverance, grit, skills that will serve them in any location, any job, or any group of people they are with. Parent says “my child came home and my family needs to be more proactive.” Move beyond the vocabulary, but our words do count. What about parents being more responsible of teaching values and school teaching content? Public Service Announcements. Hearing is great, but seeing is eve

Livonia Michigan Suburban district with 300 students, 16,000 in district Pre-K–4th. 5 years, 21 years in 14 years as a principal @jon_wennstrom sparkoflearning.blogspot.com teacher blog http://wennstromweekly.blogspot.com parent blog PBIS school, 7 Habits of highly effective students, Positive phone calls, student led announcements, PSAs. Class Dojo, 23% ELLs Wall feature. School-wide meetings. PBIS school. Monthly, student of the month meetings. Stephen Covey’s 7 habits 3 to be pledge, respectful, responsible, safe Poster contests for that 90–95% parent attendance rate for kids who are students of the month. Weekly meeting. Sunrise and sunset meetings. Goal: build community Sean Gallard #celebrateMonday meetings Doesn’t a weekly meeting take away a lot of instructional time? Increase time-on-task Support staff who help K students get ready. Videos for students, less than 3 minutes. Perseverance, Stephen Covey’s 7 habits for highly effective kids Art teacher creates a canvas to help students showcase their

Participate.com use it for chats–it works really well. Check out this cool minute-long video about how it works. View a longer webinar about participate learning. Everything in there is based on conversations that Brad has with users. Chats are great, but how do you pay attention to everything that you learned from it? Calendar of chats Create collections from chats in the time period. Create collections and share with others. Schools and district hashtags can be involved in this as well to share their resources. Participate as a social network. How to be a transformative Principal: Have a growth mindset and empower everyone in your building. @participatelearn brad@participate.com @spirrison   Loading… Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher.  Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show. Buy Communication Cards Show notes on TransformativePrincipal.com Download Paperless Principal.   Sponsor: Sanebox Web Site Transformative Pri

This is part 2 of my interview with Susie Wise. Susie has had multiple incarnations at the d.school – teaching EX-Tools back in the trailer days, launching the K12 Lab in 2007 with the Nueva School Innovation Lab project, and jumpstarting Media Ops and Hootenanny design for the inauguration of Building 550 in 2008–2010. Back again in 2012 she is leading our efforts to support the movement bringing design thinking into K12 teaching and learning. Susie stumbled upon design thinking when she took a course with David Kelley in 2003 and the experience helped her make sense of the universe. Susie is motivated by the simple belief that humans are by nature designers. Recently a design strategist and innovation coach at Intuit, her practice centers on inspiring teams to use empathy to get to innovative outcomes. Susie has a PhD in Learning Sciences and Technology Design from Stanford’s School of Education and is a co-founder of Urban Montessori Charter School in Oakland. She lives there with her husband and daughter

Susie Wise has had multiple incarnations at the d.school – teaching EX-Tools back in the trailer days, launching the K12 Lab in 2007 with the Nueva School Innovation Lab project, and jumpstarting Media Ops and Hootenanny design for the inauguration of Building 550 in 2008–2010. Back again in 2012 she is leading our efforts to support the movement bringing design thinking into K12 teaching and learning. Susie stumbled upon design thinking when she took a course with David Kelley in 2003 and the experience helped her make sense of the universe. Susie is motivated by the simple belief that humans are by nature designers. Recently a design strategist and innovation coach at Intuit, her practice centers on inspiring teams to use empathy to get to innovative outcomes. Susie has a PhD in Learning Sciences and Technology Design from Stanford’s School of Education and is a co-founder of Urban Montessori Charter School in Oakland. She lives there with her husband and daughter (yes, the one in the movie Babies). Shadow

Jon Laffoon is the principal of Pea Ridge High School in Arkansas, where they are using a dynamic schedule called the flex mod schedule to allow time to serve students, rather than students serving time. It is pretty remarkable and impressive. Save $10,000 on paper because of 1:1 Don’t hire substitutes Expectation is that teachers post everything to Google Classroom when they are absent. Subs are just babysitters Time serving students rather than students serving time. Redesign cafeteria to make it a modern space like a starbucks. Supervision of students. 3 Core Values: Leave no trace, be responsible, use time wisely Teach them personal responsibility. You have to take on a growth mindset to make changes. Students skipping a class still happens, but it has not increased, though the way to work with kids has helped. Phase Balance - can’t have every class meet 3 days (Phase 3) a week or every class meet 4 (Phase 4) days a week. Schools can come learn from PRHS. Conference in the summer. Office of Innovation fo

Jon Laffoon is the principal of Pea Ridge High School in Arkansas, where they are using a dynamic schedule called the flex mod schedule to allow time to serve students, rather than students serving time. It is pretty remarkable and impressive. Flex Mod schedule Form of a block schedule. Certain classes that might meet 4 days a week or 3 days a week. Videos explaining the schedule Empower the teachers - get them out of their silos The gray ILT times keep the classes from conflicting. The schedule to look at Independent learning time: with great power comes great responsibility. Designing a PE unit based on their fitness goals. 210 clock minutes whether you meet 3 days or 4 days a week. ILT time is class time. Many teachers have flipped their classes. 60% of students each year were going to a 2 year or 4 year institution. Only 25–30% of students were staying in school. SLT Structured Learning Time is some RTI time. 2000-student high school designed for the Flex Mod schedule. Teachers don’t teach in the same

Ken Spero of @edleadershipsim seeks to help leaders develop their decision-making ability by running simulations of realistic situations. Experience is the best teacher What simulations in a box look like. Engage one’s own imagination Experiences of those who go through it. This is an experience to be able to talk about what you could do. Valuable and engaging. Stories engage people. Running simulations as part of assistant principal training. Analyze the thinking of your team. Janice Case Become a Patron Focus is on critical thinking and judgment. Experience can be about getting things wrong. How he creates sims. Alternate Reality (sims) vs. Alternative Reality (games). How to be a transformative principal: what experience do you need to have to learn and grow? Loading… Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher.  Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show. Buy Communication Cards Show notes on TransformativePrincipal.com Download Pape

Loading… Glenn Robbins (Twitter and Blog) is the 2016 NASSP Digital Principal of the Year. Duties of digital principal of the year. Things that were done to gain attention for this award. Idea Street Turtles in an aquarium in the school. Digital Shop. Design thinking. NCMS Innovates blog EdCamp Period. 5 days in a 45 minute period. We want to create designers. Using technology when appropriate. Design thinking and deprogramming them. The Extraordinaires Program It’s saying yes more than no. Responding to kids’ feedback. How to be a transformative principal? Be connected digitally and in person. Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher.  Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show. Buy Communication Cards Show notes on TransformativePrincipal.com Download Paperless Principal.   Sponsor: Sanebox Web Site Transformative Principal on Stitcher Refer A Principal Best Tools for Busy Administrators Survey We're so grateful to our sponsor AI

Leyden East High School Principal Jason Markey, assistant principal Anita Huffman and principal-to-be-current-special-education-teacher Meaghan O’Neil join me to talk about the Assistant principal for Student Services - The importance of a title Breakfast with students to support the new students coming in. ACCESS Program - extra 25 minutes for freshman to help them get acclimated. Hand-schedule students with ACCESS teacher so they have a single adult to Learning2breathe study time for students to focus on mindfulness. Teaching the whole child. “Yes, And” thinking. Giving kids the time and space to be creative. Innovation incubator. Disengaging from PLCs to be in a new group focused on design thinking. Design thinking Trust and vulnerability is vital. It is an unknown. What can you do to be a transformative principal: Work to empathize more with our students and teachers [#shadowastudent](http://shadowastudent.org) Have a PLN and connect with others to help reflect and continue to grow. Step out of your c

Today, Daniel Bauer and I talk about our Mastermind. I encourage you to join. Check it out here: Transformative Mastermind.   If you still have questions or are ready to join, please set up a brief phone call. Schedule a call Daniel and I are both setting up masterminds. I interview him on his podcast: Better Leaders Better Schools    Mastermind For Principals We all know that being a principal can be a lonely job. It is isolating to be the only one who has to deal with everything that goes on in your day-to-day life. Some of us have assistant principals, some of us have co principals, but each of us know that there are some things that are just hard to help other people understand what you’re going through. Enter a mastermind. A mastermind is a group of people who are dedicated to investing in themselves to improve their lives. We all have social networks which help us in various ways. If you have been on Twitter, in Facebook groups, or Voxer groups, you know there can be an ebb and flow with the conversatio