Principal Matters: The School Leader's Podcast with William D. Parker

In this week’s episode, Will Parker and Jen Schwanke share some thoughts on how to remain focused on service to your school communities while also remaining aware of what is happening in politics and advocacy that may also be affecting your school. Will references the following book as a resource for understanding the difference between old power structures and new power structures in the ways peo...

This week Will Parker and Jen Schwanke are answering questions from listeners: Q1: “Administrators doing double duty as teachers”:  “I was listening to your podcast this morning and cried a good part of my drive to school today.  My director (principal) and I will very likely be in classrooms full day this year due to the fact that we are short multiple teachers and cloning hasn’t...

Jordan Master is Assistant Principal at Johnsburg High School located in Johnsburg, Illinois. JHS serves just under 600 students grades 9-12. … . Jordan’s journey as an educator began after graduating from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she double majored in Secondary Education and Writing Intensive English. In 2014, she accepted a part time position teaching at a small...

Zac Bauermaster currently serves as principal at Kissel Hill Elementary School, located in the Warwick School District in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Zac has the tremendous opportunity to lead teachers, support staff, families, and most importantly, the next generation daily. His greatest joy in education is seeing adults leverage their God-given talents and abilities through inspiring kids to...

Anya Kamenetz has covered education for many years including for NPR, where she co-created the podcast Life Kit: Parenting . She speaks, writes, and thinks about learning and the future. Her newest book is The Stolen Year: How Covid Changed Children’s Lives, And Where We Go Now . She has been a senior staff writer for Fast Company magazine, contributed to the New York Times, Washington Post, New Y...

This week, Will interviews Principal Sapna Hopkins. Listen to the entire show for her inspiring personal story and journey in education. Plus, learn ways she is engaging her new school community that can motivate any school leader with ideas for connecting your story with your core values and school mission. Sapna Hopkins is the principal of Tilden Middle School in Rockville, Maryland. She is orig...

This week Jen Schwanke and Will Parker continue conversations about ways school leaders can prepare for the school year – especially those who may be early career education leaders. Relying on strategies from her book You’re the Principal! Now What?: Strategies and Solutions for New School Leaders , Jen shares how to tackle the most common yet most daunting challenges of the principals...

What priorities must you keep in mind as you start a new school year? In this week’s episode, Will Parker and Jen Schwanke draw on years of experience to provide ideas and takeaways – especially with new principals in mind. Relying on lessons from her book You’re the Principal! Now What?: Strategies and Solutions for New School Leaders , Jen shares how to tackle the most common yet mos...

This week Jen Schwanke gives a sneak-peek into her newest book, The Teacher’s Principal: How School Leaders Can Support and Motivate Their Teachers , coming out this summer. Jen explains: Why she wrote the book The importance of purpose, priorities, patterns Negatives and positives and responses External threats to teacher motivators We also discuss why one-size does not fit-all in working with te...

In this episode, Jen Schwanke and I discuss ways that principals can reflect over summer break. We begin with the questions: What makes you anxious? Is your anxiety about the coming school year because of lack of knowledge? If so, breaks are important times to dig deeper into some of the areas you may not have time to develop when students are present. In Jen’s book, The Principal Reboot: 8 Ways t...

Jen Schwanke, ASCD author and veteran educator , joins me in this episode to answer listener questions. Question #1 “How do you or would you mediate negative relationships between staff members in your building and the county/district office personnel to ensure it does not negatively impact the students/programs/initiatives in your school building?” Jen’s response: When a storm d...

In December 2015, Principal Matters: The School Leader’s Podcast began from my home on my laptop with a borrowed microphone during a Christmas Break when I had time to research how to start a podcast. Six years later, we have reached the milestone of 300 episodes with more than 750,000 downloads to date.  In this special episode, Dr. Jeff Springer, education consultant and 2013 Texas Secondar...

Daniel (DJ) Klein is an Assistant Principal at Ocean Springs High School, in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. For longtime Principal Matters listeners, you may recognize the name DJ Klein from two previous episodes: First, on June 4, 2020, DJ joined me when for PMP197 when we recorded an episode discussing ideas to keep in mind as he was moving into his first administrative role as Assistant Principal....

In this week’s episode, I am joined again by my friend Daniel Bauer, education leader, podcaster and author of the book  Mastermind: Unlocking Talent Within Every School Leader . We explore how he applies his 5 “sticky” core values and how these can help leaders achieve goals and outcomes. Danny has built an incredibly successful organization supporting education leaders, and he generously shared...

A couple of weeks ago, I was on a call with my friend Daniel Bauer, education leader, podcaster and author of the book Mastermind: Unlocking Talent Within Every School Leader . He had included me in an email sharing about his favorite recording of all times: The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbBHR_CD56M I had taken to time to find it and listen and ended up w...

I enjoy the sounds of morning. Yesterday, as I sat on my back porch sipping coffee, I could hear the patt-pattering of a woodpecker in the Cottonwood tree. Three squirrels were scampering along the back fence, chasing each other with furtive jumps from fence to tree limbs. A cardinal sang out his morning song with sharp trills. My neighbor’s magnolia tree was bearing large white pedals across glas...

This school year I had the privilege of connecting with leaders from schools in the great state of Ohio through a series of Zoom meetings. We worked through twenty sessions together covering leadership content, including lessons from my newest book, Pause. Breathe. Flourish.: Living Your Best Life as an Educator .  In our final session for the school year, I shared ideas from the final chapter of...

Brent Kline is Principal of Palo Alto High School, in Palo Alto, California. His previous administration roles include four years at Santa Cruz High School. He began his education career as a teacher in Clovis, California, and he served as a teacher and principal at Mariner High School, Everett, Washington for more than two decades. In 2013, he was the Washington State High School Principal of the...

Last week Garth Larson was a guest on episode 292 as he shared the Profile of a School Leader. During our pre-show conversation, we reflected on the lessons both of us had learned in our work during the pandemic. Afterwards, I asked Garth if I could share the back-and-forth as a bonus episode for a few lessons, including: The way work environments have changed, and how we have tried to adjust our...

Garth Larson, Ed. D is the Co-Founder and CEO of FIRST Educational Resources. Garth has previously worked as the Director of Learning for the Winneconne Community School District in northeast Wisconsin, was an elementary principal in two separate buildings and started his career in education as a high school speech and English teacher. In 2011, Garth formed Wisconsin Educational Resources (now FIR...

Dr. Keri Launius has worked in PreK-16 education for over 22 years. With experiences from classroom teacher, campus principal and district administration, she has had ample opportunities to learn and grow as an educator. She began her career as a high school teacher and spent close to a decade teaching in Texas Public Schools. Working as a district leader Dr. Launius has attended Harvard Graduate...

This week Jen Schwanke and William D. Parker talk about how principals and education leaders can recruit and retain high quality teachers: Learn about efforts school districts are using involving supporting employment funnels from local universities, substitute teachers, paraprofessionals, and student-teacher interns. Discover how you can leverage duty stipends and arrival/departure times as incen...

In Jen Schwanke’s new role as an Deputy Superintendent and in dissertation work, she has been learning a lot about supporting school communities district-wide. In this week’s episode, she explains some of the main responsibilities important to embrace in supporting educators: Why you cannot forget what it feels like to be a teacher or principal. Not just saying it, but meaning it. Some...

Warren J. Glen has twenty years of experience in post-secondary education. His journey in higher education has enhanced his expertise to administer grants, manage deliverables, and mentor and motivate young scholars.  Currently, he is the area sponsor for the Ohio Department of Education community schools of northeast Ohio. Dr. Glen previously oversaw the Northeast Region of Drop-Out recovery...

Veteran school administrator and educational consultant Pete Hall channels his experiences as a school principal, life coach, and small-business owner into manageable lessons for continuous growth, personal improvement, and positive mindset.  Hall served 12 years as a principal in three schools, each earning awards for academic performance, growth, and student achievement. He currently works...