The Assistant Principal Podcast

Show Notes, Episode 51: Who are you? With Craig Martin

About this show:

Last spring several of the assistant principals in our APEx group asked if we could work on how APs can influence school culture without over-stepping their boundaries. One AP noted that this could be especially problematic if you and your principal had very different styles. Back then I approached this as a culture question, but today I’m looking at it differently. Today, I’m thinking about this through two lenses. The first is authenticity: how do I do a job where everyone is watching me all the time, and make sure that I am true to myself? The second lens is sociological. 

If we were in a room together and someone introduced me as “a leader” you would not be surprised because I look the part. I’m a 6-2 white male in my late 50’s, I have a good speaking voice and I know how to engage with people. And yes, I coached football. In other words, I meet the societal expectations of what leaders look and sound like in our culture. 

But what about everyone else? What does it mean to be a leader in schools when you don’t look like me? How do you maintain your authenticity when the expectations of who can lead and how they should lead are still relatively narrow and rigid? 

Notable Quotes

Craig Martin

“To be authentic, in my opinion, means that you recognize in the spaces where you walk, you breathe, you lead, that you allow the pulses of the young people who are moving about, the teachers who are working with the young people, the custodians, the food service community, the parents, the community partners, you allow those pulses help you center on what you feel led to that important.”

“People want to know you’re human, they want to know you care”

 “Being authentic is about, in my Opinion, being open to sharing parts of who you are in your human experience that connect and resonate with others”

“Not all acts of vulnerability are created equal. There is a ladder within yourself that is unique to you.”

“Sometimes the smallest moments are the actually the most meaningful for people when we talk about vulnerability”

“Our kids know us”

“In your ability as a leader, you have the ability to transcend what is most important. You have the ability to send signals to people on ‘this is what i believe in, this is what i am about.’ and people will find harbor with you, they will look to you for council and coaching and development. they will want to take those walks because they want to be in spaces where they feel safe, they feel affirmed, they feel seen, and they know they will be supported and loved.”

“Be okay with not being okay, but consistently love on yourself. and thats a thing I have to keep doing. I have to keep reminding myself “I am loved, I am thriving, I am safe” but I need to keep filling myself with those kinds of messages and affirmations”

Frederick

“Authenticity is not about you, it is about how you relate to all of these other people, and authenticity involves serving, connecting, and supporting other people”

“Our authenticity should remind other people of the best parts of us and the best parts of others”

Links:

Craig’s Twitter: @CraigCMartin12

Craig’s Website: https://www.craigcmartinleads.com 

My email: [email protected] 

The Assistant Principal Podcast website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/appodcast.html 

Sign up for the daily leadership email: https://mailchi.mp/c15c68e6df32/specialedition 

Website: www.frederickbuskey.com

Blog: www.frederickbuskey.com/blog (reposts of the daily email)

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of August 15-19, 202. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of August 15-19, 202. We also celebrate out 50th episode by listening to five of our favorite outtakes from the pod.

If you already get my daily leadership emails, then I hope you’ll find some added value here and if you don’t already subscribe you can find a link on my home page at frederickbuskey.com. Many readers like to begin their mornings by reading the email and setting a leadership intention for the day, but please don’t feel any pressure to subscribe. You are already doing more to grow yourself than many others out there, simply by listening to the podcast.

Recap…

E20 Change Starts from Within w. Dr. Gabby Grant

MVP: Want to change your organization? Change yourself first.

Dr. Grant is an authority on implementing restorative practices. When we asked her what the first step was in implementing restorative practices in a school, this was her answer:

“The first step in understanding and implementing restorative practices is understanding how you handle conflict yourself… It isn’t authentic if the transformation doesn’t start from within and then spread out, it isn’t going to be sustainable…Change starts from within”

This is a universal truth. The first step to changing our organization is to change ourselves. Implementation and application will always lag behind and remain inconsistent until we have made the change from within ourselves. Until we change, organizational changes will be surface and incomplete.

E 21 Meeting the needs of new teachers with Mara Buskey, Leah Dowling and Kemberly Merritt

MVP: Be more direct in giving feedback and helping people grow their skills.

We asked first year teachers Leah Dowling and Kemberly Merritt about what kind of support they needed from their assistant principals:

“The assistant principal, he held my hand and walked me step-by-step, this is how you do this… he cheered me on... and held my hand to make sure I got it. If teachers that came in could have that kind of support of someone that is going to give them that step-by-step guidance, it would give them a more secure feeling.” (Kemberly)

“When they see us struggling in an area, they need to say, ‘here’s some resources, here’s some strategies’… there were times this school year that I didn’t realize I could have been doing better until February or March, wishing that I had known that earlier.” (Leah)

We often get confused and think that directive coaching is only for low performers, but that isn’t the case. People want feedback! They want critical feedback! More importantly, they want that feedback to be followed up with robust and detailed support and training. Directive coaching is good coaching. Being directive can be reassuring, especially when everything is new.

E26 Courage with Dr. Mary Hemphill

MVP: Know your ethical line in the sand before ethical situations arise, not during.

Dr. Hemphill is the Chief Academic Officer for the North Carolina Department of Education. We talked about being courageous as a leader and acting on your values.

“When you are an Assistant Principal, and particularly when you become a Principal, you have to decide before you sign your contract, you have to decide before you interview, what hill you do you want to die on, what do you want to fight for, because when you are in a moment with a parent, or a board member, or a superintendent, that is not the time to make those decisions.”

We think about critical ethical decisions being made in the face of a challenging situation, but Mary rightly reminds us that we usually make our ethical choices before the actual events ever unfold. I council people to be themselves in interviews and to put their values on display. Being authentic in an interview makes it much easier to be authentic in the job. On the other hand, if you are willing to bury your values in the interview, you will most certainly bury them in the job.

E38 Just put the key in the door with Dr. Maddie Jurek

MVP: To overcome leadership fears, just take the first step into the space.

Dr. Jurek is an assistant middle school principal in South Carolina. We were talking about

the challenges of observing teachers who have more experience or teach in a discipline that you don’t understand when Maddie said:

“The hardest part for me whenever I went in to observe those lessons, truly, was putting the key in the door and turning the knob to walk into the room. After I walked into the room I realized, I don’t have to focus on content here... I am here to focus on instruction, and there is a difference between instruction and content.” 

There are two great lessons here. The first step to leadership is often overcoming our own fears. We can spend too much time thinking about the negatives and how we aren’t qualified or don’t know enough but shutting down that negative thinking begins with stepping into the situation.

It is highly likely that we will at times be leading people who know more than we do about many things. We don’t need to be experts in everything to help our people grow. When we focus on leveraging what we know (assets) not what we don’t know (deficits), then we can support people.

E53 Who are you with Craig Martin

MVP: Every day we have opportunities to help people… every single day!

Craig Martin is the Executive Director of the Bridge Boston Charter School in Roxbury (Boston) Massachusetts. He is also an incredible inspirational speaker. At the end of our interview, I asked him if there was anything else he wanted to say. Thankfully, his answer was yes…

“Stay connected to what it is that’s your calling, your passion, your zeal. Do it in ways that are graceful and exciting and inspiring for you as well as those around you and enjoy the journey, the highs and the lows, cause all of this is a gift, every day, every interaction, every moment is gift, regardless of whether or not we can recognize it like that.”

Oh, this says so much! It is especially applicable to the times we live in, times that can feel overwhelming and dark. Craig offers us the way out and the path to staying joyous. Every day, regardless of how we feel, we have opportunities:

·      We can embrace our passions.

·      We can be a light house for others

·      We can bring value to people’s lives

We have that opportunity every day, good days and bad days.

Sharing our gifts is a choice we make every day. The danger is in not making the choice intentionally!

Takeaway

Every moment is about the story we tell ourselves, about the values we hold – now what we say we hold, but what we really hold. And share. 

This wraps up this week’s Five for Friday rendition of The Assistant Principal Podcast. If you enjo...

Show Notes, Episode 49: The Instructional Leadership Team

About this show:

This episode is titled THE Instructional Leadership Team. Why “THE Instructional Leadership Team” ? Why not the instructional leadership team? The fun reason is because I’m an Ohio State grad, and The Ohio State University sounds way cooler than Ohio State. But the real reason is because “THE Instructional Leadership Team” is the fundamental building block of school improvement. Most schools have instructional leadership teams, but fewer schools have “THE Instructional Leadership Team.” 

What’s the difference you ask? The answer is coming…

Notable Quotes

Frederick

“In schools, the flywheel looks like this:

We do professional development with teachers.

We follow up on that professional development with targeted observations.

We take the data from those observations and evaluate them in order to give us feedback in what our next professional development steps should be.

When we do that over and over and over again, we create a flywheel that is focused on driving teacher development and continual teacher improvement”

“School leaders have 2 jobs: Keep everybody safe, help teachers get better”

“Teacher development is the primary path to school improvement and the foundation of teacher development is the instructional leadership team”

“Things that define THE ILT:

• Sacred meeting time
• Agenda focused on teacher development
• Role clarity of team members
• Mutual accountability”

“Instructional leadership isn’t an add-on, it isn't a luxury, it isn’t optional. If you can’t find a way to have a functioning ILT that is laser focused on teacher growth, then you are hamstringing your efforts to improve your school”

Links:

My email: [email protected] 

The Assistant Principal Podcast website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/appodcast.html 

Sign up for the daily leadership email: https://mailchi.mp/c15c68e6df32/specialedition 

Website: www.frederickbuskey.com

Blog: www.frederickbuskey.com/blog (reposts of the daily email)

Episode 38, Dr. Maddie Jurek
Quadrant2 micro-journal subscribe link here

Show Notes, Episode 47: From first year AP to AP of the Year with Dr. Tia Jones Pt. 2

About this show:

What does it mean to be an assistant principal? What is your job? What are the essential skills? One of the reasons being an AP is so challenging is because there aren’t really clear answers to these questions. Outside of busses, books, and butts, there isn’t a strong consensus for what makes a great AP. This is one of my motivations in starting this podcast – it sometimes feels like the assistant principalship is this ever changing role of mixed-up expectations, and that doesn’t seem fair. I hope through this podcast we can bring some clarity to the role and to the essential elements of being a great AP. Today, we have a wonderful guest who can help us do that.

Notable Quotes

Tia Jones

“You want to make sure that you build that capacity with your teachers, so that they can build it with their students, and not only with the students, but with the parents. The parents, that's the key.”

“People won’t know what you need or what you’re interested in unless you say something”

“One of the biggest things that has helped me personally and professionally is journaling”

“Many of us, when we get up in the morning, we might look at the phone and some of us are on social media first thing. If you replace going to Tik Tok, Facebook, Twitter, if you replace that moment in time to write a sentence about how you want your day to go, that is one change that you can make that can be positive for you in the long run”

Frederick

“We need to remember as assistant principals, most teacher ed programs don’t have parts where they have their intern teachers sit down and make phone calls to parents. They’re not taught that”

“When you are at the district level and you have an AP comes to you and says ‘hey, I want to grow in this area, I want some help’, that person is now on your radar, because that is the kind of person you can grow”

Links:

Tia’s Foundation: https://www.empoweringjustice.org 

Tia’s Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/tiajonesed1

Tia’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-tia-s-jones-2ba62b29 

My email: [email protected] 

The Assistant Principal Podcast website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/appodcast.html 

Sign up for the daily leadership email: https://mailchi.mp/c15c68e6df32/specialedition 

Website: www.frederickbuskey.com

Blog: www.frederickbuskey.com/blog (reposts of the daily email)

Show Notes, Episode 46: From first year AP to AP of the Year with Dr. Tia Jones Pt. 1

About this show:

What does it mean to be an assistant principal? What is your job? What are the essential skills? One of the reasons being an AP is so challenging is because there aren’t really clear answers to these questions. Outside of busses, books, and butts, there isn’t a strong consensus for what makes a great AP. This is one of my motivations in starting this podcast – it sometimes feels like the assistant principalship is this ever changing role of mixed-up expectations, and that doesn’t seem fair. I hope through this podcast we can bring some clarity to the role and to the essential elements of being a great AP. Today, we have a wonderful guest who can help us do that.

Notable Quotes

Tia Jones

“I always tell my students that my role is to make sure that you are safe, and that you are learning. Those two things are going to happen, and it is my job to make sure that happens. And i doing that, you are not only supporting the students, but you are also supporting the teachers”

“Over the years I have learned that it is always about those relationships… what it comes down to is the relationships you build with your students, your teachers, as well as with your teachers. What I have learned is that a lot of things take care of themselves when you build those relationships”

“One of the things I definitely try to do each and every time I talk with a student is making sure that I connect with the parent prior to the child getting home”

“When we talk about the relationship piece, it doesn’t have to be just work. I want my teachers to know that I care about them at school, but that I care about them as a person. I want the best for them for home, as well as for what they do for our students at school.”

“I would like for them to take away the intentionality. Being intentional about anything that you do, but when it comes to working with the teachers for the benefit of our students, being intentional with your time, being intentional with your actions, and being intentional with your relationships”

Frederick

“I think that one of the big transition points from being a new leader to gaining that experience and taking that step to being a great leader is realizing: I’m not managing my time, I’m managing my priorities. Which is a really cool thing because when you are trying to manage your time, your time is really running you, but when you can make that shift to: I am going to manage my priorities, now you are in the drivers seat”

“Email can’t build the relationship, but you and I sitting here together talking, that builds the connection”

Links:

Tia’s Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/tiajonesed1

Tia’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-tia-s-jones-2ba62b29 

My email: [email protected] 

The Assistant Principal Podcast website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/appodcast.html 

Sign up for the daily leadership email: https://mailchi.mp/c15c68e6df32/specialedition 

Website: www.frederickbuskey.com

Blog: www.frederickbuskey.com/blog (reposts of the daily email)

Show Notes, Episode 44: The Story That Drives Me

About this show:

Many of us have a story that drives what we do. We had a special teacher, or a great mentor, or even a horrible experience. Whichever it might have been, there is a story that is so deeply rooted in our psyche, that it drives what we do and how we do it. Today… my story.

Notable Quotes

Frederick

“The problem is, what we focus on is the urgency more than the importance”

“The first principle is focusing on purpose, or what is important.

The second principle is focusing on problems, not symptoms.

The third principle is focusing on progress, instead of big change.

And the fourth principle is focusing on people instead of tasks”

“It doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to be fighting discipline all the time, you don’t have to be buried in the urgent stuff all the time”

Links:

My email: [email protected] 

The Assistant Principal Podcast website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/appodcast.html 

Sign up for the daily leadership email: https://mailchi.mp/c15c68e6df32/specialedition 

Website: www.frederickbuskey.com

Blog: www.frederickbuskey.com/blog (reposts of the daily email)

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of July 25-29, 2022.

Show Notes, Episode 42: The Curmudgeon with Nat Ellis

About this show:

When we talk about teachers resisting change, we often conjure up images of the curmudgeon – the 30-year veteran teacher who hasn’t changed and refuses to “get with the program.”  However, often times there are good reasons to resist change. Just as importantly, our veteran teachers can be great allies in building and improving school culture. Today, we learn from Nat Ellis, my favorite curmudgeon and a teacher whose passion and wisdom should inspire you.

Notable Quotes

Nat Ellis:

“Everything we did, we sat back and thought “is this what is best for the kids?” and that was our bottom line.”

“How can I have the most impact with what I have?”

“I had a principle that sat in his office sent emails. I never saw him.”

“When I look at the principles that have a presence in the hallways, they have a better understanding of their building. So walk the classrooms, know the kids… its crazy how a 10-minute appearance makes a difference”

Frederick:

“There are a lot of things we need to change. There are a lot of ways we can improve and get better, but I think what we don’t realize sometimes is that every time we decide to do something, that means there is something else we can’t do.”

“If we just go in a backroom as an administrative team and make decisions, we’re missing a lot of information”

“My choices reflect my values. And the challenge for us is that when we are in that urgent zone just running around trying to get everything done, we aren’t intentional about the choices. We’re not going to get it all done, so stop and be intentional about where you invest that time.”

Links:

My email: [email protected] 

The Assistant Principal Podcast website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/appodcast.html 

Sign up for the daily leadership email: https://mailchi.mp/c15c68e6df32/specialedition 

Website: www.frederickbuskey.com

Blog: www.frederickbuskey.com/blog (reposts of the daily email)