School of Thought Blog
Middle Level on a College Campus: A Winning Partnership
When you think of the middle level years, you immediately envision awkward physical transitions, acne, loud voices, and quirky attitudes. Then when you picture college, you see young people who are approaching adulthood, finding themselves, and ambitious about their futures. Now put these two together and you have an unlikely partnership that creates amazing opportunities. That is the Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science. Being on the campus of a historically Black university helps our students appreciate their identity and think about what it means to be successful in college. Our Virtual Tour on December 8 will focus on how we work with our students to develop habits of success that include goal setting and self-directed learning.
(more…)What Principals Can Learn From ‘Cobra Kai’
The coronavirus pandemic has taught us all a lot, including a greater appreciation for the little things, like Netflix. With this new appreciation, I came across a TV series I may have skipped over pre-COVID: “Cobra Kai.” It might sound vaguely familiar to any of us old enough to remember the iconic 1984 movie “Karate Kid,” with Danny LaRusso as the New Jersey-born city boy who finds karate and a mentor, Mr. Miyagi, to help him acclimate to life in Los Angeles. Even if you never watched it, don’t remember it, or just were not interested, I believe there are plenty of leadership and life lessons to be gleaned from the series. (more…)
NASSP Works With Congress to Curb Educator Job Loss
As the dust from the election continues to settle, many in Congress have begun to turn their attention back to addressing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on schools. There is renewed hope for a new COVID-19 relief package following Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) recent call for legislation to be passed before the new year. While a relief package is still necessary and would help address some of the more immediate needs of schools as they navigate what are sure to be difficult winter months, policymakers are also working on legislation aimed at addressing educator job loss due to budget cuts, health concerns, and other problems stemming from the pandemic. (more…)
NASSP Presents DonorsChoose Grants for Exceptional NPM ‘Shadowing Visits’ With Lawmakers
Every year during National Principals Month (NPM), NASSP encourages principals to host “shadowing visits” with members of Congress, state and local elected officials, and other community leaders. Shadowing visits are a key part of our advocacy strategy for one simple reason: they work. We’ve seen time and again the transformative impact that getting a lawmaker into a school setting can have as principals show them the needs of today’s students and educators. You have the power to win their support for the causes we all believe in, and we want you to use it! (more…)
Strengthening Systems of Support to Increase Academic Achievement
Since becoming a house principal, I have worked to establish and promote meaningful relationships among both staff and students. These connections create stronger foundations which encourage social, emotional, and, in turn, academic progressions. (more…)
6 Ways Principals Can Empower Student Voice and Choice
Student voice and choice is often talked about in schools but rarely implemented with a consistent focus on empowering students. For this to take place, principals need to intentionally find ways to place student voice and choice at the foundation of their school. My school’s Virtual Tour will focus on strategies to empower student voice and choice in your school. Here are six ways you can do so: (more…)
Using Student Leadership to Make SEL Meaningful for High School Students
A recent focus on social-emotional learning (SEL) has compelled high schools to purchase curricula and add such models as advisory periods or homeroom to teach SEL skills. According to The Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, advisory periods provide a regular time for direct instruction on SEL skills, which is most effective when integrated into a whole-school approach to SEL. In my experience, however, many teenagers perceive isolated advisory SEL lessons as fake or irrelevant and disengage from these valuable learning opportunities. They often feel as though the teacher is lecturing to them and not taking their individuality into account. Our leadership team wanted to provide students with a meaningful SEL experience, and we decided to use student leaders to make this happen. (more…)
District Support Is Key to Principal Success
The following post originally appeared on the Learning Policy Institute’s Learning in the Time of COVID-19 blog, a series that explores evidence-based and equity-focused strategies and investments to address the current crisis and build long-term systems capacity.
In September, Steven Elizondo, principal of Golden Hill K–8, a dual-language immersion school in San Diego, began the complicated task of planning for “phase one” of school reopening. Golden Hill, like all district schools, had started the school year online. But students who needed on-site support, including elementary students who were experiencing learning loss and special education students with high needs, would be back on campus in mid-October, while others would continue with distance learning. The logistics for starting in-person learning safely and getting the correct information to families and staff were daunting. But Principal Elizondo was not in it alone. Thanks to the district’s collaborative learning structure, he and his counterparts at other schools were able to tap the expertise and experience of a colleague who had developed protocols and processes for returning to school, as well as a communications strategy for families and staff. Using these models saved precious time and supported consistent practices across the district. (more…)
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. (more…)
A Start of School Like No Other
Beginning a new program and opening a new building would be a challenge for any school administration team, but doing so during a pandemic has provided many additional obstacles and unique situations. For this school year, I was extremely blessed to be assigned to our new freshman academy that we are beginning at Harrisburg High School. To host this new program, we built a new addition to our current high school. We added 18 new standard classrooms, four new special education rooms, a new media library, a new lunchroom, and two large common learning areas between the four “houses” assigned to our 415 incoming freshmen. It is a beautiful learning facility, and I am fortunate to be the lead administrator for this program. (more…)
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 can be used if the participants have no understanding or background or if they are well versed in restorative practices. (more…)
Perspective: Care for Adults so They Can Care for Children
As was the situation for many educators, I was on spring break in mid-March of 2020 when I received the news that students and staff would not be returning in person to our school buildings as a result of the COVID-10 pandemic. While the closure wasn’t surprising, the “now what,” feeling consumed my every emotion and thought. Would my students be OK away from their routines at school? What collaborative efforts were needed to support my teachers mentally and physically, to forge into whatever phases of teaching came next? Did we have the efficacy, as a staff, to overcome the barriers before us? My mind and time were consumed in planning mode. The problem was, I wasn’t sure what and how to plan—the variables were too vast and unpredictable. (more…)
Just Pick the Pineapple: Building Trust in Turbulence
At the veggie market on the corner of Jamaica Avenue and 216th Street in Queens, NY, my dad showed me how to pick a pineapple. He said, “It just has to smell like a pineapple and feel right, then it’s good to go.” I nodded in agreement, like I wanted him to really believe that I was following him and that I understood this wisdom. (more…)
Building a Successful and Sustainable Bullying Prevention Program
As we observe National Bullying Prevention Month in October, it is a great time for schools across the country to evaluate their bullying prevention strategies. The media attention around bullying has created a sense of resolve around the issue, and as a result there has been a call for action and demands for schools to do what they can to decrease bullying. (more…)
Meaningful Connection: Going Beyond the Virtual Classroom
I recently went to visit one of my students who lives in a migrant labor community near the border of our school district. This was already my 18th visit to a home in this area in the past three weeks. Going into this visit, I worried that students in this community were generally disinterested or unengaged in remote learning. (more…)
Richard Gordon Is NASSP’s 2021 National Principal of the Year
NASSP is excited to announce that Richard Gordon, principal of Paul Robeson High School for Human Services in Philadelphia, is the 2021 National Principal of the Year! The NASSP National Principal of the Year program recognizes outstanding middle level and high school principals who have made amazing contributions to their profession and to students’ learning, and we are honored to recognize Principal Gordon with this award. (more…)
Crushed by the ‘No’
A few years back, the director of counseling and I brought in a group of high school leadership students. We tasked the students with developing a student workroom/support center. The only major job I assigned to both myself and the director was that no matter what questions came from the students, we had to start our response with a “yes.” While the students fired off ideas that ranged from bowling alleys to giant slides, my director and I found we enjoyed the session. With big smiles, we crafted a yes response to every question. The students fed off our positivity and we found their student workrooms were not only were creative, but they became more practical the more we said yes. Through the process, we developed a student work center that serves as a gathering place for all students seeking academic support. (more…)
Self-Care Lessons From My Four-Year-Old
As an assistant principal, teachers come to me for advice about dealing with the difficult situations they face, many directly related to the sudden switch from in-person to virtual learning. The increased number of emails and demands upon teacher time that extend beyond the regular school day have created an additional layer of stress. Administrators need to be cognizant of this and make sure that our faculty are taken care of. However, we cannot take care of others if we are not taking care of ourselves. (more…)
5 Keys to Developing a Future-Driven School
This year has demonstrated in extraordinary ways that we’re preparing students for an unpredictable world. We can’t possibly envision the challenges and opportunities our students will experience in their lives beyond school. But we can know with certainty the world is changing rapidly and continuously, and we must prepare them for the unknown. While there may not be another COVID-19, there will be many surprising developments for the rising generation. We must prepare them to be confident, adaptable learners, no matter what they encounter. We can’t just focus on academic training in isolation and think that’s meeting their needs. It’s critical to have a larger vision that prepares students for the future, a vision that’s bigger than test scores, grades, diplomas, or mastering standards. My school’s Virtual Tour will focus on the keys to creating a future-driven approach to education. (more…)
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 to support our students and staff through any combination of remote, in-person, and hybrid learning scenarios. (more…)