We discovered Justin Ashley in this article: He was a classroom star. But CMS teacher’s success masked depression, addiction and just knew we had to have him join us on the podcast to help us learn from his journey and be able to support our teachers to prevent them from burnout.   If you’re ready to inject more joy into your personal life, get more meaning from your job, strengthen your body and mind, and break free financially then you will want to listen to him on the podcast and read his book!

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

In this episode, Spike talked about his big takeaways from attending the national SAMS conference, which you can read about here: 5 Takeaways from the National SAM Conference

One of the keynotes he talked about was Valerie Burton, author of Successful Women Think Differently.

We spent quite a bit of time talking about the email beast. Theresa shared email tips Boomerang and Astro, and Unroll to tame the subscription emails you receive. Theresa mentions the following studies to give reason for why you need to be efficient with your email:

UC Irvine Study

Carnegie Mellon Study - A Focus on Distraction

In our discussion about engaging in conversations and being able to listen, Jessica mentioned this must-watch TED Talk: TED Talk: 10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation

We are excited about future podcasts to come: We are scheduled to have Justin Ashley, author of The Balanced Teacher to join us. When we read about him in this article: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article144336674.html , we just had to seek him out to join us. He went from Teacher of the year to Rehab. Please let us know if you have any questions you want us to ask him when he’s on the podcast.

We also have Jeff Zoul and Anthony McConnell scheduled to join us to talk about their new book, The Principled Principal. In addition, we will be having Ben Gilpin and Jethro Jones

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

In this episode, Theresa and Spike discuss how 2018 is going while Jessica is Ice Fishing! As the discussion unfolds, Theresa talked about how she has been using the app Todoist. She uses Todoist to organize all of the tasks that she has to do throughout the week. Todoist connects with her Gmail and allows her to schedule time to get the important things accomplished. Theresa also talked about she continues to use Evernote. She takes all her notes, articles, tasks, and documents and scans them to Evernote. 

Spike shared how he stays organized throughout the day by using the SAMs Time Tracker System. This system, developed by former Principal Mark Shellinger, creates a calendar for Principals to track their time and work on improving their time spent with instruction.

Please share any apps/tips/tricks you use for staying organized. We'll be tackling email next, so share those things, too via twitter, email, or commenting on the blog post.

PrincipalPLN is a part of the Education Podcast Network

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

In this episode, we chat with Lindsy Stumpenhorst, elementary principal in Illinois, also known as

“Principal in Boots.” Lindsy shares all about leading an amazing staff, living in the country, balance,

using social media, and her one word for 2018: Awe. Have you heard of Instagram? Spike and Lindsy

both work hard to convince Jessica to revitalize her Instagram account and connect where the action is.

Something interesting about Lindsy is her family was in Josh Turner’s music video for his song, Find

Me a Baby! Check it out here: Josh Turner (about 30 seconds in). Not only does Lindsy have horses, but

she also has dogs that size too (we got to see them while we're recording, so couldn't help but ask for

photo evidence to share!

Spike discussed his use of the SAMs Time Tracker System for Principals. He is going to their National Conference in a few weeks. For more information, the SAMs Time Tracker System, check out their website.

Lindsy is currently reading:  Love Languages of Children and Wild Card: 7 Steps to an Educator’s Creative Breakthrough  

She also recommended the app Pocket, a handy app that lets you save tweets, posts, articles to return to later.

We hope you enjoy listening to Lindsy as much as we did. You can connect with her at:

@lmstump

https://principalinboots.wordpress.com/

Principal_in_boots on instagram

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

In this episode, we warm up with hot coffee and blankets to stay warm in this frigid winter. Spike talks about the Bomb Cyclone in New Jersey, which caused his school to close for two days, we compared temperatures and talked about indoor recess/school closure decision making. A fun app share to enjoy your weather is: WTForecast - Caution, the profanity can be offensive in this app, but you can change the setting.

We also talked about what happens when staff have a countdown or stir up excitement for a snow day...what message does that send our students and families? Thank you Tom Murray for this tweet:

Spike talked about "One word 2018." Have you picked "One word?" Spike's is Gratitude, Theresa's is Aware, and finally Jessica agreed to one word… Balance

We talked about pop news and how a youtube video caused quite a stir for students when a famous youtuber recorded a video from the suicide forest in Japan:  http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/03/health/japan-suicide-forest-intl/index.html

On a much more positive note we celebrated Adam Welcome, our crazy running principal friend, for completing 103 miles in 24 hours!

Jessica shared a discussion activity she used in a recent staff meeting with the purpose of building shared understanding and then brought up an issue that happens in staff meetings...do you have this issue?

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

In this special end of the year episode, Theresa, Jessica and Spike discuss their Winter Break.

Spike talked about his floating experience. He will be posting a blog about what he learned from the time in the sensory deprivation tank. Click here for the blog post on floating. 

Jess talked about her trip to the North Pole (aka Minnesota).

Theresa talked about couch time (SO important!)

We then got into a discussion about screen time. Jessica shared an app called (OffTime) and Theresa shared the app RealizD. Do you have a favorite app to keep track of the usage on your phone and what is taking up too much time in your day? Another recommendation on this topic included the book Bored and Brilliant by Manoush Zambrodi, who is also the host of the podcast Note to Self.

We chatted about New Year's Resolutions and goals for balance. A podcast recommendation shared by Jessica included Lead to Win by Michael Hyatt.

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

In this episode, Theresa and Spike share their final week leading up to the Winter Break. It is clear from the discussion that no matter the school you work in or the area of the country, that it can be a very stressful time. Spike and Theresa shared some ideas for student and staff recognition.

What do Principals do over the break? Theresa, who has a two-week break, plans to read, relax and disconnect. She talked about the book Culturize, by Jimmy Casas and the Twitter group that is going along with that. In addition, she has some plans for writing and maybe even organizing her office.

Spike's goals for the break are very similar. He recently purchased, Brene Brown's new book Braving the Wilderness and plans to read it. In addition, he might try to do a Float session, yoga and or a hike in the woods to decompress.

Tell us what you are doing over the break. Tweet us @drspikecook, @principalstager, @principalj and use the #principalpln.

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Episode 85: Breaking Out Of Isolation

In this episode, Theresa, Spike and Jessica catch up after about a year hiatus from the podcast. It is clear that everyone needed a break to work on other projects, focus on family, and work/life balance.

Where our thumbs are going:

Flipgrid vs Recap

Brene Brown Braving the Wilderness

Snow Day Calculator

Lucy Calkins Reading/Writing

Melinda Miller's Blog Post - Progressive PD

Culturize - Jimmy Casas

Coherence - Michael Fullan

@DGriffin3 Flipgrid Fever

• Introduce parents to teachers over summer/new semester/trimester
• Conferences
• Foreign Language students

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.