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Education Week
Between the candy, costumes and mischief, Halloween can present a challenge for educators trying to keep students on task. Administrators are faced with a particularly tough call: Do they figure out a way to embrace costumes and related seasonal activities and incorporate them into something fun and educational, or do they bar them outright? Make no mistake, the latter path certainly has fewer potential problems. At the very least, costumes can create distractions in the classroom, and some parents may take issue with certain outfits due to religious views. In the worst-case scenario, they can present safety and security threats — especially once masks or face paint become involved — in an era when tensions are already high due to the almost regular nature of school violence.
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School Leaders Now
When a team of educators sets commonly aligned goals and knows what they want their students to accomplish, the school succeeds. Whether it's students mastering a certain skill or grasping a set of standards, success happens when everyone is on the same page and knows what they want to accomplish. However, as any school leader knows, getting there is easier said than done.
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Gallup
It's rare for an educator to make it through an entire day without hearing the word "engagement." We want our students, teachers, parents and the entire school community to be engaged. But what does that really mean? What comes to mind when you think about an engaged school community? What difference does engagement make? And what can we actually do to build and sustain a culture of engagement? Gallup's research team has been studying engagement for decades, having completed tens of millions of surveys and having conducted thousands of individual client research projects and several meta-analyses. All of this data may seem overwhelming, but in reality, it has led to several relatively simple actions that can be taken to improve engagement at your school.
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Education Week (commentary)
Principals, Education Week asked you to tell us what your biggest challenges are. Dozens of you — from all kinds of schools in a diverse array of communities — responded with candor and detail. With six clear, commonly shared issues that emerged, our reporters set out to find school leaders and other experts actively working to address the challenges that are prevalent across the profession. The result is a new special report, Principals Under Pressure, that offers strategies for mastering the toughest job in schools.
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By: Catherine Iste (commentary)
 Burnout does not always look like a heart attack, high blood pressure or weight gain. It is not only increased stress, loss of sleep or a caffeine requirement. While these physical symptoms may be the easiest to recognize, many of us have figured out ways to incorporate exercise and healthier habits into our routines thereby reducing the physical issues most commonly associated with burnout. In such cases, burnout may show up as a strained relationship, reduced free time or downtime, or daydreams of an off-the-grid escape vacation.
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Education DIVE
This report, which can be obtained in full by filling out information on the organization's website, makes a case for long-term support of principals through mentoring by non-evaluative coaches. The purpose of such mentoring is to help these school leaders deal with challenges they face, help them become more effective at improving school culture and performance, and retain them at their school.
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HealthDay News
With flu season imminent, U.S. health officials urge everyone 6 months and older to get a flu shot. Already, one unvaccinated child in Florida has died from flu, the officials warned. Not many cases have been reported so far, so it's too soon to know if this year's strains will be as severe as last season's, said Lynnette Brammer, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Dimensions Math® PK–5 provides a rigorous and engaging education based on Singapore math techniques.
Contact us today to learn more about the series and implementation at your school.
Learn more about the Series
Browse available Dimensions Math® titles
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Leadership Freak
The need for a quick solution prevents leaders from asking powerful questions. What if questions are more powerful than statements? Powerful questions: No.1 — Ignite curiosity. Curiosity comes before solution and innovation. You know you've been asked a powerful question when it causes you to pause and wonder. Your eyes go to the ceiling. Your brain lights up.
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By: Bambi Majumdar (commentary)
 USA Today's story on days in the life of 15 teachers has ignited serious debate. But it's not about teacher shortage or hardships, because we know these problems exist. It's about a profession in crisis and whether we can do anything to save them. Teachers are disheartened about being unheard, misunderstood and disrespected. Government mandates, assessment-based teaching, helicopter parenting, lack of resources and training all contribute to their plight.
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The Lead Change Group (commentary)
Kay Peterson, a contributor for The Lead Change Group, writes: "If you are put into a situation where you need to make decisions quickly, you may find that you react differently than you would if you had more time to consider your options. I was reminded of this familiar situation recently when I was in a local coffee shop that uses an iPad screen for payment. After the server took my order, she swung the iPad screen around, allowing me to sign and tip while she and all the other customers in line looked on. I was forced to make a quick decision publicly. I chose to be generous. It was only after the fact that I realized my generosity had not been genuine. Instead it was a desire to have a good relationship with the server and others in line that had motivated my ridiculous tip."
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School Leaders Now
One of the most important tasks of any school leader is creating a culture of joy for their staff and students. When teachers, support staff, and kids feel encouraged and cared for, there is no limit to what they can accomplish. Karen Carroll, a principal in Idalou, Texas, decided to be intentional in creating this culture and started Compliment Cards at her high school.
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Harvard Business Review (commentary)
Tony Schwartz and Emily Pines, a contributor for Harvard Business Review, writes: "Over the past year, we've been struck by how many times we've heard C-suite leaders use these words, or very similar ones, to describe the strengths they believe are critical to transforming their businesses, and to competing effectively in a disruptive era. What's equally striking is how difficult organizations are finding it to embed these qualities and behaviors in their people."
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Fast Company
There are the coworkers who are constantly interrupting you in meetings. There are the ones who don't seem to pull their weight. And there are even the ones who blast their music or chew their gum at the loudest possible volume. Whatever their annoying habits, these coworkers obviously aren't all that self-aware. After all, if they knew how much of a nuisance they were, they might actually be embarrassed and put an end to their obnoxious behaviors.
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Education Week
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos may have approved every state's vision for implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act — but that doesn't mean the plans are all done and dusted. States can still make changes to their plans. And after the midterm elections in November, many of them may want to. (To be sure, DeVos and company will have to approve major revisions. The U.S. Department of Education is expected to say more about what that process will look in coming weeks and months.)
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EdTech Magazine
For K-12 schools implementing new classroom tools, professional development is crucial to guaranteeing that both teachers and students make the most of such investments. A recent PwC report notes that of 2,000 K-12 teachers surveyed, only 10 percent reported feeling secure in their ability to incorporate "higher-level" technology into their classrooms, highlighting a need for quality training programs to develop teachers' skills with emerging tech. Getting teachers up to speed on how to effectively teach with technology isn't just about teaching them how to use tech tools, however.
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Education Next
With a swipe of our smart phone we can find the shortest route to a destination, track our heart rate or choose a restaurant. But ask a parent to find some basic information about their child's school and odds are they can't. Without easily accessible information about the quality of local schools, families are left to make critical decisions about their child's education in the dark. This is especially concerning as the number of educational choices expands in many parts of the country.
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EdScoop
Increasingly, the technology available to K-12 districts isn't limited to the four walls of a classroom — for some schools, a combination of EPA-approved water testing kits and cloud-based facility management software has helped keep students and faculty safe from poisonous materials across campus.
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THE Journal
On Nov. 1, Microsoft will be releasing its newest Minecraft Hour of Code tutorial, which, according to a recent announcement, could be "possibly the most adventurous tutorial yet." The company has teamed up with Code.org for the release of "Voyage Aquatic," in which students "explore aquatic worlds and uncover hidden treasure" by writing code to instruct agents to execute commands. The lesson specifically covers two programming concepts: loops and conditional statements.
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MiddleWeb (commentary)
Ben Springer, a contributor for MiddleWeb, writes: "At the start of my first year as a fourth grade teacher, I had a student who was angry, seemingly all the time. This anger often manifested itself in physical aggression. I was told that he had a mental health disorder diagnosis that explained why he was so angry, but I wasn't given any tools to deal with it. One day he had a violent outburst. I don't remember what started it, and, honestly, it doesn't even matter. All that matters is that he lost control and, in so doing, caused 27 classmates and one teacher to feel very, very scared."
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[ProdigyGame.com]
While every school wants to accelerate student math proficiency, administrators at five Texas school districts faced unique obstacles. And although each school had a different story, those administrators shared many key questions when considering tools to reinforce their math curricula. What solution could legitimately:
Boost learning outcomes for students of all economic backgrounds from 1st to 8th Grade?
Succeed on a limited budget, with financial constraints restricting most options?
Engage students, with disengagement being the number one complaint from teachers?
Meet the needs of a diverse student population with a wide range of proficiency levels?
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Edutopia (commentary)
Amanda Armstrong, a contributor for Edutopia, writes: "As an educator and researcher who specializes in early childhood and also works with older grade levels, I've used National Bullying Prevention Month to reflect on ways bullying progresses as children age. I've been wondering what can be done in early childhood to prevent bullying in later grades."
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Edutopia (commentary)
Terri LeRose, a contributor for Edutopia, writes: "Two weeks before the start of the 2015–2016 school year, a dear friend of mine lost her 11-year-old boy to a bacterial brain infection. Ethan was a vivacious boy, and my heart broke with grief for my friend and her boy. Knowing that a parent's worst fear had happened to a good friend, and could happen to me, left me splintered. I had little energy or ability to manage that grief, but I was prepared to teach — I had taught second grade for years, so I let go of the reins and trusted myself."
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Education DIVE
When 70 sixth-graders signed up for beginning band this fall, Andrew Campo got a bit concerned. Representing more than one-third of the entire grade, this year's students all received instruments so they could join band. But when Campo thought about those numbers and the limited inventory the school has of musical instruments, he wanted to make sure all students could participate going forward.
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MiddleWeb (commentary)
Quick! Think about one of your favorite books of all time. Are you picturing it? Good. Now, think about what made it one of your all-time favorites. Maybe it was the plot, so suspenseful that you just couldn't put it down and you stayed up through the night to finish it. Maybe it was the characters — characters who still feel more like real life friends than figments of an author's imagination. Or maybe it was the language the author used — beautiful and descriptive — that transported you to another time and place.
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By: Sheilamary Koch (commentary)
 Can you say "Kwuggerbug?" Not knowing how to rhyme and change first sounds of words would put Dr. Seuss readers at a loss. Fortunately — thanks to their phonology skills — successful readers possess the ability to break an unfamiliar (or in this case a nonexistent) word into parts and to rhyme an unfamiliar syllable with a familiar one to sound out words they’ve never seen previously. Phonology, a set of expressive skills needed for learning to read, is the final umbrella skill belonging to the framework we have followed for this series on expressive language from an SLP perspective.
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EdTech Magazine
As companies and market experts forecast computer science and engineering skills as crucial to the future workforce, K–12 schools have been rapidly developing STEM programs in order to prepare their students to be the employees of tomorrow. "[It's] imperative that schools lead the way, not just in offering stronger STEM programming, but in advocating for it with the community and championing it with students — especially at the K–12 level, where they are first exposed to it," Ryan Petersen writes for EdTech.
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Help teachers master flexible grouping and differentiation strategies to respond to students’ diverse learning needs, abilities, and interests.
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Edutopia
The United States is known for its culture of achievement around math. In Mathematical Mindsets, Jo Boaler discusses the toxicity of this achievement culture, which she says disincentivizes teachers from using open-ended tasks that allow for multiple pathways to plausible solutions — instead they opt for more reliable means for approaching math, usually in the form of workbooks and worksheets.
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eSchool News
Concerns about college graduates being under-prepared to enter the workforce are rooted in K-12 technology and career-readiness skills, as many district leaders wonder if teachers are confident enough to teach the higher-level skills our future workers need. A 2018 study from PwC and the Business-Higher Education Forum reflects a growing worry about the gap between the expectations of educators and the expectations of business executives when it comes to preparing students for entry into the workforce. That study shows that 79 percent of CEOs are worried that a shortage of highly trained workers with the right STEM and computing skills will inhibit their companies' expansion.
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Chalkbeat
The consequences of teacher churn were apparent to Esperanza Vazquez, a mother of two from New York City. "I had an experience with my son where he had a new teacher every week in math," she told Chalkbeat recently. "That doesn't help students." Now new research backs up Vazquez's experience, documenting for perhaps the first time the steep consequences for students after teachers leave a classroom in middle of the school year.
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Ohio State University via Science Daily
Strong relationships between teachers, parents and students at schools has more impact on improving student learning than does financial support, new research shows. The study found that social capital had a three- to five-times larger effect than financial capital on reading and math scores in Michigan schools.
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The 74
In the 1990s, parents in a Central East Austin, Texas, school didn't know that their children, who came home with As and Bs on their report cards, were actually scoring in the bottom quartile on state tests. But when an organization meant to connect families and schools started sharing student performance data, these families, who were primarily from low-income households, led the effort to turn their school around in student performance, teacher turnover and attendance.
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NAESP
Join us July 10-12, 2019 in Spokane, Washington, the site for the NAESP Pre-K-8 Principals Conference. The event will bring together more than 1,500 elementary educators from across the nation and around the world offering more than 100 educator-developed sessions. The conference will focus on topics that are unique to elementary and middle-level educators, connecting you to colleagues and strategies to help take your career, and your school, to the next level.
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NAESP
Times can be tough in schools and education, with budget shortfalls, recruitment and retention challenges, state and federal mandates, growing accountability and assessment requirements, and so much more. How can principals meet all the demands they are facing? That's what Dr. Ray McNulty, president of Successful Practices Network, covers in this webinar about how to successfully face the storms of controversy in uncertain times.
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