SchoolCEO: K-12 Marketing + Communications

The charter school movement has exploded since the first ones opened in Minnesota in the 1980s. But when the first charter school moved in near Dr. Shon Hildreth, then a principal in North Carolina, he didn’t know how to respond. After experiencing the impact on his school’s enrollment, Shon decided to explore in his dissertation how a charter school opening impacts a local district. He was familiar with the enrollment changes, but he decided to dig deeper into whether the districts changed their practices in response to the charter school and if the charter school led to improvement and innovation in the local districts. In this episode, Shon shares his insights from his research and his own experiences working in districts impacted by charter schools.Randolph County Schools (@RandCoSchools)Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for more advice, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com. Follow SchoolCEO on LinkedIn or X/Twitter @school_ceo. Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for research, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com.Learn more about SchoolCEO and all of our resources on our About page. SchoolCEO is powered by Apptegy, the maker of the leading K-12 communications and brand management platform. 

Dr. Andy Crozier became a superintendent when he was 28. At the time, he was the youngest superintendent in the state of Iowa. Despite his age and the dreaded label “millennial,” Dr. Crozier simply focused on what all good superintendents do—building trust. There have been many misconceptions pushed about millennials. Even now, many don’t realize that the youngest millennials graduated college years ago, and the oldest are hitting their 40s. With millennials now making up the majority of the workforce—including in schools—more superintendencies will be filled by millennials. In this episode, Dr. Crozier shares his own experience as a millennial superintendent and speculates on how the superintendency might change with generational shifts.Dr. Andy Crozier (@acrozier22)Central Lee Community School District (@CentralLeeCSD)Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for more advice, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com. Follow SchoolCEO on LinkedIn or X/Twitter @school_ceo. Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for research, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com.Learn more about SchoolCEO and all of our resources on our About page. SchoolCEO is powered by Apptegy, the maker of the leading K-12 communications and brand management platform. 

By the time a student graduates high school, they’ll have spent about a year of their education under the supervision of a substitute teacher. Unfortunately, for most schools, the only requirement to “sub” is a negative TB test. It's a lose-lose system—kids miss learning; administrators, paraprofessionals, and teachers are frustrated; and the substitutes themselves often have no context for the schools they're walking into.In light of these issues, Central Falls School District decided to rethink the traditional substitute teacher model. In this episode, Jay Midwood, the district’s Chief of Human Capital, shares how the small Rhode Island district built its Warrior Teaching Fellowship to ensure quality instruction for students and a robust talent pipeline for the district.If you would like to connect with Jay about the Warrior Teaching Fellowship, you can email at midwoodj@cfschools.net or reach him on Twitter.Jay Midwood (@JayMidwood)Central Falls School District (@CFSchoolsRI)Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for more advice, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com. Follow SchoolCEO on LinkedIn or X/Twitter @school_ceo. Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for research, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com.Learn more about SchoolCEO and all of our resources on our About page. SchoolCEO is powered by Apptegy, the maker of the leading K-12 communications and brand management platform. 

If you’ve been in the education field for some time, you’ve probably heard people championing the need for social and emotional learning in schools. And once the pandemic hit, the cries for more SEL—not just for your students, for you and your staff as well—became even louder.But not everyone sees the value in greater social-emotional supports. Many educators were surprised when some conservatives began speaking out against SEL in schools, connecting it with critical race theory and Marxism. Now, school boards and district leaders are dealing with yet another ideological uproar.In this episode, we chat with Adam Tyner, Associate Director of Research for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, about his recent report, How to Sell SEL: Parents and the Politics of Social-Emotional Learning, in which he explores the connection between political party affiliation and support for SEL.Adam Tyner (@redandexpert)Thomas B Fordham Institute (@educationgadfly)Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for more advice, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com. Follow SchoolCEO on LinkedIn or X/Twitter @school_ceo. Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for research, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com.Learn more about SchoolCEO and all of our resources on our About page. SchoolCEO is powered by Apptegy, the maker of the leading K-12 communications and brand management platform. 

School shootings have been on the rise in recent years. For obvious reasons, any measure about school safety usually gets a lot of attention and strong opinions. One proposal in the school safety discussion is having armed personnel on school grounds. While many districts now have resources officers in buildings, some have proposed arming teachers and other non-law enforcement members of the school team. In his recent dissertation, Dr. Mark Lenhian from Wayne Community Schools in Nebraska researched school emergency management planning, including arming teachers. Mark surveyed superintendents from Nebraska, some of whom are in the unique position of being miles away from any form of professional emergency response, about their perceptions of arming their staff to protect students. In this episode, Mark shares how his research has surprised him and how he is working to continually better understand how to keep schools like his own safe places to learn. Dr. Mark Lenihan (@MarkLenihan61)Wayne Community Schools (@WayneSchools)Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for more advice, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com. Follow SchoolCEO on LinkedIn or X/Twitter @school_ceo. Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for research, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com.Learn more about SchoolCEO and all of our resources on our About page. SchoolCEO is powered by Apptegy, the maker of the leading K-12 communications and brand management platform. 

When Dr. Julie Vitale was growing up, she wanted to be a nun, an actress, or a teacher. Because of the impact teachers had on her own life, teaching won out. Now at the helm of California’s Oceanside Unified School District, Vitale has brought her passion for making students feel loved, cared for, and welcome to the extremely diverse district. Thanks to the work she and her team have done, Vitale was named the 2021 Equity Champion by the San Diego County of Education. In this episode, Vitale shares how Oceanside has become a leader in addressing equity challenges and how this work is at the core of her love for education.Dr. Julie Vitale (@OsideSup)Oceanside Unified School District (@OsideUSD)Click here to access the LGBTQ+ Youth Standards of Care, which are mentioned in this episode.Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for more advice, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com. Follow SchoolCEO on LinkedIn or X/Twitter @school_ceo. Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for research, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com.Learn more about SchoolCEO and all of our resources on our About page. SchoolCEO is powered by Apptegy, the maker of the leading K-12 communications and brand management platform. 

Dr. Julie Stamm grew up loving sports—from the three she lettered in throughout high school to her beloved Wisconsin Badgers football. This passion led her to a career in athletic training, where she eventually witnessed a high school football player suffer a traumatic concussion that affected all aspects of his life.Wanting to understand more about the brain and how to keep it safe, Stamm went on to become a researcher at the Boston University Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center and the Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory at Harvard Medical School. Now, she's an expert on brain development and how contact sports can impact the brains of young athletes.In her recently published book The Brain on Youth Sports: The Science, the Myth, and the Future, Stamm explores the benefits of sports for youth and what we need to know about protecting young athletes' brains. In this episode, she shares not only her research and recommendations, but also the personal experiences with sports that shaped her life and education.Dr. Julie Stamm (@JulieStammPhD)You can find Dr. Stamm's book The Brain On Youth Sports: The Science, The Myths, And The Future on her website or wherever you get your books. Check out the Virginia Tech Helmet Ratings to see unbiased reports on helmets and other safety equipment for sports. Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for more advice, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com. Follow SchoolCEO on LinkedIn or X/Twitter @school_ceo. Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for research, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com.Learn more about SchoolCEO and all of our resources on our About page. SchoolCEO is powered by Apptegy, the maker of the leading K-12 communications and brand management platform. 

Until 2019, Liz Kirby had spent her entire education career in Chicago, moving from a teacher to a superintendent-equivalent position in the country’s third-largest school district. When she decided to “come home” to the Cleveland, Ohio, area, she thought Chicago had prepared her for just about anything. But after taking the helm at Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District, Kirby realized there was a big difference between leading in Chicago and being the superintendent of a smaller school district in a state rife with school choice legislation. Early on, Kirby recognized that she would need to take on more roles than she ever expected—including that of a politician. In this episode, Kirby shares how she balances her district duties with her political advocacy at the state and local level, working to provide the best possible education for her students.Liz Kirby (@CHUHSupt)Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District (@CHUHSchools)Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for more advice, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com. Follow SchoolCEO on LinkedIn or X/Twitter @school_ceo. Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for research, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com.Learn more about SchoolCEO and all of our resources on our About page. SchoolCEO is powered by Apptegy, the maker of the leading K-12 communications and brand management platform. 

When the pandemic hit, districts across the country had to rely on their technology teams like never before. Thanks to the pandemic, technology is irrevocably intertwined with education, and superintendents have to be technologically literate. Luckily for his district, Dr. Doug Brubaker, Superintendent of Texarkana ISD in Texas, served as a technology director before ever reaching the superintendency, helping him and his teams respond to the tech demands the pandemic brought. In this episode, Dr. Brubaker shares how he’s thinking about technology in the Texas district and how superintendents can use technology not to replace educational practices, but to redefine them.Dr. Doug Brubaker (@DougBrubaker)Texarkana ISD (@TexarkanaISD)Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for more advice, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com. Follow SchoolCEO on LinkedIn or X/Twitter @school_ceo. Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for research, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com.Learn more about SchoolCEO and all of our resources on our About page. SchoolCEO is powered by Apptegy, the maker of the leading K-12 communications and brand management platform. 

Having come from a long line of educators, Jeff Butts always knew he wanted to be an administrator. Now, Butts is the superintendent of MSD Wayne township, one of 11 school districts in Indianapolis. As the superintendent of a diverse student body, a large percentage of whom qualify for assistance, Butts’ leadership is characterized by visibility and advocacy. Butts is intentional about how he engages with all sectors of the community, believing that a great community makes great schools and vice versa. In this episode of SchoolCEO Conversations, Butts shares how he has worked with his community to support students—from getting coffee with legislators to meeting with health commissioners to borrowing all the coolers he could find in order to safely transport meals to students at the beginning of the pandemic.Dr. Jeff Butts (@WayneTwpSuper)MSD Wayne Township (@WayneTwpSchools)Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for more advice, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com. Follow SchoolCEO on LinkedIn or X/Twitter @school_ceo. Subscribe to SchoolCEO at SchoolCEO.com for research, stories, and strategies for leading your schools. And if you have a story you’d like to share, email us at editor@schoolceo.com.Learn more about SchoolCEO and all of our resources on our About page. SchoolCEO is powered by Apptegy, the maker of the leading K-12 communications and brand management platform.