Transformative Principal

Kara is an assistant principal at Edwin Lowe Elementary in New Town North Dakota. Grew up Cheyenne-Sioux South Dakota. Foster education. Emancipated as a young adult. Knew what it took to survive in life. Dropped out of High School. Started school again in her 20s. Life on the reservation due to socio-economic and other issues. She saw the world starting to pass her by. Writing a paragraph sounds so simple to most people, but it is very difficult if you haven’t done it in 14 years. Working on a Doctorate. So much to give back now to others. No student cannot succeed when they have the resources to be successful. Uncle was a good mentor. Making connections instructors. Not being afraid to ask questions that were on my mind. Most people want to help others. You have to be open to saying “I don’t know” You have to be reflective. Be reflective in your successes. Need to relax, slow down, and wait for things to happen. Felt drawn back to the reservation. Groomed to teach in Bismarck, but felt that working on a reservation would be more appropriate. Throw-away kids - Kara wants to advocate for them. Loading… Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher.  Ready for a Modern Web Site for your school? Simple School Sites is the place to go for high quality Wordpress sites specially designed for schools. 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 Join the Transformative Mastermind Today and work on your school, not just in it. Apply today. We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:Simplify and streamline technologySave teachers’ timeReliably meet Tier 1 standardsImprove student performance on state assessments🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Teacher-led Professional Development with Nathan Adams Transformative Principal 107 Nathan has been a special education teacher for 8 years. He has taught in middle, high, and elementary levels. Teacher led professional development Sponsored by the local teacher’s union. Joined the union that has supported him, in an effort to give back. Idea of helping general education teachers and special education teachers understand the needs of each other. Brotherhood of professionals. Need to find a way to offer this for credit to improve skills but also have incentive. NEA grant that supported professional development for teachers teaching teachers. Institute for Professional Development. Will align in the future to make the district PD calendar aligned with what the association is wanting. Surveyed members to determine what they wanted to learn. This is a perk/benefit for the members of the association. Challenge is finding the time to make this happen. Highlights: Teachers posted what they found beneficial from the courses. Google Certified Teacher, Level I and II. Teachers were responsive to the things they were learning. Advice: Continue to use good teaching strategies. But don’t be demeaning. District started doing magnet schools. Principal that just started in the position. Teacher leader for educational technology. Personable leader, understands the field, understands the kids. Ambassador as a teacher. Weekly email from the principal. Staff meetings are held in a different teacher’s classroom each week. What are we going to do that week that is interesting? Principal asks how he can support us. How to be a transformative principal: Trust the people that are working for you. Loading… Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher.  Ready for a Modern Web Site for your school? Simple School Sites is the place to go for high quality Wordpress sites specially designed for schools. 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 Join the Transformative Mastermind Today and work on your school, not just in it. Apply today. We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:Simplify and streamline technologySave teachers’ timeReliably meet Tier 1 standardsImprove student performance on state assessments🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Kristin Bentley is a 2nd grade teacher in a Title I school. She created an awesome app that helps manage classroom behavior: Color My Day Introductory Video Why use this rather than Class Dojo. Think Time forms and Office Discipline Referrals are built-in to the app. Shoutout to Tricia Skyles ODRs going down means nothing if teacher morale is going up. The process of creating an app from the ground up. Crayons and paper Lucidchart Found a graphic designer. Found a programmer. Tell people about your ideas, find out what people are looking for in their schools. Do something to make people’92s lives easier. Make sure it is not something extra for teachers or admins to implement. Need 3 people: Expert, designer, and developer. Three ways to get it off the ground: pay someone, find someone to buy into your vision, find investors. Planbook Support teachers who are building apps to support students. Loading… Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher.  Ready for a Modern Web Site for your school? Simple School Sites is the place to go for high quality Wordpress sites specially designed for schools. 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 Join the Transformative Mastermind Today and work on your school, not just in it. Apply today. We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:Simplify and streamline technologySave teachers’ timeReliably meet Tier 1 standardsImprove student performance on state assessments🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Kristin Bentley is a 2nd grade teacher in a Title I school. She created an awesome app that helps manage classroom behavior: Color My Day [Introductory Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4IrMJpInOk&feature=youtu.be) Using card pulls is not very effective. Clip charts use separate clips to show that positive and negative behavior. The two clips gave the ’93naughty’94 kids a chance to have a good day. Goal for card pulls is to stay positive. Card pulls don’92t give chances for kids to see what they can accomplish. Clips change kids self-esteem. Physical chart helps kids see and experience changes. Digital version allows teachers to collect and analyze data. Think Time form allows student to fill out the form with teacher and record it in the app. Data is collected school-wide and allows teachers to customize their individual reasons for clips up and down. Digital version of clip chart allows teachers to have data to collect and prepare for RTI, special ed referrals, and more. The app keeps track of the ratio of positive to negative ratios. Very powerful for teachers to see how they are interacting with their students. Teaches them a truth that we are both good and bad, and not just one or the other. Discounts available by mentioning this podcast. Huge discount for teachers. colormydaykids.com colormydaykids@gmail.com. Loading… Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher.  Ready for a Modern Web Site for your school? Simple School Sites is the place to go for high quality Wordpress sites specially designed for schools. 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 Join the Transformative Mastermind Today and work on your school, not just in it. Apply today. We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:Simplify and streamline technologySave teachers’ timeReliably meet Tier 1 standardsImprove student performance on state assessments🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Principal of South Heights Elementary in his 20th year. Rob doesn’t just look at his students currently, he has a much bigger vision of what they can accomplish and how they can make life better forever. Rob keeps in contact with kids who went to The 1199 many years ago and makes sure that they can still find ways to be successful. Special things you do during Christmas for your schools You can be an awesome combination of tradition and innovation. We celebrate all of our holidays. We take all of our kids to a movie. Santa’s Treasure Island Mall! Most schools going away from all this extra stuff, and it seems you are going toward it full steam ahead! Work hard, play hard, succeed! Neighborhood Christmas parade. Go big or go home. How has the community changed since you’ve been doing these things? This school not prison, so let’s make it enjoyable. Big ideas are going to happen. People are willing to go out and make it happen. People are willing to come in and do extra as well. Expensive endeavors require the community to buy in. People like to be part of something bigger than themselves. People look at their budget and try to see what they can do, and that is the wrong way, they need to find their ideas and make their budget work how they need it. We do lots of recruiting to find the right people. Non traditional interview methods. Kids interview them first. All about getting inside their head. Interested in what they think. We want people that want to be at South Heights. We can’t handle mediocre. There’s no better identifier of authenticity than the kids. Kids interview applicant, teacher support interviews kids to see what they think. If you can’t handle being interviewed by a bunch of kids, you might not be able to handle 30 kindergarteners. How to be a transformative principal? You’ve got to understand it is not about you, it is about them. It is about building people up. Loading… Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher.  Ready for a Modern Web Site for your school? Simple School Sites is the place to go for high quality Wordpress sites specially designed for schools. 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 Join the Transformative Mastermind Today and work on your school, not just in it. Apply today. We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:Simplify and streamline technologySave teachers’ timeReliably meet Tier 1 standardsImprove student performance on state assessments🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Rob Carroll Principal of South Heights Elementary in his 20th year. Rob doesn’t just look at his students currently, he has a much bigger vision of what they can accomplish and how they can make life better forever. Rob keeps in contact with kids who went to The 1199 many years ago and makes sure that they can still find ways to be successful. Man cave show on home and garden channel gave them at Own version of Harlem Children’s Zone Timeline of success milestone From conception to career, how does every child succeed. Not just a K–5 school. We help them after they move on. Help them in high school. Help them for college applications. We really love our students. Circle of life sustains change. 11 years of doing college tours. Kids had an unrealistic expectation of college. K goes to local community college Each grade goes to a different college. Our 5th graders understand more about college than a lot of juniors and seniors. If it’s good enough for my biological kids, it’s good enough for all kids. Former kids of South Heights are the tour guides at the colleges. Everyone can lead. Ideas rule, not people. College tours are my baby, but everyone else leads something in our school. As long as the idea matches the vision and mission, we say go for it! What do our great people need to be inspired and successful? Failures recently? We love each other as a team. Thought we could build our own leadership curriculum ourselves, but it didn’t work out very well. Build, don’t copy. You’ve only got so many shots at the same idea as a leader. You can get a little full of yourself sometimes. Respect the awesomeness of the task. Loading… Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher.  Ready for a Modern Web Site for your school? Simple School Sites is the place to go for high quality Wordpress sites specially designed for schools. 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 Join the Transformative Mastermind Today and work on your school, not just in it. Apply today. We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:Simplify and streamline technologySave teachers’ timeReliably meet Tier 1 standardsImprove student performance on state assessments🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Brian Costello is in his 7th year of teaching in Southern New Jersey.  Brian started his career as an instructional aide before going on to teach Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd Grades.  He is an avid writer, blogger, and Twitter user that has published his first children’s novel: Will McGill and the Magic Hat.  Brian speaks at Educational conferences on topics including educational technology, leadership, communication, and professional development.  See Brian’s previous posts for CUE.   Here is what we talked about today: Will McGill and the Magic Hat Independent Publisher CUE blog Classroom Community World Tour - helping kids see what happens in other places. Tour Builder - “Tour Builder is a new way to show people the places you’ve visited and the experiences you had along the way using Google Earth. It lets you pick the locations right on the map, add in photos, text, and video, and then share your creation.” The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds You use this to show students what life is like in another place. Twitter: @btcostello05. Inspired by the realization that we are in a really small community, and if we can show kids more of what the world is really like, they will be more open to what is possible for them. How to be a transformative principal: Find ways to say Yes. People are more willing to do things when you don’t tell them no. Loading… Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher.  Ready for a Modern Web Site for your school? Simple School Sites is the place to go for high quality Wordpress sites specially designed for schools. 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 Join the Transformative Mastermind Today and work on your school, not just in it. Apply today. We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:Simplify and streamline technologySave teachers’ timeReliably meet Tier 1 standardsImprove student performance on state assessments🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Brian Costello is in his 7th year of teaching in Southern New Jersey.  Brian started his career as an instructional aide before going on to teach Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd Grades.  He is an avid writer, blogger, and Twitter user that has published his first children’s novel: Will McGill and the Magic Hat.  Brian speaks at Educational conferences on topics including educational technology, leadership, communication, and professional development.  See Brian’s previous posts for CUE.   Here is what we talked about today: Working with the youngest kids provides you with some things that start to disappear as they get older. The light bulbs go off way more than when they are older. Rotating through content areas 1–4th grades. Give teachers a chance to focus more on a content area. Can be more difficult to build relationships with students. Works together with other teachers more on because of their transitions. How to deal with mean teachers. Confront them directly. State the appropriate professional response. How you treat people says a lot about you and how you feel. Projection How do I interact with this person after a confrontation? Continue to be professional towards that person. Need to model functional relationships for students - appropriate, nonviolent, non-angry problem solving solutions. Loading… Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher.  Ready for a Modern Web Site for your school? Simple School Sites is the place to go for high quality Wordpress sites specially designed for schools. 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 Join the Transformative Mastermind Today and work on your school, not just in it. Apply today. We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:Simplify and streamline technologySave teachers’ timeReliably meet Tier 1 standardsImprove student performance on state assessments🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Today, Damon Hargraves, host of the WorkflowED podcast turned the mic on me and interviewed me for the 100th episode of the Transformative Principal Podcast. I can’t believe I have done 100 episodes of this podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this and helping me make it better.RTI idea was in place, but we needed a little kick in the pants.Value of getting away from the day-to-day issues at school.How to keep it going when you come back from conferences: hang up the poster.Reducing ELA from 90 minutes per day to 45 minutes per day, with students who need 90 minutes still getting that much time.How to get teachers to agree to reduce the number of minutes for their content area.Yolanda WesterbergWe can always be better, so let’s always improve.There is a story written before you. Accept the story that has been there before your chapter 1 starts.How to have solid forward momentum as you make changes, and not get stalled.Meeting with the correct people so you don’t get stalled.Getting feedback and adjusting course.Schedules Explained for Teachers videoSchedules Explained for Parents videoMaking sure that the right people had the information at the right time.The schedule we creating had a place for every student in the school.How to design software for your school when you don’t have what you need.Having plans in place even if it is going to be very difficult.Guru Technologies - the company we hired to develop the app for us.The app you can actually use yourself: Pickr AppTeacher choice tutorial - kids know they aren’t performing and are eager to have the extra help.Be simple about what you’re trying to implement.MVP - minimum viable productGoals for moving forward: anticipate needs earlier.The book by Austin Buffum and Mike Mattos: It’s About Time Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host.Buy Communication CardsShow notes on transformativeprincipal.orgDownload Paperless Principal.   Join the Transformative Mastermind Today and work on your school, not just in it. Apply today. We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:Simplify and streamline technologySave teachers’ timeReliably meet Tier 1 standardsImprove student performance on state assessments🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Overview:  Woodson has been an all-day everyday Kindergarten Center for the past 11 years.  In the past 4 years enrollment has fluctuated between 360–425 students (currently about 385 with our preschool class).  51% of our students are students of color, and we have a 61% free and reduced lunch student population.  We have 16 sections of kindergarten this year–13 on the traditional school calendar and 3 on the modified (year long) calendar as they feed into the modified calendar elementary school.  We have been a PBIS school for the past 5 years and this year we were award a “School of Excellence” award by the State Department for our work in established strong tier one behavioral supports for all students.  This year we have implemented a behavior specialist position as well as being the second year in our bi-linguage reading pilot in which we have a spanish speaking paraprofessional front loading reading instruction in home languages of a sub section of our EL students.  Last year we tried a new venue for Parent Education via videos of local “celebrities” and teachers role playing activities that parents could do with their children to prepare for K. Bio:  This is my 4th year as Principal of the Woodson Kindergarten Center.  Prior to this position I was an Assistant Principal, Supervisor of Special Education (all in Austin MN) and Special Education Teacher in Saint Paul MN.  Besides being the Principal at Woodson I am a facilitator for the Minnesota Principal Academy out of the University of Minnesota in units surrounding literacy, ethical leadership and RtI.   This year I am also a presenter for the Minnesota Department of Education in their P3 Principal Leadership Series.  I have started a blog.   Provide appropriate staff development Provide flipped PD Teachers leading PD (play center activities) Solid Understanding of developmental milestones Become friends with the experts Adjust schedule for success of students School time: 8:30–2:05 with teacher prep time after school. No specialists to reduce transitions for students Teachers run everything Parent Engagement Connecting with Parents Packers in Training Being a partner Community initiative for kids to be ready for Kindergarten, so local celebrities get in on the action for “Ready, Set, Go” Make videos for parents Be more knowledgable about preschool options in the community Meet the pre-k providers and respect their work Give parents information about Pre-K options. Service learning opportunities for former students. Principal’s academy Professional development for principals, in a cohort. Principal as an ethical leader: just, fair and caring How to deal with Social Media issues BIFF Brief, Informative, Friendly, Firm Loading… Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher.  Ready for a Modern Web Site for your school? Simple School Sites is the place to go for high quality Wordpress sites specially designed for schools. 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 Join the Transformative Mastermind Today and work on your school, not just in it. Apply today. We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:Simplify and streamline technologySave teachers’ timeReliably meet Tier 1 standardsImprove student performance on state assessments🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.