Homeroom Attendance

By the end of October, just about every educator has quietly decided who a few of their students are. Nobody announces it and there’s no form for it, but somewhere between the first week of school and now, you looked at a student and thought, “I know who he is.” Edward DeShazer admits he’s done it too. In this episode he shows where that decision usually gets made. Every kid has two files: the off...

Sometime in the last two weeks, have you sat in your car in the school parking lot, engine off, not ready to go in? Maybe for a minute, maybe for ten, wondering how many more years you have left. Edward DeShazer has been there, even after 21 years in education. In this episode he takes on a belief a lot of teachers pick up early: good teachers don’t get tired. RAND’s 2026 national survey found tha...

There’s a thought a lot of teachers have and never say in a staff meeting. You’re thinking about one student, the one in the back, and a quiet voice says, “Maybe I’m not the right person for this kid. Somebody who grew up the way he grew up could reach him better.” Edward DeShazer was that student. He started receiving special education services in third grade and was expelled in sixth grade, in e...

A chair hits the floor. A student is yelling. Twenty five faces turn to look at one person, and that person is you. Last episode we talked about how students copy the adults around them. This episode is about the moment they copy hardest. Edward DeShazer slows the first 10 seconds of a student blowup all the way down: what happens in your body, why your stress response can’t be trusted to make the...

Your students will forget the vocabulary words. They will forget the anchor chart steps. What they will remember is how you looked at them when they walked in after getting in trouble somewhere else in the building. Edward opens with the Bobo doll experiment from 1961 — preschoolers watched an adult go after an inflatable clown, then repeated it word for word without being asked or rewarded. Nobod...

Count how many times someone asked how you were doing this week. Now count how many times you actually meant it when you said fine. RAND's 2026 survey found that 55% of teachers deal with frequent job-related stress, compared to 34% of similar adults outside education. Forty-six percent said teaching left them too tired for a personal life. The teacher who said fine in September is often the...

Before the relationship recession shows up in grades or attendance, it shows up in behavior. The kid who stops asking for help. The one testing you a little further each day to see if you'll still show up for them. The student who goes completely quiet and never gets written up but has fully checked out. The class clown whose jokes are getting sharper because something underneath is getting h...

Kevin McAllister didn't get left behind because his family didn't love him. He got left behind because everyone was moving too fast to notice he was still standing there. That happens in schools too. The reliable teacher who handles the five hardest students every year because they can. The support staff member who's been there fifteen years and never gets thanked. The person who co...

Before anything bad happens to Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, he says the truest thing about himself out loud. And then the story never gives him a way back to it. Educators make a version of that same statement when they start this work. I will never become that teacher. I will always believe in this kid. I will never stop caring the way I care right now. And the slide away from that person is n...

There's a teacher listening right now who drove to work with the radio off just to get the only silence they'd have all day. Who got home exhausted and immediately started grading papers. Who has a boundary they believe in and a list of reasons why today was the exception. This episode isn't about what your district should be doing for you. It's about what you can actually do f...

It happens every year in every school. The August energy fades, the novelty wears off, and somewhere around week five or six, the culture that felt alive starts running on backup power. Edward calls it the relationship recession. And most educators experience it like something went wrong with them, their class, or their building — when really it's a predictable pattern that nobody thought to...

When does your school year actually begin? Before you say the first day of school — think harder. Because the first 30 days aren't a warm-up. They're the window where norms get established, relationships get formed, and the unwritten rules of your building get written in permanent ink. Everything you build for the rest of the year sits on top of what happens right now. In this episode, E...

Every behavior a student shows you serves one of four functions: escape, attention, tangible, or sensory. That's it. And when you can identify which one is driving what you're seeing, you stop asking what's wrong with this kid and start asking what does this kid need right now. In part two of this series, Edward breaks down each function — what it looks like, why the typical educato...

Picture the student who disrupts your classroom. The one who talks back, refuses to sit still, and has a reputation that travels the hallways before they ever walk through your door. What was the first word that came to mind? In this episode, Edward breaks down why that word matters — and why the lens educators see students through often has more to do with history, bias, and expectation than anyt...

School culture doesn't wait for September. The decisions you're making right now, the conversations you're having, the things you're letting slide — that's your culture being built. August doesn't fix it. July builds it. Last week Edward named what most schools won't say out loud. This week is about what you do with that. Five concrete action steps you can start...

There's a gap in education between what people know and what they're willing to say out loud. That gap is where a lot of the dysfunction lives. In this episode, Edward names four things that people inside school buildings have been walking past and pretending not to see: the mental health of the adults nobody's asking about, toxic cultures that survive because the people running the...

Here's a question worth sitting with this summer: what are you actually practicing? Not what you're planning. Not what's on your reading list. What you're doing, repeatedly, in the weeks between June and September — because that's what shows up with you on the first day of school. Edward makes the case that summer isn't just rest and recovery. It's formation. The...

Two or three weeks into summer, when the June exhaustion finally starts to lift, something else shows up. The quiet. And in the quiet, a voice that starts second-guessing everything — the students you didn't reach, the lessons that didn't land, the feeling that everyone else has it figured out while you were just trying to get through the year. Edward calls it the quiet lie. And it doesn...

You made it to summer. But surviving the school year and being ready for the next one are two different things. In this episode, Edward gets honest about what burnout actually looks like in education — not the dramatic version, but the quiet one where you're still showing up, still doing your job, but that version of you that used to get genuinely excited about a lesson idea at 8am hasn'...

We draw a sharp line between reacting and leading when disruption hits schools, and we name the hidden habits that turn stressful moments into lasting dysfunction. We choose clarity over fake certainty, and we ground leadership in values and presence for principals, teachers, and anyone who serves students.  • why the old school playbook stops working during disruption  • what reacting looks like...

We launch Homeroom Attendance by asking a simple question with sharp edges: are we truly present in our schools or just physically in the room. We challenge the addiction to new initiatives and make the case that trust and culture, not binders and acronyms, determine whether students and adults can do their best work.  • reintroducing the show and why the rebrand matters  • defining “attendance” a...

The Teachers Ed Podcast ends today and it’s personal. I’m not dropping an announcement and walking away; I’m sitting with you for an honest thank you, a clear apology for the times I went quiet, and the real reason I can’t keep building this the old way. Educators do not have extra time, extra energy, or extra patience for things that don’t serve them, and I’ve felt the weight of that every time y...

We challenge the idea that growth means titles and argue for growth as trust, feedback, and purpose. We show why recognition must highlight effort and progress, not just results, to build durable school culture that lifts students. • defining growth as psychological before positional • the three growth questions staff ask • feedback that builds and trust that expands responsibility • recognition a...

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We reframe tired as a sign of giving and walk through three practical moves to protect energy, mindset, and morale. We also challenge school leaders to streamline instead of piling on “one last thing” so staff can breathe and sustain the work. • wellness as presence not perfection • five intentional minutes to start grounded • one boundary kept with conviction • restoration before depletion with d...