I speak with educators every day, and the overwhelming message is clear—COVID-19 has changed everything. Students are experiencing a health crisis of unprecedented proportions, with an increase in anxiety, depression, PTSD, and even eating disorders. Educators often feel ill-equipped to address this crisis within standard general education classrooms. Something more needs to be incorporated in the curriculum to help students gain an understanding of emotional intelligence (EQ).
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Bearing Bad News: A Tough but Necessary Part of the Job
My school, Indio High School in Indio, CA, has faced many challenges over these past two years. Throughout the pandemic, we have lost members of our school community: a beloved student, a coach, a teacher, and a teacher’s spouse. Many of our students live in intergenerational homes, where COVID-19 spread and led to the death of parents and grandparents. In the past two years, I’ve officiated 11 funerals in the community. Beyond these losses, I’ve been communicating messages about school closures, remote learning, and mask mandates, like school leaders across the country.
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Integrating Digital Technology Within the Classroom: Tips and Tricks to Consider
Today on Digital Learning Day, we celebrate the use of digital technology to meet the diverse needs of children across our nation! In honor of this day, we asked the 2021 NASSP Digital Principals of the Year to offer their thoughts on how school leaders can best integrate digital technology in their schools and curricula.
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5 U.S. presidents who were also teachers
John Adams
(1797–1801)
After graduating from Harvard at 19, Adams taught in a one-room schoolhouse in Worcester, MA. While he found positive behavior reinforcement more effective than punishment, he probably wouldn’t have gotten away with calling his students “little runtlings” today.
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My School’s History of Honoring Black History
This year marks the fourth year of my principalship at Atholton High School (AHS) in Columbia, MD, where I began my career as a teacher over 20 years ago. Back then, to celebrate Black History Month (BHM), I remember the whole school would gather for an assembly where students stepped, rapped, danced, and sang to honor Black history. While the assembly was fun, lighthearted, and the Black students had an opportunity to showcase their talents, I thought to myself, “We can do much better than this.” In some ways, this was a turning point for me; I wanted to become a principal so that I had more say in what happened at whichever school that I served.
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Now Is Not the Time for School Leaders to Give Up
As the 2021 Minnesota High School Principal of the Year, I had the honor of speaking at the recent Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals Winter Conference.
Everyone there already knew firsthand that these have almost certainly been the two hardest years of our careers as school leaders. Let’s face it: Being a principal is a difficult job, but I don’t think any of us could have imagined what the last two years would be like. I know that many principals across the country are considering leaving the profession. But as I told my Minnesota colleagues, this is not the time to quit.
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Equity and the Educator Pipeline: Making Our Voices Heard
Across the country, staff shortages in schools are leaving children—the beating heart of our profession—in the lurch. School leaders can’t find enough substitutes, bus drivers, and other personnel to staff schools, and many principals are themselves having to teach classes and drive buses. News accounts report almost daily that educators are stretched too thin and that schools can’t offer certain academic courses and extracurricular activities because they lack the professionals to teach and lead them.
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Appreciating the Role of School Counselors
With the start of National School Counseling Week, I want to express my appreciation for the vital role counselors play in our schools. As a principal and former school counselor, I can say without question that if you don’t have counselors in your building who develop lasting relationships with students, it’s hard to be a successful school.
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An Outstanding Award for an Outstanding Student
Each year, National Junior Honor Society (NJHS) awards Outstanding Achievement Awards to 500 outstanding middle level students. This prestigious award comes with $500 to be placed in a college savings account. Below, we hear from AnnMarie Wolfley, a freshman at Snake River High School in Blackfoot, ID, about her experience winning the award.
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Wieczorek’s 50-State Tour Continues in Four More States
NASSP President Gregg Wieczorek braved frigid weather in mid-January to resume Leading Forward: The Listening and Learning Tour in four more states: Nebraska, Iowa, and North and South Dakota. Below are brief highlights from the latest stops.
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Expanding AP with Impact
It’s that time of year when school leaders reflect on the past several months and plan for what lies ahead. They evaluate master schedules and make decisions about what’s best for their schools. The choices that school leaders make are critical to student outcomes, but such choices are not the only ones that school leaders are managing.
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An Opportunity for Congress to Strengthen the Educator Workforce
In December 2021, NASSP released results from a nationally representative survey of principals that found job satisfaction is at an ultimate low with almost 4 out of 10 principals (38%) expecting to leave the profession in the next three years. The pandemic, political tensions, and limited guidance and resources were cited as major factors.
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How National Honor Society Prepared Me for West Point
Just two weeks after I graduated from Central High School in Philadelphia, PA, I began basic training at West Point. After six weeks of push-ups, pull-ups, battle drills, and walking uphill with weights for what seemed like hundreds of miles, I successfully completed cadet training known as “BEAST.” I returned from the woods and immediately started my first semester of college.
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CMU CS Academy provides free computer science curriculum
Is your school looking to expand its high school computer science offerings? Carnegie Mellon’s CMU CS Academy might be the right fit for top-notch resources. An online, graphics-based computer science curriculum taught in Python and provided by Carnegie Mellon University, CMU CS Academy offers novel, world-class computer science education for the secondary classroom. And it’s entirely free.
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Why Principals Need a Say in Funding Decisions
When I read the results of NASSP’s recent survey and heard what principals around the country had to say, I was surprised so many of them reported that their districts haven’t consulted them enough about how state and federal COVID-19 relief funds are spent.
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Why Self-Care for School Leaders Is More Important Than Ever
If I didn’t engage in the self-care practices that I’ve been following for the last 15 years I’ve been a school administrator, I wouldn’t still be in the profession. To do the job and not completely stress out, I simply can’t do without them.
(more…)Top Five Blog Posts of 2021
For a snapshot of what resonated with School of Thought readers in 2021, check out the five most popular posts. Because the year was incredibly stressful and far from normal, it’s no surprise that topics such as well-being and collaboration top the list. Our four-legged friends are honored here, too. Happy reading!
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For New NEHS Advisers, Breakfast Chats Offer Ideas and Support
It’s not easy taking over as adviser of a National Elementary Honor Society (NEHS) chapter, especially if you’re already teaching full time. To help some of the new advisers where I teach in Hillsborough County, FL, I started hosting breakfast chats last year to share ideas and offer support.
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Pausing to Reflect on a Stressful School Year
At the end of 2021, Beth Houf wrote about the extremely challenging school year she and her school leader colleagues faced across the country. Her reflections were posted on the blog of the Albert Shanker Institute, and we are sharing them here. Besides reminding principals and assistant principals that they are not alone in this work, Houf offers concrete ideas to act on in the new year.
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10 NHS and NatStuCo Chapters Giving Back to Their Communities
National Honor Society and NatStuCo Chapters gave back this year through food drives. Check out some of their work!
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