Schoolutions: Curious Educators. Evidence-Based Strategies. Classrooms Where Every Child Thrives.

Every morning at Quil Ceda Tulalip Elementary on the Tulalip Reservation in Washington, drummers and singers greet students at the gym doors. Kids dance on a floor that stands for a longhouse. Then they walk back to class, where first and second grade co-teachers Kristin Page and Dr. Melissa Cullen carry that energy into every lesson until the last bell. I've studied their classroom for a yea...

November on Schoolutions is about learning that goes beyond the classroom and stays rooted in place, community, and tradition. I talk with educators who build school culture, student belonging, and student engagement by connecting kids to the world around them. I open the month with Kristin Page and Dr. Melissa Cullen, co-teachers of a multi-age class at Quil Ceda Tulalip Elementary in Tulalip, Wa...

Jason Blair planned a fort-building challenge for 30-40 minutes. It took two weeks. One student stood on a chair shouting orders. Another group snuck off with supplies to build their own. Someone cried because nobody was listening. The fort was never the point. In part two of my S6E7 Schoolutions conversation with Jason, we get into what an artist mindset looks like on a Tuesday morning in a real...

Jason Blair turned his classroom into Imagination Island, and his students walked in on a boardwalk under black-light stars. Jason lined the tables up right in front of the door. Kids chose to "swim under the water" or "walk on the boardwalk" to get to their seats. The oohs and ahhs started before anyone sat down. That's classroom belonging built in the first 30 seconds of...

Empathy interviews show you how a student (or teacher) actually feels about the challenge in front of them. Run them one-on-one, or teach kids to interview each other. They sit at the center of design thinking. Start with introductions. Each student shares their name plus the project they're working on or the problem they're stuck on. Then ask follow-ups: ➡️What successes have you found?...

Jason Blair graduated high school ranked around 340th out of 360. He walked out with a diploma and the belief that he wasn't smart. College told him a different story. The way he was smart had never been valued in school. Jason is a creativity specialist, practicing artist, and elementary art teacher with more than 24 years in the classroom. I've followed his LinkedIn posts for years. Th...

Your core program already holds more than you could teach in a year. So where does a whole book go? In part two of my S6E6 Schoolutions conversation with Jennifer Serravallo , we get practical about Whole Book Comprehension, her new Heinemann resource launching in November 2026 for grades 1 through 6. Jen's answer to the time question is specific. If your core program has six modules, take on...

Teachers keep telling me the same thing. Their students can't stay with a book. Jennifer Serravallo sees it in classrooms across the country and at her own kitchen table, where her daughters leave books untouched. Short passages are part of the reason. When kids read one-page texts every day, they never practice holding a detail from chapter two until it pays off in chapter nine. That's...

Try It Tuesday: Read the whole book before you teach it. That habit changed my lesson planning more than anything else I've tried. We hear "use data" and "plan with students in mind" all the time. You can't do either until you know where the text will trip kids up. Here's my process. I read the full picture book or chapter book first. I flag characters, plot stru...

When did your students last read a book from page one to the last page? Teachers keep telling me the same thing. Kids are struggling to stick with a book. Low engagement and short attention in class get blamed on phones, but in this S6E6 Schoolutions conversation, Jennifer Serravallo points to something else on the teacher's desk. Core programs built on one-page passages that look like the te...

If most of your reading assessments ask for a claim plus three pieces of evidence, some of your readers may never show up in the grade book. In part two of our S6E5 Schoolutions conversation, Angela Lathem-Ballard returns to show why. She teaches fifth- and sixth-grade humanities at the Center for Teaching and Learning in rural Maine, and she explains inductive and deductive reasoning the way she...

A student quietly running the lights from the booth becomes a confident, creative leader on stage. In this short clip, educator Angela Lathem-Ballard shares teaching tips on how seeing students in a different light can change classroom belonging, student engagement, and student success. Angela reminds teachers, education coaches, and instructional leaders that we aren't experts in someone els...

✏️ Try It Tuesday: Writing Folders, Writer's Notebooks & Doing Your Own Assignment Writing doesn't happen in a straight line. Angela Lathem-Ballard and I talked about that on the podcast this week, and it reminded me of the folders and notebooks I bring into every writing conference and mini-lesson I teach. Here's what's inside them. In this reel: ✅ My K-2 writing folder....

Angela Lathem-Ballard holds four roles at one small school in rural Maine. She teaches fifth- and sixth-grade humanities, teaches art from pre-K through eighth grade, directs the middle school play, and supervises visiting teachers from other states and countries who fly in to watch her in action. In part one of our S6E5 Schoolutions conversation, I ask how Angela balances all four roles. Angela w...

Here's a test for tomorrow's lesson. Could you hit play, walk out of the room, and have it run exactly the same without you? If so, Katie Lewis White says you're presenting, not facilitating. In part two of Schoolutions S6E4, Katie and I discuss what separates the two. Presenting is a one-way message. Facilitation is a conversation. It means watching who's leaning in and who&ap...

Could your lesson run the same way if you walked out of the room? My guest Katie Lewis White says if the answer is yes, you're presenting, not facilitating learning. In the full episode, Katie shares what to watch for when you shift from presenting to facilitating, why a silent classroom tells you something, and how outdated slides and handouts make facilitation harder. She also opens up abou...

Ever rebuilt a Google Doc you knew you'd already made? My Schoolutions   podcast guest, Katie Lewis White , taught me there's a name for that. It's called learning debt, and once I heard it, I saw it everywhere. My Try It Tuesday tip: build one master hub doc for each unit you teach. Put every link inside it. Videos, graphic organizers, slide decks, readings. When it's time to...

It's 9:45 on a Sunday night. You're digging through a shared Google Drive for a document you made last year. You can't find it, so you rebuild it. Two hours gone. Katie Lewis White calls this learning debt, and in this S6E4 Schoolutions conversation, she shows me how much it costs teachers and schools. Katie spent eight years teaching Spanish in a K-12 school and has over a decade o...

October on Schoolutions is all about depth over delivery. I edited every episode this month and noticed one question running through all four conversations: how do we ask kids to make meaning and wonder more, so learning sticks? Here's who joins me. Katie Lewis White explains learning debt. I didn't know it had a name until she told me. It affects every teacher and every school. She also...

Jennifer Orr felt she had to prove herself to new colleagues in her 28th year of teaching. In part two of our S6E3 Schoolutions conversation, she explains why that feeling has nothing to do with being new and everything to do with being human. We take apart the myth of the Pinterest-perfect classroom and discuss why bare walls invite students to co-create the space and build a sense of belonging i...

Nervous about meeting skeptical parents at the start of the school year? You're not alone. 💛 In this reel, educator Jennifer Orr shares how she built trust with families as a 25-year-old first-year teacher, and the two mindset shifts that make parent communication feel less intimidating and far more powerful. TIP #1: LEAD WITH CURIOSITY Instead of trying to prove yourself, invite caregivers...

Struggling to connect with a few students this school year? Try the 2x10 strategy! 🍎 In this Try It Tuesday reel, I share a simple, relationship-first approach from this week's podcast guest, Jennifer Orr, for teachers who are struggling to reach two or three students. Whether kids are resistant, having a hard time with the back-to-school transition, or showing low engagement, the 2x10 strat...

Four days into her 29th year of teaching, Jennifer Orr already knows which student she hasn't figured out yet. She also knows they'll get there. In part one of our S6E3 Schoolutions conversation, Jennifer shares the teaching tips she wishes someone had handed her in 1998, straight from her book, Letters to a New Teacher: Real Advice and Practical Strategies for Getting Started in Element...

58% of recent high school graduates say they held back their real opinion on a political or civic topic in class. When asked who they were worried about, 91% said their classmates. Only 41% said the teacher. In this S6E2 Schoolutions solo episode, I break down the Sandra Day O'Connor Institute ⁩'s 2026 report, "Why Are Students Self-Censoring in Civics Class?" It follows the in...

91% of students who self-censor in civics class say they're worried about their classmates. Only 41% said the teacher. That finding comes from a new Sandra Day O'Connor Institute report, " Why Are Students Self-Censoring in Civics Class? " I'm breaking down the full report Friday on the Schoolutions podcast. Today is one number and one strategy you can try tomorrow. I was...