Blog
Leading and Monitoring the Work of Teams While Incorporating Virtual, Face-to-Face, and Blended Instruction
When I began my new journey as a secondary school principal in the summer of 2019, everything was relatively normal—meeting new staff, identifying great things happening at the school and . . . Read more
Pandemic Provides New Lens for Clear Mission
Over the past 17 years, I have had the distinct pleasure of working with a wide variety of schools. Some of them were public, others private or charter schools. Some were comprised of students from . . . Read more
Game On
My phone rang that Sunday and, on the line, I heard my 18-year-old son’s quivering voice say, “Dad, Kobe died.” I sat in the car stunned. I turned on the radio to find out . . . Read more
Staying the Course with a Smart Assessment Plan
It’s a cool Saturday morning in October. Everybody is gathered at the Tim Nixon Invitational Cross Country meet in Liberty, Missouri. Parents gather on the sideline straining in . . . Read more
'Better' Doesn't Happen All By Itself
My granddaddy used to say, “Tighten up every little chance you get. ‘Better’ doesn’t happen all by itself.” And my granddaddy was always right. (With the exception . . . Read more
Are you a tutor or teacher?
In one of the schools where I work, the principal once commented that it makes a difference if you believe yourself to be a tutor or a teacher. We discussed it further, and she shared her belief that living as a PLC helped pave the way for many of her teachers to make the shift. Read more
Coordinate, Manage, Lead
These three words all have something to do with making something happen. Yet in the PLC at Work® culture, there are very important distinctions among those words that can have a profound impact on the way your building operates to ensure high levels of learning for all students. Read more
Your Circle of Influence in a PLC
You might be wondering, “What is my Circle of Influence when it comes to the PLC process?” The innermost Circle of Influence for the teacher is the classroom and the students within it. It is in that circle that a teacher can and should be accountable to answer the four critical questions of learning. Read more
How Hundred Day Plans Sustain a Culture of Continuous Improvement
You’re feeling good – you have created demand for modeling your school as a PLC and have structures in place to answer the key questions. You are making progress along the PLC journey… Well, you think you are. Or perhaps your PLC is stagnant; you are not seeing progress or you are not sure about how to measure it. Or maybe your school is just beginning the PLC journey and you are questioning how to monitor the first stages, especially since small wins are essential in the beginning to sustain the momentum. Or perhaps you’re wrestling with when and how to lay out the next steps of your school’s improvement work and are trying to determine how it fits into the larger school improvement plan. Read more
Legendary Lessons I Wish I’d Known My First Year of Teaching
I recently spent time with my parents for our weekly lunch date. Amid our customary conversations about the state of our nation’s political system and where the best senior citizen lunch discounts can be found, we began to muse about life lessons that I had learned during my formative years. After much time had passed, these lessons (and the resulting consequences) are now looked back upon with some measure of fondness. But during the time they occurred, these lessons and consequences evoked the same emotional reaction as losing my favorite George Brett baseball card. Read more
Teaching Students to Be Responsible With PLCs
In a blog post last year called Do PLCs Enable Students to Act Irresponsibly? (February 16, 2010), I presented the premise that schools should do more than hope students act responsibly but rather should put procedures in place to require students to do so. I acknowledged that almost all educators would prefer that students act responsibly because responsible behavior is important to their success in school and in life. I also suggested that regrettably, some of the students who enter our schools do not act responsibly. Read more