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

When you think about providing professional development, do you feel stressed or excited? Photo by 1DayReview – Creative Commons Attribution License https://www.flickr.com/photos/159770474@N08 For many principals, providing professional development can be a daunting task. The good news is that professional development can become something that is meaningful and enjoyable when you realize you...

Have you ever felt overwhelmed in trying to balance priorities? Photo by Stephen Leonardi – Creative Commons No known copyright restrictions https://unsplash.com/@stephenleo1982?utm_source=haikudeck&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=api-credit If you’re like me, you can probably think of more than once where student discipline, parent concerns, and teacher feedback provided you...

When is the last time you heard the following words? “ We do what’s best for kids .” Of course, we want school leaders to do what is best for students. But we also want to provide a place where adults feels supported and encouraged in bringing joy to students. Photo by KzAkabueze – ONEin12 – Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License https://www.fli...

Cultivating a positive school culture is a lot like tending a garden. Photo by Gabriel Jimenez – Creative Commons No known copyright restrictions https://unsplash.com/@gabrielj_photography?utm_source=haikudeck&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=api-credit When you have tilled the soil, pulled the weeds, and watered your plants, your work is not finished. You will need to take the same...

When Garth Larson was asked to move from secondary administration to become an elementary principal, he was curious if he could be an effective leader at that level. But his work in early-education combined with his years in secondary education gave him a unique perspective of the K-12 experience. Later, when he moved into a district leadership position, he and his teachers began asking lots of qu...

It’s that time of year again for hiring and job searches! Whether you are conducting an interview or being interviewed, I have found some common expectations anyone should have when walking into an education interview. If you are looking for sample questions specific to principal interviews, let me encourage you to check out the post, 30 Questions from Principal Interviews . But if you are in tran...

Dr. Douglas Casa began his study of student athletic safety in 1985 when he suffered an exertional heat stroke while running a 10K race. Photo by William Stitt – Creative Commons No known copyright restrictions https://unsplash.com/@willpower?utm_source=haikudeck&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=api-credit As he explains, “I was fortunate to receive amazing care on-site from the athl...

Recently, I had the privilege of talking to Dr. Kyle Palmer about the lessons he has learned in his years as a teacher, principal and district leader. Photo by rebe_zuniga – Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License https://www.flickr.com/photos/39015620@N00 As we talked about the successful professional learning teams his teachers have led, Kyle commented that when our hearts hurts...

Next week, I have the privilege of gathering together with educators and school leaders for a Leadership & Learning Conference in Norman, Oklahoma. Guest speakers Jeff Zoul , Jack Berckemeyer , and Christine Handy will be on hand to share best practices. I’m looking forward to circling up with other educators who enjoy being life-long learners. Photo by rawpixel – Creative Commons...

I’ll never forget the semester I transitioned from assistant principal to principal. Photo by rawpixel – Creative Commons No known copyright restrictions https://unsplash.com/@rawpixel?utm_source=haikudeck&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=api-credit Even though I had been in school administration for nine years at the time, the move to a new position brought back the old feelings of...

Great teams understand the importance of depending on one another. Photo by joncandy – Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License https://www.flickr.com/photos/37195744@N03 With the many roles of a school leader, one of the biggest challenges is moving from independence to interdependence. In other words, how do you shift from a school culture with teachers isolated from one another to...

Recently, Education Week shared a post, A Look at How Principals Really Drive School Improvement , with a summary of a study conducted by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. Researchers studied over 600 elementary and secondary schools over seven years, comparing student test results with surveys from teachers and students about their experiences in school. Then the group cond...

One day I was walking through one of my high school buildings when I heard the sound of a teacher yelling for help. I sprinted toward the sound, and I found a teacher trying to guide a student into the hallway. He was a special education student I knew – a teenage boy whose development level was closer to that preschool student. He had become so violent that he was knocking over furniture. Thankfu...

I’ve been on the road a lot lately. And as I travel, I often think about how to reach my destination while also making the experience a positive one. For me, that means trying to learn while I drive by listening to helpful podcasts, audio-books, or news programs. Or sometimes it means connecting with friends or colleagues for phone chats. As we wrap up another semester of the school year, my famil...

In a recent conversation with author and generation expert Dr. Tim Elmore, he shared how many students are affected by “FOMO” (Fear of Missing Out). For many young people, this condition is demonstrated by a preoccupation with wanting to constantly know what is happening with peers or social media contacts. FOMO can sometimes lead to levels of anxiety that make it difficult for them to disconnect...

How do engage students while also understanding the unique challenges and strengths of Generation Z students? Several years ago, I was introduced to Dr. Tim Elmore through his curriculum and online resources for leadership. He is known as an expert in researching generational trends and is the author of dozens of books on developing leadership. He may be best known for his Habitudes series, lesson...

Five years ago this month, our son Jack was diagnosed with a rare disease called Kawasaki that brought our normal world to a stand still as we circled together searching for answers and praying for his healing. The disease inflames the blood vessel, and if untreated, it can be fatal. As I look back at his recovery years later, I remember how overwhelmed my wife and I were at the time. I remember s...

The European Space Agency’s historical comet landing of the spacecraft Rosetta in 2014 was an amazing feat. Imagine organizing a team of scientists and space engineers who design and launch a spacecraft with the goal of intersecting with a comet 500 million kilometers from Earth. Then imagine ten years later, your findings show the spacecraft is indeed crossing paths with the targeted comet. From...

During my second year as a high school assistant principal, I received notice one morning that a number of students were missing items from their lockers. Upon further investigation, we discovered that in one hallway of the school, an entire row of lockers had broken into and contents were missing from several. Thankfully, we had cameras in that section of the building, and I began watching tape –...

On Tuesday, September 25, 2018, I walked into a D.C. high school called School Without Walls, a four-story building interspersed with hallways full of art. I saw hand-built go-carts with bicycle parts lining a floor-way. Sky-lights hovering over walls of exposed brick created a sense of old and new. Expansions to the building allow School Without Wall to serve just over 600 students, grades 9-12....

Several years ago, Oklahoma received one of the worst blizzards I had ever seen in a state that sometimes has no snow fall during winter. As our community was plunged into a blanket of white with drifts of 3-4 feet deep, roads were impassable, and schools were closed. With days of wintery weather, I finally had the excuse I needed to sit and read. That Christmas I had received a copy of Unbroken:...

This time of year, I’m on the road a lot visiting schools across my state. As I drive across Oklahoma, trees and fields have been brushed with the red and orange hues of fall. Rivers are swollen with much needed rains. And you can feel the first hints of winter’s chill in the strong prairie winds. The change in weather also brings along a change in expectations too. Teachers and studen...

How can schools integrate technology across all classrooms? Janalyn Taylor, Principal of Nance Elementary in Clinton, Oklahoma, believes that school leaders must be willing to model learning and teaching with technology in order to see teachers and students embracing its innovative uses. In a recent webinar conversation, Ms. Taylor explains how her school has embedded technology into learning, and...

When I was in high school and college, my brothers and I worked part-time diving for mussel shells in the Kentucky Lake area. We would sell them by the pound at local markets, and those shells would in turn be sold to Japanese markets. Apparently, the pearly-white cuts from those shells are unique implants for growing cultured pearls in oysters. One day I was climbing across the bottom of an area...

Educators are talking a lot about students in trauma. Although you may not always know when students are stressed or facing a crises, research by the American Psychological Association , shows that today’s students have the same level of anxiety as psychiatric patients did in the 1950’s. Some of this anxiety is the result of increased expectations placed on students. Sometimes it is their unstable...