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School Leaders Now
The front office and the people who work there are often the heart of a school. After all, they are the initial point of contact for everyone who enters the building — from students and their families to volunteers, visitors, teachers, and staff members. The front office serves as command central for communication to, from, and within the building and is the most valuable resource for finding help. Here are 10 essential tips for creating a friendly front-office culture.
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By: Brian Stack (commentary)
 Imagine having the option to schedule your school weeks as four 10-hour days instead of five eight-hour days. Earlier this summer, We Are Teachers blogger Elizabeth Mulvahill reported that 25 states are currently testing four-day school weeks. What started as a logistical solution for rural school districts is now gaining popularity in both suburban and urban areas. According to Mulvahill, "Research by the National Conference of State Legislatures estimates 560 school districts...have at least one school with a four-day schedule. Leading the charge are Colorado (55%), New Mexico (43%), Idaho (38%), and Oregon (32%)."
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Education World
Awards may not pay off the way educators hope, according to recent findings by researchers at Harvard University, particularly when it comes to improving attendance — but even for changing behavior or increasing participation. Carly Robinson, one of the authors of the report from the university's Student Social Support R&D Lab, says they studied some 15,000 middle and high school students and found that those who received a reward certificate for excellent attendance actually did worse in the following month and that those who were offered the opportunity to get the award if the improved attendance did no better.
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Inc.
Think of the last time you were in deep thought about your plans for the evening while driving home from work. As you pull into your driveway you wonder to yourself, "How did I get home?" The car seemed to practically drive itself home. Driving is a relatively complex task, requiring many choices along the way: turn right, turn left, slow down, stop and change lanes. Still, driving home can be successfully performed almost subconsciously.
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Harvard Business Review (commentary)
Celia Swanson, a contributor for Harvard Business Review, writes: "During my tenure as executive vice president of Walmart, I hired a brilliant strategist to create a marketing strategy for the Sam's Club division. Her results were powerful; the campaign was simple yet highly relevant. We became friendly, and I considered the hire a success until one of the team members approached me. It turned out the strategist had been incredibly hostile with her colleagues, making them feel marginalized and worthless. This had gone on for more than a year, and many on the team were considering leaving."
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By: Brian Wallace (commentary)
 Office culture has grown and evolved over the years. Today, employees look for workplaces that value work-life balance, support their health and well-being, and offer flexibility and perks. Furthermore, a majority of employers plan to implement workplace culture initiatives to boost employees’ engagement in health. Check out the infographic in this article, which dives into the psychology of productivity, how workplace culture impacts your business, and how to attract and retain the best talent.
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Entrepreneur
As thought leaders, we've worked hard to hone our craft. We’ve spent countless hours reading, learning and educating ourselves in order to impart that knowledge to brand-new audiences. We've established connections that broaden our spectrum, stretch our limits and, at times, challenge our way of thinking. But becoming an "expert" doesn’t mean we stop learning.
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World Colors celebrates Creativity, Inclusion and Self Expression. Developed with the expertise of make up artists, World Colors colored pencils includes super soft and blendable skin tones to match virtually any skin tone! Get FREE Lessons and be notified when World Colors is shipping!
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By: Roberta Matuson (commentary)
 "Psssttt…Can you keep a secret? I’ve just been made a manager and I haven’t a clue what to do!" This was exactly what went through my head over 20 years ago when I found myself suddenly in charge. My focus should have been on what I could do to shine from day one. But instead, I worried that it would only be a matter of time before my secret was out. It's no secret that those who find themselves tossed into management with little more than a hope and a prayer aren't ready to fully engage in all that is required of more experienced managers. But there is certainly something about you that indicated you were right for this job.
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Leadership Freak
Confidence isn't the absence of anxiety. Confidence is the ability to step into anxiety and see what good might result. Where does confidence to face anxiety come from?
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Entrepreneur
All evidence points to the fact that workplace stress is an epidemic, and it's only continuing to worsen. According to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 29 and 40 percent of Americans are disproprotionately stressed at work. The effects of that stress are far-reaching and differ in severity. Some health consequences are relatively benign, such as colds and flus, while others, like heart disease and meabolic syndrome, can be much more serious.
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District Administration Magazine
The start of the new school year has seen a spike in cyberattacks against districts across the country, with small districts emerging as an especially attractive ransomware target by hackers. Hospitals, municipalities and colleges have also been targeted, but school districts are particularly enticing to hackers because they store lots of private information about students, families and staff and because they often don't have the resources to block attacks, the New York Times reported.
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Tech&Learning
Sphero makes cool programmable robots and educational tools that aim to transform the way kids learn and create through coding, science, music and the arts.
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eSchool News
As content-driven curricula are rapidly giving way to programming aimed at developing core competencies, educators are incorporating standards — such as those developed by ISTE — to reframe their programs to emphasize digital citizenship, innovative design, computational thinking and global connectedness to prepare students for careers that do not yet exist. However, the process of implementing deep change may take three to five years, because it impacts the way schools do business, as well as fundamental school culture.
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Prodigy Game
 The search for better teaching strategies will never end. As a school leader, you probably spend too much of your time thinking about how to improve the learning experience of the students that pass through your school throughout the years.
After all, what they learn (and how they learn it) will become a part of these students as they grow, hopefully helping them become successful adults.
This is the main goal of competency based education: giving each student equal opportunity to master necessary skills and become successful adults.
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Education Week
If there's one painful experience the nation's schools share from recent history, it's the Great Recession. It's something no educator is keen to relive — but with anxiety rising about an economic downturn in the not-too-distant future, it's possible they won't have a choice. Forecasting such a change for the economy is notoriously difficult, as is projecting how policymakers and schools would respond. But amid the economic warning signs there's the recognition that a recession, in addition to shrinking K-12 budgets and spending, could upend policies that have developed over the past decade that have prioritized equitable funding and other resources.
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eSchool News (commentary)
When most teachers receive professional development regarding a technology tool, they are often provided a "this is how you use this" workshop. At Phoenix Union High School District, a portfolio district in Arizona, we've found that personalized professional development gives teachers a voice in their learning, which makes the experience much more powerful for them.
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Edutopia
While it can be tempting to focus only on routines and academics to build classroom culture, a strong classroom culture hinges on healthy social and emotional learning. Do you want kids to carefully listen to their peers before shouting out an answer? They'll need a dose of self-regulation. Do you wish students would savor the challenge of a math problem instead of throwing up their hands in frustration? It will take self-determination and the skills to recover from failure.
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MiddleWeb
With the start of the new school year, we are always looking for new activities to freshen up our repertoire! At the same time, we want our students to be reading closely and thinking deeply. Here are five adaptable ideas that you can add to your toolbox to keep students creatively interacting with texts.
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MindShift
Teacher Sandra Cover glanced up at the sound of cheers. Two juniors slapped their hands together in a triumphant high-five, like doubles players celebrating a tennis victory. In reality, the girls had just solved a proof on a trigonometry exam. For their teacher, the moment was as sweet as scoring a match point, because it showed how much her students' relationship to math had changed in the past year. Cover began incorporating partner portions for trig tests a few years ago to reflect the collaborative nature of real-world problem-solving. But last year she made more dramatic changes to her exams.
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MiddleWeb
How does social-emotional learning fit into the work of today's schools and into everyday teaching and learning? It's an important conversation going on among a lot of thoughtful educators right now. Certainly ... inevitably ... social-emotional learning is "a deeply ingrained part of the way students and adults interact in the classroom." To gauge whether the interactions in your classroom contribute positively to your students' social-emotional development, consider the following.
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Language Magazine
If you are an educator, chances are that you have had or will have a student who is learning English as an additional language. Some of these multilingual students are eligible for language support services if their English proficiency limits their access to learning academic content. Districts typically have specific policies for identifying these students. Once these students are identified, by federal law, they are required to take an annual language proficiency assessment to confirm their eligibility for additional support until they are considered English proficient. Language proficiency assessments are used to monitor eligibility and language growth over time with variations from state to state.
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Edutopia
Routine reflection on practice is a hallmark of effective teaching, but often this reflection is considered a solitary endeavor — or at most, a discussion among adults in a professional learning community or collaborative team. Students don't always realize that reflection is part of a teacher's job.
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District Administration Magazine
We are all familiar with invention — the process of creating something new and useful. But what about the creativity factors that play a large role in this process? The form of creativity leading to invention is called inventiveness. How can you help your teachers or colleagues promote inventiveness in the classroom?
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MindShift
Teachers and parents all over the country are noticing an increase in mental health issues, including anxiety, among students. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates a third of adolescents have been or will be seriously affected by anxiety in their lifetimes. And anxiety can have serious effects on academic achievement, class participation and teens' social lives. It's also hard on parents who are trying to help their children deal with anxiety.
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NPR
More teens and young adults — particularly girls and young women — are reporting being depressed and anxious, compared with comparable numbers from the mid-2000s. Suicides are up too in that time period, most noticeably among girls ages 10 to 14. These trends are the basis of a scientific controversy. One hypothesis that has gotten a lot of traction is that with nearly every teen using a smartphone these days, digital media must take some of the blame for worsening mental health.
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The New York Times
Discuss a recent instance of police brutality in your community. Read op-eds arguing for and against legal status for unauthorized immigrants. Compare and contrast border conditions in the Palestinian territories and Mexico. Those are some of the lesson plans suggested in a draft of California's newly proposed ethnic studies curriculum for K-12 public schools. The documents have led to bitter debate in recent weeks over whether they veer into left-wing propaganda, and whether they are inclusive enough of Jews and other ethnic groups. Now, amid a growing outcry, even progressive policymakers in the state are promising significant revisions.
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NAESP
Principals play a critical role in supporting a seamless continuum of learning for children across pre-k through the third grade. To do this, they must support transitions from pre-k settings to elementary schools, as well as support developmentally appropriate teaching. In this episode, we speak with Laura Bornfreund and Abbie Lieberman from New America to discuss the importance of the principal in supporting early education and why so few school leaders are equipped to meet these challenges.
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NAESP
NAESP and DonorsChoose.org are teaming up to help principals support their teachers get projects funded on DonorsChoose.org. Encourage your teachers to post projects on DonorsChoose.org from September 2019 thru June 2020. Each month, NAESP and DonorsChoose.org will award two DonorsChoose.org gift cards of $500 to fund a school project. To be eligible for the drawing, teachers should include the keyword "NAESP" in their About Your Project essays, such as "I teach at an NAESP-member school," or include at the bottom of the essay "Reference ID: NAESP."
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