The Assistant Principal Podcast

Last Friday I began with a shoutout to Soupman2545 for leaving a review and helping me improve the show. It felt good to begin the show with a thank you so I’m going to begin doing this regularly on Fridays.

Today I want to acknowledge the daily email readers and podcast listeners who responded to last week’s challenge to identify the band associated with the titles of each daily email’s subject line.

I know… you don’t have time to pause, you barely have time to breathe, and you are saving flourishing for summer. You are too busy with all the tasks, and taking care of everyone else. Except for being in this moment, and, right now, this is the only moment that matters because it is the only moment you have. And I am so glad you are here, and today’s very special guest is going to help both you and I make the time to pause, to breathe, and to flourish.

If you listened to Tuesday’s incredible show with Tequilla Lamar, you noticed something new – music!

Mara and Collin have been suggesting for some time that we needed to add a few musical transitions, but I have been dragging my feet until I read a recent review of the show.

Shout out to soupman2545, who left a review that began glowingly…

“I am going to be an AP next year and have already begun using ideas from content in this podcast to improve my practice and increase my capacity in my current leadership position.”

I love getting kudos, but it was the next think part of the review that was golden:

“If I could offer one piece of feedback, it would be for show aesthetics… something so small as a jingle or catchy tune, might help hook others in and give them something to look forward to each week.”

Soupman2545, THANK YOU. It takes time and effort to write a review, and it takes a bit more to offer thoughtful feedback in a way that helps make things better.”

So, we are beginning this episode with a thank you to soupman2545- you have helped make us better.

Let’s face it, you aren’t cut out for this job. You are in over your head, and soon everyone will discover it! What were you even thinking? You can’t help your teachers grow. You should never have done this, and you will certainly never make it to the next level.

Ouch – such terrible thoughts! There is a diagnosis for this kind of negative thinking and it is called imposter syndrome – the feeling that, despite everything you have achieved, you are somehow not fit to do the job you are doing.

If you, like me, are one of those afflicted souls, stay tuned. We are going to turn imposter syndrome on its head! If you have never suffered from imposter syndrome, you need to listen to this episode because many of your colleagues do suffer from it.

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of May 8-12, 2023.
Celebrations: Garden planted out! New AP (1 & 2) mentoring program progress!

That my friends is a musical introduction to today’s theme – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
We aren’t talking about spaghetti westerns, but rather a valuable process to help school leaders
get an honest snapshot of what is working, what’s not working, and most importantly what to do
about it. My guests are two incredible educational leaders and human beings and you’ll be
tapping into over 100 years of leadership experience in today’s show.

Today we will begin with the end. There are many big and complex problems we need to solve, but the process will be slow and require great effort.

In contrast, there are small quality-of-life improvements we can make that are simple and yield immediate results.

We looked at three this week:

• Get rid of things that aren’t essential
• Produce a minimally viable version as quickly and simply as possible
• Let your colleagues know how glad you are that they are here today!

Back in episode 44 I shared the story that drives me in which I talked about Kelli, an assistant principal who was overwhelmed with discipline. I visited her around 10:00 o'clock on a spring morning in her rural elementary school and she already had seven office referrals. When I asked Kelli how many of those referrals reflected teacher problems more than kid problems she said five.

The bad news was that there were five kids getting in trouble who shouldn't be getting in trouble and that Kelli was being overwhelmed and prevented from doing her job of developing teachers. The good news was that if we could find a way to get Kelly into those teachers’ classrooms we could stop the cycle. The best news is there's a way to help those teachers with minimal cost, minimal training, and minimal effort.

If you get my daily email, you already know that this week’s messages involved me going head-to-head with ChatGPT on the topic of creating a positive organizational culture. What I didn’t have space to discuss in the emails is how we can use the framework of the six dimensions of organizations to help provide a more coherent understanding of organizational culture. So today’s five for Friday will be substantially different from the weeks emails and will give you some important things to think about whether you are a daily email reader or not. 

At the beginning of this school year, North Carolina embarked on a two-year, $90-million journey to train every elementary and teachers and administrator in a program called LETRS, which aligns to Science of Reading standards, a research-based approach to teaching reading. The training focuses on building a knowledge base about how students learn to read, as opposed to being a collection of strategies. This knowledge base comes at a steep price – about 160 hours of study and training in order to learn it. Breaking down the numbers, over the two years, each administrator and teacher will be asked to spend almost 30-minutes a day learning LETRS, and NC will spend a minimum of $2,000 on each person. 
For experienced teachers who have the time and desire to dig into the science of reading, LETRS might be a great resource, but for the teachers who are struggling just to survive each day, for the early career teachers who are still working through the basics of managing a classroom, planning lessons, and using formative assessments, a huge comprehensive program makes no sense.
For less than 30-minutes a day and less than $2000, you can help many of your teachers to live and teach better immediately. Better yet, the process is simple. Not always easy, but simple.