Khalid Oluewu, principal of Webster Elementary School in Chicago, has done what many principals would love to do: He has created structures and practices at his school to ACCELERATE learning for all, and in particular for Black males.

Wow. The idea started when he was a teacher and taught middle school math and had students come to him years behind. He looped with the students and in three short years he not only got them on grade level, but when they went to high school they were able to skip Algebra and start with Geometry.

Now as a principal he put four things in place to accelerate learning - to have students learn one and a half years' worth in just a year):

1. Have teachers focus on PRIORITY standards

2. Have teachers provide JUST-IN-TIME supports not live in remediation

3. Provide more individualized learning by having teachers use small groups and by partnering with organizations who could provide high-impact tutoring

4. Using tech platforms for more individualized learning

The results? In one year the overall proficiency level leaped from just 6% to 50% and for Black boys, it went from just 2% to 30%! Truly impressive. And those numbers keep climbing up, far from the single-digit proficiency levels they were before.

To learn more, check out these resources:

• Read Khalid's research paper: Year of Acceleration for All (Yes, that includes Black Males)

• Visit Webster Elementary School if you're in Chicago

• Reach out via email: koluewu@cps.edu

As always, send your comments, questions, and show ideas to mike@schoolleadershipshow.com. Consider rating the podcast in iTunes and leaving a comment. And please pass the show along to your colleagues. Additionally, if you have other non-education books with implications for school leaders, send those suggestions our way, too. And finally, If you or someone you know would like to sponsor the show, send Mike an email at mike@schoolleadershipshow.com.

After 30 years in the field Elena Aguilar gathered all of her experience and learning and put together the most powerful book on coaching we've seen -- Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching. Elena sees coaching as the way -- one conversation at a time -- that we transform our schools.

In this deeply insightful conversation she shares the importance of coaching more than the teacher BEHAVIORS we are all used to coaching. She shared an example of how, when she coached a teacher to change her behavior -- and change her classroom from rows and direct instruction to groups -- once Elena left, she reverted back to the rows. Elena asked, 'Why?" and the teacher was honest in saying she just didn't believe that groups were the best way for students to learn.

So Elena has come to the conclusion that for coaching to be truly transformative, we need to coach teachers' BELIEFS, BEHAVIORS, and ways of BEING, or the "Three Bs" as she calls it.

This approach to coaching is so successful because she acknowledges that teachers are human, and we need to address the emotions that are involved in the job.

Listen to this great conversation, and you'll walk away with several ideas you can use immediately. Elena shares how you can transform that staff meeting you're planning by cutting out some of the content and carving out 6 minutes for people to connect before diving in.

She also shared a few tools that she uses in her coaching -- the Spheres of Influence and Gaps Framework -- and once you hear her explain them, you can use them in your conversations and coaching with staff as well.

Overall, Elena's ideas from her book Arise all aim at helping you to COMMUNICATE better with staff and creating the CONDITIONS so your staff can thrive.

Learn more about Elena and her work: https://www.brightmorningteam.com/

As always, send your comments, questions, and show ideas to mike@schoolleadershipshow.com. Consider rating the podcast in iTunes and leaving a comment. And please pass the show along to your colleagues. Additionally, if you have other non-education books with implications for school leaders, send those suggestions our way, too. And finally, If you or someone you know would like to sponsor the show, send Mike an email at mike@schoolleadershipshow.com.

Mike returns to the podcast! Jenn and Mike had a great conversation with Coach Carlos about his book Power Engage: Seven Power Moves for Building Strong Relationships to Increase Engagement with Students. No, he's not a coach of a sports team, but a former school leader who has successfully turned around three failing schools by improving STUDENT ENGAGEMENT.

How? By focusing on relationships. Teacher-student relationships and parent-school relationships are particularly key. Listen as we talk about the 3 indicators every school should examine to detect problems with culture:

1. Three years of recruitment data
2. Three years of retention data (both student and teacher)
3. Response to quality instruction

Then make sure your teachers are having the right type of relationships with students, that is, performance-based relationships. These are relationships where teachers have control and engagement is high. Not punitive relationships, and not permissive relationships.

Coach Carlos also talks about the importance of our teachers having the right MINDSET. Do your teachers have a COACH-DRIVEN mindset? We know coaching is important as a pedagogical tool, but did you know it's important in building relationships, too?

To learn more about his book go to: https://www.solutiontree.com/power-engage.html

To learn more about Coach Carlos: https://www.solutiontree.com/carlos-johnson.html

As always, send your comments, questions, and show ideas to mike@schoolleadershipshow.com. Consider rating the podcast in iTunes and leaving a comment. And please pass the show along to your colleagues. Additionally, if you have other non-education books with implications for school leaders, send those suggestions our way, too. And finally, If you or someone you know would like to sponsor the show, send Mike an email at mike@schoolleadershipshow.com.

Megan Tshannen-Moran and Jenn had a delightful conversation about the power of trust in schools. It is one of three factors that is so powerful that it oustrips SES in predicting student achievement. Far from being a "soft skill," building trust has become a must-have skill for educational leaders.

In this conversation Megan not only defines trust for us, but she also gives us lots of concrete strategies and tidbits to build and keep trust alive in schools.

We discussed what happens with betrayals of trust and Megan outlines in detail how leaders can bring their school through a step-by-step Appreciative Inquiry process to help when a school is experiencing a low-trust moment.

You can learn more about Megan Tshannen-Moran and her work here: https://schooltransformation.com/

She also kindly offered to answer your emails here: mxtsch@wm.edu

As always, send your comments, questions, and show ideas to mike@schoolleadershipshow.com. Consider rating the podcast in iTunes and leaving a comment. And please pass the show along to your colleagues. Additionally, if you have other non-education books with implications for school leaders, send those suggestions our way, too. And finally, If you or someone you know would like to sponsor the show, send Mike an email at mike@schoolleadershipshow.com.

What a great conversation about the new book, The Artificial Intelligence Playbook: Time-Saving Tools for Teachers that Make Learning More Engaging! Jenn got to talk to all three of the authors: Meghan Hargrave, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey and learned so much.

We discussed everything from what AI is and isn't, to the reasons leaders should address teachers' emotions around AI, to whether AI is going to take over our jobs! (Spoiler alert, the authors quoted Ethan Mollick who says, "AI won't take your job, but someone who uses AI will!" ... so listen to this podcast to be the person who knows how to use AI!)

There are, however, things to be careful of — like students using AI for plagiarism — so we discussed some great ideas to address this.

We also got into some concrete examples of the ways AI can help teachers with the important work they're doing:

1. managing content
2. fostering student engagement
3. meeting students’ instructional needs
4. assessing student learning
5. providing effective feedback, and
6. lifelong learning for educators

The authors share examples of prompts you can feed into AI and some of the tips they have for making sure you get the best possible answers from AI.

Since our listeners are mostly ed leaders, they also shared that on Corwin's website there's a school leader's guide to the book. There's also a study guide for teachers and a boot camp with self-paced modules on the website. The authors are all over social media. You can't miss them.

If you've been shy about diving into AI, this conversation and this book are two great places to start!

As always, send your comments, questions, and show ideas to mike@schoolleadershipshow.com. Consider rating the podcast in iTunes and leaving a comment. And please pass the show along to your colleagues. Additionally, if you have other non-education books with implications for school leaders, send those suggestions our way, too. And finally, If you or someone you know would like to sponsor the show, send Mike an email at mike@schoolleadershipshow.com.

You probably know Charles Duhigg from his book, The Power of Habit. Or maybe Smarter Faster Better. Now he has a newer book out that is another great resource for school leaders — Supercommunnicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection.

Charles shares with Jenn how people mess up communication and how to improve it. He says that most miscommunication happens when we are having different conversations, and when we fail to connect. There are basically three conversation types: decision-making, emotional, and social relationships.

You don't want to miss this conversation because you'll see how Jenn uses Charles's own techniques to connect with him emotionally in just ONE minute. And later in the podcast, Charles and Jenn role play a teacher and principal and how to diagnose and address a typical conflict.

There are so many nuggets of wisdom for educational leaders in this podcast. One small thing you can do tomorrow? Ask deeper questions with staff. Instead of asking WHAT questions, like "What is happening today?" Ask, "How are you feeling about how things went today?"

You can find more information at CharlesDuhigg.com or sign up for his Substack. He suggests supporting a local bookstore by picking up this book there. Also, Penguin Random House has a free guide for teachers and students on their website.

As always, send your comments, questions, and show ideas to mike@schoolleadershipshow.com. Consider rating the podcast in iTunes and leaving a comment. And please pass the show along to your colleagues. Additionally, if you have other non-education books with implications for school leaders, send those suggestions our way, too. And finally, If you or someone you know would like to sponsor the show, send Mike an email at mike@schoolleadershipshow.com.

Jenn had an outstanding conversation with Robert Feirsen, one of the two authors of From Conflict to Collaboration, along with author Seth Weitzman. They chatted about the tough stuff – like how prevalent conflict is in schools and a number of the sources of that conflict. But then Robert shared the positive way he thinks about conflict and how we, too, can use conflict as an opportunity for learning and growth.

Robert shared the idea that design thinking – an approach that comes from the discipline of engineering – can be used to address conflict effectively. First you put together a team of people with diverse roles and perspectives, and then they go through the stages of design thinking – empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test – in order to collaboratively come up with and test possible solutions to address a major conflict your school community is facing. To learn more about the authors you can go to TeacherEdge.net.

As always, send your comments, questions, and show ideas to mike@schoolleadershipshow.com. Consider rating the podcast in iTunes and leaving a comment. And please pass the show along to your colleagues. Additionally, if you have other non-education books with implications for school leaders, send those suggestions our way, too. And finally, If you or someone you know would like to sponsor the show, send Mike an email at mike@schoolleadershipshow.com.

Jenn made me do this episode. I really didn't wat to, but I'm glad we did.

As we approach the upcoming presidential election, you may remember the fallout from the last two elections. Some school communities experienced heightened divisions, increased bullying, more tension in classrooms, and a general sense of uncertainty.

Fortunately, there are some steps school and district leaders can take to proactively anticipate some of these challenges. We need to plan ways to communicate clearly, set expectations, and create a calm and inclusive school environment while also thinking through ways to address challenges that may arise (heightened emotions, legal issues, inappropriate behavior.)

All of this while remembering that our purpose in schools is to educate! We need to remember this election brings plenty of opportunity (and responsibility!) to educate our students about civic issues, media literacy, and respectfully engaging in challenging and often contentious conversations.

Take a look at this 2-page resource - 5 Ways School Leaders Can Prepare for a Contentious Election and listen to our conversation with the very thoughtful Debbie McFalone

Dr. Debbie McFalone has a long and distinguished career in the field of education – after serving as a Teacher, Principal and Supe she now is a consultant and coach who works with both school-based and district-based individuals and teams across the state of Michigan. Her work focuses primarily on the areas of courage and integrity in leadership. Plus she has her 3rd book coming out in early 2025 Meeting The Moment: A Call For Courage. You can learn more about Debbie and her work at her website: https://www.livewellleadstrong.com/.

As always, send your comments, questions, and show ideas to mike@schoolleadershipshow.com. Consider rating the podcast in iTunes and leaving a comment. And please pass the show along to your colleagues. Additionally, if you have other non-education books with implications for school leaders, send those suggestions our way, too. And finally, If you or someone you know would like to sponsor the show, send Mike an email at mike@schoolleadershipshow.com.