Just about two weeks ago, our very large family grew just a little larger with the addition of our youngest family member, a betta fish named Cheese. Who knew this tiny addition had much to teach our family and my school?
Category: Equity
Long Live Cheese! Lessons on Inclusivity From the Fishbowl
Principals and the Pandemic
NASSP President Robert Motley recently called one of his students to see why he wasn’t logging into synchronous online classes at his Maryland high school. The student’s reply? He had to take a job at a shipping company to help support his family.
Restorative Practices: Seven Steps for Facilitators and Mediators
By allowing students and adults to improve and repair relationships, restorative practices are key to a healthy school climate. The steps described below are designed to help facilitate a restorative practice session between two students, two adults, or one student and one adult in a small setting—such as an office or conference room. These steps […]
In 2020, We Are All First-Year Principals
As we celebrate National Principals Month during this unusual school year, there’s one thing all 90,000-plus of us have in common: Given the continuing challenges our schools and communities face, we often feel like first-year principals. And that’s okay! Even the most seasoned among us are learning at an incredible pace about the best ways […]
‘The State of American Education’
Kathryn Procope, head of school at the Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science in Washington, D.C., has been focused on “digital poverty”—what’s now commonly referred to as the “digital divide”—since 2005. “We have always sent devices home with students,” said Procope, a 2020 NASSP Digital Principal of the Year. Even so, the challenges […]
Reconsidering Ability Grouping Through an Equity Lens
I have worked in public education for 20 years. I entered the profession because a freshman sociology class in college introduced me to the idea that there were two institutions that impacted socioeconomic mobility—the military and education. The end of segregation in America’s public schools in 1954 is considered a landmark case. But given the […]
Leading Majority-White Schools as a Black Administrator
As educators prepare for the start of the 2020–21 school year, we are facing unprecedented challenges as we seek opportunities to innovate, collaborate, and implement necessary changes to do what is best for our students. Here’s something you need to know. The combined effects of the murders of Amaud Abrey in Georgia and George Floyd […]
Student-Led Celebrations of Diversity and Identity
Supporting more than 65 nationalities, the International School of Kenya is committed to ensuring that we have created a safe place where a foundation of trust, openness, and transparency prevail. At the same time, we need to continually support the development of cultural competence and have regular conversations to build cultural proficiency in our students […]
4 White Lies We Tell Ourselves About Race as Educators
It’s time we shatter barriers to success and learning for people of color, stand against the social injustices in our world, and stop hiding behind the mantra, “I’m white, I can’t speak out on race.” One of our greatest callings as leaders is to bring our school together toward one purpose, unity. This requires leaders […]
Together, We Can: Six Steps to Prepare to Lead This Fall
Brian McCann found guidance for leading during the upcoming school year in, of all places, a young adult novel he picked up in his school library. “It began with this preface that says nothing goes back to exactly how it was—which was what I was trying to do,” McCann, a 2018 Digital Principal of the […]