The Better Leaders Better Schools Podcast | The #1 Downloaded School Leadership Show

A Chicano educator from Los Angeles has spent nearly 20 years building the infrastructure that schools won't — the kind that catches students before they fall through the cracks.

Hector Chaira is the Director of Education Programs at the Latino Film Institute , home to the Youth Cinema Project, a filmmaking mentorship program now operating in 21 California school districts across 61 classrooms.

YCP brings professional filmmakers into English classes to guide students from concept to screen over a full school year. The results — in test scores, reclassification rates, graduation, and lives redirected — are impossible to ignore. Find ALIFI at latinofilm.org.

Arts integration in schools has been underfunded, undervalued, and cut first for decades. This episode is the case against that pattern — told through data, two schools that are outperforming their affluent neighbors, and a story about a kid living in a motel who just won Best High School Actor.

🧠 What You'll Learn

• How the Youth Cinema Project uses filmmaking to drive measurable academic gains in English, writing, and student engagement..
• Why arts integration consistently outperforms traditional instruction in Title I schools — and two real examples that prove it.
• What "redefining success" actually looks like inside a classroom — not the bumper sticker version.
• How high expectations plus creative purpose pulls students away from the wrong path.
• The three guiding principles Hector would use to build his dream school from scratch.

🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules 🎯 Key Insight #1: Student Engagement in Schools Requires Creation, Not Consumption

• What's broken: Schools treat students as passive recipients of content — sit down, absorb, test, repeat.
• The shift: When students become creators — directing, writing, acting, producing — they develop ownership over their learning that no worksheet can replicate.
• Impact: More than 78% of YCP students report feeling confident using their voice in the classroom, and teachers are seeing measurable jumps in writing skills within a single semester.

🎯 Key Insight #2: Arts Integration Drives Academic Outcomes in Title I Schools

• What's broken: Arts programs get cut first in under-resourced schools precisely where student engagement is most at risk.
• The shift: Schools that fold the arts into core content — not as an elective, but as the engine — are consistently outperforming even the most well-funded campuses nearby.
• Impact: One Title I high school in the LA area, where every elective is arts-based and integration into core content is a priority, is outperforming the most affluent school in its community on graduation rates and college entry.

🎯 Key Insight #3: Redefining Success Unlocks Student Potential That Test Scores Miss

• What's broken: Success is defined by what's measurable — test scores, failure rates, attendance — which leaves purpose, confidence, and trajectory entirely off the ledger.
• The shift: Anchoring success to where students actually are — their identity, their interests, their community — gives them a reason to show up that compliance-based schooling never will.
• Impact: A senior at a continuation high school, living in a motel with his family, went from headed toward street life to winning Best High School Actor and asking his mom about college careers in film.

🎙️ HECTOR CHAIRA QUOTES FROM THE RUCKUS-CAST

"We firmly believe that students need to be creators and not just consumers."

— Hector Chaira

"Access is everything. When we can bring quality program and meet them where they are — that reinforce that investment in time, talent, treasure leads to impact."

— Hector Chaira

"We need to redefine what success looks like. It's not a new conversation, but if we can anchor it where our students are, then they're going to show up."

— Hector Chaira

"It only takes one person to lead a difference. Had I not walked up to mom, you would not have heard this story."

— Hector Chaira

"Art isn't extra — it's actually essential. It physically shapes the brain, strengthening learning, memory, and executive function."

— Hector Chaira

"Take the first step. If your intentions are aligned with the goals and the purpose — take the first step. You're going to find a way."

— Hector Chaira

"We're stepping into a very traditional system and shaking it up. Anyone can lead a difference."

— Hector Chaira

🧗‍♂️ Your Do School Different Challenge

Ready to implement? Start here:

• Tomorrow: Email your arts department lead and ask them to walk you through one specific student outcome — academic or otherwise — that happened because of their program this year.
• This Month: Identify one core content class in your building where arts integration could be piloted next semester and schedule a 30-minute conversation with that teacher about what it would take.
• This Semester: Build a formal pathway for at least one arts-based program to present student work publicly — film screening, performance, exhibition — so that student creation has an audience and a finish line.

⌚️ Episode Timestamps

00:00 - Student finds purpose through filmmaking

03:08 - Hector introduces the Latino Film Institute

07:17 - What access and high expectations actually produce

10:10 - Youth Cinema Project explained

13:19 - Academic results from arts integration

19:35 - Why arts get cut — and why that's wrong

21:44 - Two schools proving arts integration works

26:15 - Identity, culture, and who this work is for

34:10 - Marquee message: take the first step

37:52 - Dream school: three guiding principles

41:50 - One thing every Ruckus Maker should remember

🔗 Connect With Hector Chaira

👩🏻‍💻 Hector Chaira

• Website
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/latinofilminstitute/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/latinofilminstitute_/

🎧 Listen & Subscribe

Listen to Better Leaders Better Schools on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts. If today's episode moved you, leave a review — it helps more Ruckus Makers find the show.

🧔🏻‍♂️ Your Selfmentorship Guide

Meet Digital Danny — your Selfmentorship guide. Always available, never forgets, and evolves with you. 👉 Think through your next leadership move at myprincipalcoach.com

🤝 Today's RuckusCast Partners

ODP Business Solutions has been equipping schools for 30 years — and their edge isn't just competitive pricing, it's access to negotiated cooperative contracts that maximize every dollar you spend. They helped the Baldwin school district transform their entire campus while staying under budget by combining smart design with smarter purchasing, from essential supplies to cutting-edge tech to flexible furniture. One supplier, simplified ordering, full compliance.

🔍 Visit ODPbusiness.com/education to learn more.

Frontline Education's 2026 K12 Lens report found that districts with structured, automated professional growth are nearly twice as likely to report easier hiring compared to those without it. If you're building a campus where great educators want to stay, the data on what actually drives retention is all in one place.

🔍 Download the full report at FrontlineEducation.com/leaders

IXL takes the guesswork out of lesson planning — ready-made plans aligned to your textbooks and state standards so teachers spend less time preparing and more time teaching. Principals who want their teachers working smarter, not harder, start here.

🔍 Visit IXL.com/leaders to get started today.

META DESCRIPTION: Arts integration in schools is changing student trajectories — here's how one program does it across 21 California districts and what principals can learn from it.

The man who co-created category design — the strategic framework behind companies like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Drift — has a blunt message for principals: your recruiting ads are announcing that nobody wants to work at your school.

Christopher Lochhead is co-author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, and Category Pirates, the wildly popular business newsletter read by some of the sharpest operators in tech and venture. His latest book, Creator Capitalist, makes the case that the creator economy isn't a trend — it's the future of every career, including the ones you're trying to build on your campus.

Most principals spend their careers trying to fix a reputation problem they don't realize they have. This conversation with Christopher Lochhead lands like a two-by-four: your school's reputation is built entirely by what people say when you're not in the room, and most of the signals you're sending are saying the opposite of what you intend.

The connection between category design, teacher recruitment, AI in education, and what it means to do school different turns out to be a single through-line — and it starts with the courage to be different.

🤩 What You'll Learn

• Why "we need teachers" recruiting ads tell candidates your school is a bad place to work — and what to say instead
• How category design thinking applies directly to school leader reputation and teacher retention
• Why AI makes memorization-focused schools obsolete — and what replaces it
• The difference between being an entertainer in the classroom and creating scaffolding for student legendary
• How to build the kind of school halo that outlasts every teacher who passes through your doors

🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules ✅ Key Insight #1: Your Recruiting Language Is Telling Candidates to Stay Away

• What's broken: Most schools post "we need teachers" ads with lists of open positions, believing they're being transparent about opportunities.
• The shift: What gets said in a communication and what doesn't get said are both heard — and the unspoken message of a vacancy list is that nobody wants to work there.
• Impact: Principals who reframe recruiting around what makes their campus different and what problems they exist to solve go from struggling to fill positions to having more applicants than openings.

✅ Key Insight #2: Reputation Capital Is Everything — Principals Are Building It Whether They Know It or Not

• What's broken: Educators treat reputation as a soft, unmeasurable byproduct of doing good work rather than as a strategic asset they actively shape.
• The shift: Reputation is simply what gets said about you when you're not around — and the most effective principals build schools where being hired there carries a career-long halo, the way working at Nvidia does in Silicon Valley.
• Impact: A school with a strong reputation halo attracts better teachers, retains them longer, and becomes the kind of place parents, students, and staff are proud to talk about.

✅ Key Insight #3: AI Doesn't Threaten Good Teaching — It Exposes Bad Teaching

• What's broken: Schools are treating AI as a threat to academic integrity while continuing to optimize for test scores and the memorization of existing knowledge.
• The shift: AI makes existing knowledge close to free, which means the real skill is no longer knowing things — it's learning how to think, create, and build with AI as a tool.
• Impact: Principals who lead schools where students learn how to learn and create with AI will produce graduates who can find or make a place in the world; those who don't will produce graduates who can't.

🎙️ CHRISTOPHER LOCHHEAD QUOTES FROM THE RUCKUSCAST

"The people who make the biggest difference, by definition, are different. Because if you're the same, you fit in. And when you're the same, you don't stand out. And as a result of not standing out, you don't make much of a difference."

— Christopher Lochhead

"When you put an ad out there that says we need teachers, and here's a list of 200 job openings or whatever it is, what's the unspoken? The unspoken is nobody wants to work here."

— Christopher Lochhead

"If I'm an educator, I want my school to equal working at Nvidia. Because if somebody qualifies to get into my school, when they go forward in their life and they say, I was a teacher at X, everybody goes, oh, wow, that's a great school. That's a halo."

— Christopher Lochhead

"AI makes the availability of existing knowledge closer and closer to free every day. And many people in the education business thought they were in the business of imparting knowledge. Well, not so much anymore."

— Christopher Lochhead

"I want to teach young people to learn from AI and to create and build things on their own with AI. Just like when the pen was invented, we learned to create things with the pen. This is the new pen."

— Christopher Lochhead

"People don't go to school to see Professor Danny or Teacher Danny perform. They go to school for themselves. So the real question is, what do we need to create for them — for the students to be legendary?"

— Christopher Lochhead

"You are more legendary than you know. The vast majority of people, including insanely successful people, undervalue the value of their value."

— Christopher Lochhead

🧗‍♂️ Your Do School Different Challenge

Ready to implement? Start here:

• Tomorrow: Audit your school's current job posting or recruiting language and identify the unspoken message it sends to candidates.
• This Month: Define in one clear sentence the specific problem your school exists to solve and what makes your campus different — then rewrite your recruiting materials around that answer.
• This Semester: Build a school halo by systematically collecting and sharing teacher success stories that make the experience of working at your campus feel like a career credential, not just a job.

⌚️ Episode Timestamps

• 00:00 - Different people make the biggest difference
• 02:42 - What's the real job of the education system
• 08:02 - The human animal doesn't train its young to succeed
• 13:32 - Why we're wired to fit in — and what it costs
• 15:20 - How to be the teacher nobody forgets
• 18:45 - The unsaid message in your recruiting ads
• 24:33 - Teaching kids their life is theirs to design
• 29:53 - School is not a performance — it's a scaffold
• 31:31 - The unrideable bicycle and unleashing creativity
• 44:11 - AI makes existing knowledge close to free
• 47:48 - 1,400 transcripts, 30 minutes, Digital Danny's flywheel
• 58:52 - One message for every school marquee in the world

🔗 Connect With Christopher Lochhead

• 👩🏻‍💻 Website: https://lochhead.com/, [https://www.categorypirates.news/,](https://www.categorypirates.news/) https://categorypirates.com/

  • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/christopherlochhead

  📕 Books:

  • Creator Capitalist: Discover Your Superpower, Design Your Dream Career, & Get Paid To Be You, https://categorypirates.com/pages/creator-capitalist
  • The Existing Market Trap: (a Primer) Escaping The 13 Deadly Sins that Destroy Companies, Careers and Portfolios
  • Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets

🎧 Listen & Subscribe

Listen to Better Leaders Better Schools on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts. If today's episode moved you, leave a review — it helps more Ruckus Makers find the show.

🧔🏻‍♂️Your Selfmentorship Guide

Meet Digital Danny — your Selfmentorship guide. Always available, never forgets, and evolves with you. Think through your next leadership move at myprincipalcoach.com

🤝 Today's Ruckuscast Partners

ODP Business Solutions has been a trusted partner for schools for 30 years — and they're not just a vendor, they're a strategic partner in transformation. Want to turn a tired computer lab into a STEAM innovation center? Need to keep eight schools stocked, spotless, and compliant through cooperative contracts? They handle it all from a single supplier so you can stop juggling and start leading.

Visit ODPbusiness.com/education to learn more.

Frontline Education's 2026 K12 Lens Report is built for exactly the kind of decisions Ruckus Makers face right now — staffing, student support, operations — and it's grounded in insights from over 1,000 school leaders across the country. Know where pressure is building and where smart districts are getting ahead.

Get your full report at FrontlineEducation.com/leaders

IXL gives classroom teachers an adaptive platform that makes differentiated instruction manageable, while giving school leaders dashboard-level visibility into student progress and growth — customizable down to the individual student. Make data-informed decisions that actually move the needle.

Get started at IXL.com/leaders

META DESCRIPTION: Category design legend Christopher Lochhead tells principals why their recruiting ads repel teachers — and how AI is making memorization-obsessed schools obsolete.

Ten years of school leadership podcasting reveals one consistent truth: most principals are doing it alone when they don't have to. In this special anniversary episode, Danny Bauer sits down with co-host Dan Watt to trace the arc from isolated AP to category-defining podcast host — and what he's learned coaching hundreds of school leaders along the way.

Dan Watt is a school principal, leadership coach, and Mastermind coach for Better Leaders Better Schools, based in northern British Columbia, Canada. He joined the Ruckus Maker community as a member before stepping into a coaching role, and now co-writes the weekly Ruckus Makers newsletter. He brings a practitioner's lens to every conversation — someone still in the building, still doing the work. Find him through the Ruckus Makers community at ruckusmakers.news.

☑️ What You'll Learn

• Why Danny started the podcast and what leadership gap drove the decision
• How the Ruckus Maker Mastermind was built to fill a void no one else in education had addressed
• The mindset shift that separates thriving principals from burned-out ones
• What patterns Danny sees repeatedly in the leaders he coaches today
• Where the Ruckus Maker brand is heading — and why it's bigger than school leadership

🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules 🧰 Key Insight #1: Working More Hours Is Not a Leadership Strategy

What's broken: Districts treat effort and visibility as the measure of a leader's worth — the longer you're on campus, the more you're seen as committed.

The shift: Value created and culture built are the real metrics — not hours logged or sleeves rolled up.

Impact: Mastermind member Justin stopped seeing more hours as the solution to feeling overwhelmed, found his North Star, and called it transformative.

🧰 Key Insight #2: Isolation Is a Choice, Not a Condition

What's broken: Most school leaders wait for the district to provide mentorship, community, or coaching — and the district almost never delivers.

The shift: Choosing yourself means actively seeking a community, a coach, and the tools to grow on a weekly basis — not waiting for permission.

Impact: When Danny built the Mastermind in 2016, he introduced peer coaching to an industry that had nothing like it; leaders who join stop leading alone.

🧰 Key Insight #3: You Become What You Think About

What's broken: Leaders absorb a deficit mindset — kids are broken post-COVID, resources are disappearing, the system is against them — and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The shift: The Beautiful Constraint mindset asks: given this reality, what needs to be true to accomplish what we want?

Impact: Principals who reframe obstacles as constraints to work within — rather than walls to hide behind — lead higher-engagement campuses regardless of what the district hands them.

🗣️ DANNY BAUER QUOTES FROM THE RUCKUS-CAST

"The strangest secret is we become what we think about."

— Danny Bauer

"I no longer see putting in more hours as a solution to this feeling. I very much feel like I'm failing forward with this approach, but I feel like I've found a North Star."

— Danny Bauer (quoting Mastermind member Justin)

"You can work in isolation and get bumps and bruises and learn from sparring in real life — or you could join a community and hear about everybody else's war wounds and scars, and learn from that without having to go through it yourself."

— Danny Bauer

"I don't want it to be like a cult of personality. I have an expiration date. And also, I'm only one guy with one perspective, and it's not always the best."

— Danny BaueR

"Every school leader that wants to grow and meet their potential should join our Mastermind. If you don't want to do that, don't join."

— Danny Bauer

🧗‍♂️ Your Do School Different Challenge

Ready to implement? Start here:

Tomorrow: Identify one place you're measuring your leadership worth in hours instead of value — and write down what the actual result looks like instead.

This Month: Audit your professional development diet: if a conference once a year is your only growth structure, find one weekly or monthly touchpoint — a book, a community, a coach — and commit to it.

This Semester: Build or join a peer learning structure where you're both giving and receiving feedback on real leadership challenges, not just sitting in a room listening to a presenter.

⌚️ Episode Timestamps

00:00 - Why Danny started the podcast 10 years ago

04:35 - Danny's early leadership gaps as an AP

08:49 - The public feedback mistake and what it cost

13:38 - Why principals always learn even off the hot seat

20:12 - What were the real stakes 10 years ago

29:54 - How the Mastermind started from a void in education

34:11 - Justin's email: stop measuring worth in hours

40:46 - The Beautiful Constraint mindset for today's climate

48:56 - How Danny lives "you're worth it" daily

55:32 - Where the Ruckus Maker brand is going next

🎧 Listen & Subscribe

Listen to Better Leaders Better Schools on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts. If today's episode moved you, leave a review — it helps more Ruckus Makers find the show.

🧔🏻‍♂️ Your Self-Mentorship Guide

Meet Digital Danny — your self-mentorship guide. Always available, never forgets, and evolves with you. Think through your next leadership move at myprincipalcoach.com.

🤝 Today's Ruckus-Cast Partners

• ODP Business Solutions has been a trusted partner for schools for 30 years — helping districts move from whiteboards to smart boards, static classrooms to collaboration zones, and single-vendor chaos to streamlined cooperative contract ordering. If you're trying to design a learning environment students actually want to show up to,

🔍 visit ODPbusiness.com/education.

• Frontline Education's 2026 K12 Lens Report found that districts using software to automate professional growth are nearly twice as likely to report easier hiring than those that don't. If staffing and retention are keeping you up at night,

🔍 Download the full report at frontlineeducation.com/leaders — it shows exactly what high performing districts are doing differently.

• IXL's diagnostic identifies every student's knowledge gaps and delivers a personalized growth plan — so teachers stop guessing and start teaching to what students actually need. Close the gaps, accelerate learning, and

🔍 Get started today at ixl.com/leaders.

META DESCRIPTION: 10 years of school leadership coaching distilled into one conversation. What Danny Bauer learned building the top 1% podcast for principals who do school different.

🧰 The Ruckus Report

Quick take: This episode is a masterclass in what happens when a teacher stops delivering lessons — and starts creating life-changing experiences.

🙋‍♂️ Meet Your Fellow Ruckus Maker

Jesus Huerta is an educator and innovation coach who transforms classrooms into launchpads for curiosity, creativity, and future careers. From 3D printing to robotics, his work centers on one mission: give students access, spark possibility, and let them build what's next.

🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules

In this episode, Jesus Huerta challenges traditional education paradigms:

🎯 Key Insight #1: Engagement Comes from Compliance

• What's broken: "Sit down, listen, and learn" instruction that assumes students will care.
• The shift: Design experiences students want to engage in through hands-on learning and real-world tools.
• Impact: Students move from passive to fully alive — creating, building, and owning their learning.

🎯 Key Insight #2: Teach the Same Lesson Every Year

• What's broken: Repeating "greatest hits" lessons while the world (and kids) evolve rapidly.
• The shift: Use the engineering design process to constantly iterate, improve, and adapt instruction.
• Impact: Lessons stay fresh, relevant, and aligned with how students actually experience the world.

🎯 Key Insight #3: Technology is Extra (or Too Hard)

• What's broken: Fear, overwhelm, or waiting for the "perfect time" to try something new.
• The shift: Start small, pick one tool, and adopt a "Why not today?" mindset.
• Impact: Teachers build confidence, students gain exposure, and classrooms transform over time — not overnight.

🎙️ Quotable Ruckus

"If I'm bored teaching the lesson, the kids are definitely bored learning it." – Jesus Huerta

🏋️‍♂️ Your Do School Different Challenge

Ready to implement these ideas? Start here:

• Tomorrow: Pick ONE new tool or strategy — even Play-Doh counts — and try it with your students
• This Month: Redesign one existing lesson using the engineering design process (build → test → improve)
• This Semester: Create at least one "can't miss" learning experience that students will talk about years later

🔗 Connect & Continue

🎯 Get the full episode transcript here

👩🏻‍💻 Follow Jesus Huerta:

• Website: https://mrhuertasclass.weebly.com/
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jesus-huerta-750375141

📌 Ruckus Makers Don't Just Listen — They Act

If education ain't a bit disruptive, then what are your students really learning?

This show isn't about doing school better.

It's about Doing School Different — and joining a growing movement of bold, creative school leaders who reject legacy models and reimagine what's possible.

🧠 Four Ways We Can Help You on Your Do School Different Journey

📬 Subscribe to the Free Newsletter — An opportunity to Do School Different 3x a week. Tools, mindset shifts, and strategies that actually work:

https://ruckusmakers.news

🗞 Read Ruckus Maker Media — Exclusive content on Substack. Premium leadership insights, AI prompts and custom GPTs, new books before the bookshelf.

https://ruckusmakers.media

💥 Join The Ruckus Maker Club — Our private network + workshops, The Automatic School tools, AI Prompt Library, and more:

https://ruckusmakers.club

🧨 Apply to the Mastermind — Weekly coaching, peer mentorship, and our proven leadership system (The Ruckus Maker Flywheel) to help you transform your campus:

https://betterleadersbetterschools.com/mastermind

Every tool, community, and coaching program we offer is built to help visionary school leaders play the new game — one where leadership is creative, tech-enabled, and unapologetically student-centered.

🎙 The podcast is your starting point. The movement is just getting started.

🤝 Today's RUCKUScast in Partnership with:

ODP Business Solutions®: Looking to create the kind of campus experience students never forget? ODP Business Solutions® transforms ordinary spaces into extraordinary learning environments.

🔍 Learn more: https://odpbusiness.com/education

IXL: Over 1 million teachers rely on IXL because it is empowering, it helps them make better decisions with reliable data, and it adapts instruction based on student performance.

🔍 Learn more: https://ixl.com/leaders

Frontline Education: 1,000+ school leaders just weighed in on staffing, absenteeism, AI, and funding shifts. The 2026 K-12 Lens Survey Report gives you a national view of where the pressure is — and where momentum is building.

🔍 Learn more: https://frontlineeducation.com/leaders

Twelve Practices LLC © 2026 | Create a Campus Experience Worth Showing Up For

📋 The Ruckus Report

Quick take: Most principals accept their school building as a fixed constraint. Anne Seeley proves it's actually your most under-utilized leadership tool — and you don't need a construction budget to start.

🎓 Meet Your Fellow Ruckus Maker

Anne Seeley, a Senior Associate Project Manager, NCARB, LEED, AP, AIA is an accomplished architect with a distinct blend of expertise.

For over 20 years, she has focused on educational architecture, creating everything from visionary master plans and engaging student Centers to complex campus renovations.

Anne doesn't just design buildings; she creates thoughtful environments that reflect the goals and ideas of the people she works with. Anne's commitment to improving the user experience makes her a leading figure in educational design.

🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules

In this episode, Anne Seeley challenges how school leaders think about physical space:

🧰 Key Insight #1: Space is named, not designed for purpose

• What's broken: Rooms are labeled — classroom, corridor, cafeteria — and that label locks in every expectation about how the space gets used.
• The shift: Name the activity, not the room. A "peer-to-peer instruction zone" unlocks possibilities a "hallway" never will.
• Impact: Ravenscroft School opened a reimagined student center and students claimed full ownership within the first week — filling it from 7am to 7pm daily.

🧰 Key Insight #2: Bus riders get the back door

• What's broken: Car drop-off gets the front entrance. Students who ride the bus — often from lower-income households — enter through a secondary, less welcoming entry.
• The shift: Hilltop Needmore Road Elementary redesigned both entries with equal prominence, a canopy, and a shared convergence point so every student arrives feeling welcomed.
• Impact: Equity gets built into the physical infrastructure of the school day — not just the curriculum.

🧰 Key Insight #3: Underused spaces sit idle most of the day

• What's broken: A school stage gets used once or twice daily for music and theater, then goes dark.
• The shift: Design the stage with a folding wall so it opens to the cafeteria for dining, closes for performances, and opens the back side to the corridor as a teaching space and after-care zone.
• Impact: A single space now serves three distinct functions across the full school day instead of one.

🎙️ Quotable Ruckus

"Rather than giving a name to something — this is a classroom, this is a corridor — what if the space is a space for engagement? – Anne Seeley

What if it's a zone for peer-to-peer instruction? When you start naming the activity, it breaks down our association of what the space looks like and starts to give us opportunities to reimagine it." – Anne Seeley

🧩 Your Do School Different Challenge

Ready to implement these ideas? Start here:

• Tomorrow: Walk your building and identify one underused or unnamed space — a wide corridor, an empty stage, a forgotten corner — and ask: what activity could happen here?
• This Month: Remove or repurpose a row of unused lockers in one hallway and add a marker board and two chairs to create a visible collaboration moment.
• This Semester: Convene students and staff to co-design one shared space on your campus — name the activity, not the room, and give students the ability to reserve and own it.

🔗 Connect & Continue

👩🏻‍💻 Follow Anne Seeley:

• Website: Littleonline.com | Blog | LinkedIn | Instagram | Vimeo
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-seeley

📌 Ruckus Makers Don't Just Listen — They Act

If education ain't a bit disruptive, then what are your students really learning?

This show isn't about doing school better.

It's about Doing School Different — and joining a growing movement of bold, creative school leaders who reject legacy models and reimagine what's possible.

🧠 Four Ways We Can Help You on Your Do School Different Journey

📬 Subscribe to the Free Newsletter — An opportunity to Do School Different 3x a week. Tools, mindset shifts, and strategies that actually work:

https://ruckusmakers.news

🗞 Read Ruckus Maker Media — Exclusive content on Substack. Premium leadership insights, AI prompts and custom GPTs, new books before the bookshelf.

https://ruckusmakers.media

💥 Join The Ruckus Maker Club — Our private network + workshops, The Automatic School tools, AI Prompt Library, and more:

https://ruckusmakers.club

🧨 Apply to the Mastermind — Weekly coaching, peer mentorship, and our proven leadership system (The Ruckus Maker Flywheel) to help you transform your campus:

https://betterleadersbetterschools.com/mastermind

🤝 Today's RUCKUScast in Partnership with:

ODP Business Solutions®: Looking to create the kind of campus experience students never forget? ODP Business Solutions® transforms ordinary spaces into extraordinary learning environments.

🔍 Learn more: odpbusiness.com/education

IXL: Over 1 million teachers rely on IXL because it empowers better decisions with reliable data and adapts instruction based on student performance.

🔍 Learn more: ixl.com/leaders

Frontline Education: Strong school culture doesn't happen by accident — it's built through meaningful support and growth. Frontline Education's 2026 K-12 Lens Report shows how districts are connecting professional development to stronger staffing outcomes.

🔍 Get the full report: frontlineeducation.com/leaders

Twelve Practices LLC © 2026 | Create a Campus Experience Worth Showing Up For

Principal leadership development is broken — 3 out of 4 school leaders have no coach, no mentor, no one to think it through with.

Principal coaching and self-mentorship are the difference between leaders who wait for answers and leaders who generate their own. Corey, a Chicago principal, logged 910 conversations with Digital Danny over one school year — not for generic advice, but to think through the hardest decisions he faced: a staff situation, a career crossroads, a coaching conversation he needed to get right. He called it "almost like your self mentor." That's the category. That's what this is.

This sprint on April 30 gives you one hour to experience the framework, watch a live Digital Danny session, and work through something real you're carrying right now. $100 gets you in — and that includes 30 days of Digital Danny access.

Register for the sprint here: https://ruckusmakers.news/sprint

⌚️ TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - 3 out of 4 principals lead without a mentor

00:46 - Corey's first Digital Danny conversation

01:38 - The basketball coach situation and the shift

02:25 - Corey's career question and interview prep

03:13 - Digital Danny retrains — Corey accelerates

04:14 - What self-mentorship actually means

05:12 - The Self-Mentorship Sprint: April 30 details

📋 The Ruckus Report

Quick take: Schools didn't gradually adopt tech — they surrendered to it. This episode is a wake-up call for leaders ready to reclaim learning, relationships, and childhood from screens.

🎓Meet Your Fellow Ruckus Maker

Emily Cherkin, M.Ed., The Screentime Consultant, is leading the fight for a Tech-IntentionalTM childhood. Emily works with schools, families, policymakers, and advocacy organizations to ensure the future of education prioritizes skills, safety, and relationships over screens, EdTech, and A.I.

Emily is an author, speaker, consultant, and associate professor of public policy at the University of Washington. She is also co-chair of Fairplay's Screens in Schools Action Network and the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against one of the largest EdTech companies in the world. Emily is also the creator of the UnPlug EdTech Toolkit.

🌱 Breaking Down the Old Rules

In this episode, Emily Cherkin challenges traditional education paradigms:

🧰 Key Insight #1: EdTech = Innovation

• What's broken: Schools assume more devices = better learning.
• The shift: Question the role of Tech through a child development lens.
• Impact: Leaders prioritize cognition, focus, and real engagement over screen time.

🧰 Key Insight #2: Convenience Over Relationships

• What's broken: Grade portals, emails, and AI replace human conversations.
• The shift: Bring back friction — phone calls, dialogue, real connection.
• Impact: Stronger trust with families and deeper student-teacher relationships.

🧰 Key Insight #3: Teach Tech Early and Often

• What's broken: Giving young kids constant access to devices in the name of "preparation."
• The shift: Later is better. Less is more. Skills before screens..
• Impact: Students build communication, resilience, and critical thinking first.

🗣️ Quotable Ruckus

"If Tech is doing the thinking, your students aren't!" – Emily Cherkin

🧩 Your Do School Different Challenge

Ready to implement these ideas? Start here:

• Tomorrow: Audit one tech tool on your campus — ask: Is it effective, safe, and necessary?
• This Month: Reintroduce one human-centered practice (phone calls, in-person feedback, discussion-based learning)
• This Semester: Build a campus-wide "tech intentional" philosophy rooted in relationships and skill development

🔗 Connect & Continue

🎯 Get the full episode transcript here

👩🏻‍💻 Follow Emily Cherkin:

💻 Website: https://thescreentimeconsultant.com

😎 The Unplug EdTech ToolKit https://thescreentimeconsultant.com/resources/unplug-edtech-toolkit

🤝 Emily speaking to UK Parliament: https://firstfish.substack.com/p/testimony-to-uk-parliament?r=250yb9

📕 Book: https://www.amazon.com/Screentime- Solution-Judgment-Free-Becoming- Tech-Intentional/dp/B0CB9JS5KB

• Instagram: @thescreentimeconsultant
• LinkedIn: @emily-cherkin
• Facebook: @thescreentimeconsultant
• Youtube: @thescreentimeconsultantllc6072
• BlueSky: @emilycherkin.bsky.social
• First Fish Chronicles: Unplug EdTech, Save Democracy http://firstfish.substack.com

📌 Ruckus Makers Don't Just Listen — They Act

If education ain't a bit disruptive, then what are your students really learning?

This show isn't about doing school better.

It's about Doing School Different — and joining a growing movement of bold, creative school leaders who reject legacy models and reimagine what's possible.

🧠 Four Ways We Can Help You on Your Do School Different Journey

📬 Subscribe to the Free Newsletter — An opportunity to Do School Different 3x a week. Tools, mindset shifts, and strategies that actually work:

https://ruckusmakers.news

🗞 Read Ruckus Maker Media — Exclusive content on Substack. Premium leadership insights, AI prompts and custom GPTs, new books before the bookshelf.

https://ruckusmakers.media

💥 Join The Ruckus Maker Club — Our private network + workshops, The Automatic School tools, AI Prompt Library, and more:

https://ruckusmakers.club

🧨 Apply to the Mastermind — Weekly coaching, peer mentorship, and our proven leadership system (The Ruckus Maker Flywheel) to help you transform your campus:

https://betterleadersbetterschools.com/mastermind

✅ Every tool, community, and coaching program we offer is built to help visionary school leaders play the new game — one where leadership is creative, tech-enabled, and unapologetically student-centered.

The podcast is your starting point. The movement is just getting started.

🎙️ Today's RUCKUScast in Partnership with:

ODP Business Solutions®: Looking to create the kind of campus experience students never forget? ODP Business Solutions® transforms ordinary spaces into extraordinary learning environments.

🔍 Learn more: https://odpbusiness.com/education

IXL: Over 1 million teachers rely on IXL because it is empowering, it helps them make better decisions with reliable data, and it adapts instruction based on student performance.

🔍 Learn more: https://ixl.com/leaders

Frontline Education: 1,000+ school leaders just weighed in on staffing, absenteeism, AI, and funding shifts. The 2026 K-12 Lens Survey Report gives you a national view of where the pressure is — and where momentum is building.

🔍 Learn more: https://frontlineeducation.com/leaders

Twelve Practices LLC © 2026 | Create a Campus Experience Worth Showing Up For

📋 The Ruckus Report

Quick take: Most systems are designed to control people, not empower them.This episode shows what happens when a leader flips that script — and trusts the people closest to students to lead.

🙋‍♂️ Meet Your Fellow Ruckus Maker

Dr. Lindsay Whorton is president of The Holdsworth Center, a nonprofit building stronger leaders for public schools. She's the author of A New School Leadership Architecture, a bold blueprint for redesigning leadership roles so educators are supported, developed, and able to help students thrive.

⚒ Breaking Down the Old Rules

In this episode, Dr. Lindsay Whorton challenges traditional education paradigms:

🧩 Key Insight #1: Stop Hoarding Power at the Top

• What's broken: Central office controls decisions, budgets, and strategy.
• The shift: Push power, money, and responsibility to campuses.
• Impact: Faster decisions, stronger ownership, and leadership at every level.

🧩 Key Insight #2: Collaboration Isn't a Meeting

• What's broken: PLCs and meetings that waste time and kill momentum.
• The shift: Create space for real-time, problem-solving collaboration between educators.
• Impact: Teachers stop retreating and start growing together.

🧩 Key Insight #3: Scarcity Is a Leadership Trap

• What's broken: Leaders fixate on what they don't have (budget, staff, time).
• The shift: Reframe constraints into creative opportunities using available resources.
• Impact: Innovation increases, victim thinking decreases, and results improve.

💬 Quotable Ruckus

"You're not punishing anyone but your students if you stay stuck in scarcity." – Dr. Lindsay Whorton

🧗‍♂️ Your Do School Different Challenge

Ready to implement these ideas? Start here:

• Tomorrow: Ask your team: "What decisions are we holding at the top that should live closer to students?"
• This Month: Redesign one meeting into real collaboration — focused on solving a live student problem
• This Semester: Pilot a shared leadership model that gives teachers real authority, time, and responsibility

🔗 Connect & Continue

🎯 Get the full episode transcript ****here

👩🏻‍💻 Follow Dr. Lindsay Whorton:

• Website: https://holdsworthcenter.org/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsay-whorton-9685aa26/
• Holdsworth Center on X: https://x.com/HoldsworthCentr
• Holdsworth Center on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HoldsworthCenter/
• Holdsworth Center on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/holdsworthcenter/

📌 Ruckus Makers Don't Just Listen — They Act

If education ain't a bit disruptive, then what are your students really learning?

This show isn't about doing school better.

It's about Doing School Different — and joining a growing movement of bold, creative school leaders who reject legacy models and reimagine what's possible.

🧠 Four Ways We Can Help You on Your Do School Different Journey

📬 Subscribe to the Free Newsletter — An opportunity to Do School Different 3x a week. Tools, mindset shifts, and strategies that actually work:

https://ruckusmakers.news

🗞 Read Ruckus Maker Media — Exclusive content on Substack. Premium leadership insights, AI prompts and custom GPTs, new books before the bookshelf.

https://ruckusmakers.media

💥 Join The Ruckus Maker Club — Our private network + workshops, The Automatic School tools, AI Prompt Library, and more:

https://ruckusmakers.club

🧨 Apply to the Mastermind — Weekly coaching, peer mentorship, and our proven leadership system (The Ruckus Maker Flywheel) to help you transform your campus:

https://betterleadersbetterschools.com/mastermind

📌 Ruckus Makers Don't Just Listen — They Act

If you're waiting for more resources, more clarity, or more permission… you'll be waiting forever.

The leaders changing schools right now aren't waiting.

They're redistributing power, building leaders, and creating campuses worth showing up for.

🤝 Today's RUCKUScast in Partnership with:

ODP Business Solutions®: Looking to create the kind of campus experience students never forget? ODP Business Solutions® transforms ordinary spaces into extraordinary learning environments.

🔍 Learn more: https://odpbusiness.com/education

IXL: Over 1 million teachers rely on IXL because it is empowering, it helps them make better decisions with reliable data, and it adapts instruction based on student performance.

🔍 Learn more: https://ixl.com/leaders

Frontline Education: 1,000+ school leaders just weighed in on staffing, absenteeism, AI, and funding shifts. The 2026 K-12 Lens Survey Report gives you a national view of where the pressure is — and where momentum is building.

🔍 Learn more: https://frontlineeducation.com/leaders

© 2026 Twelve Practices LLC | If Education Ain't a Bit Disruptive, Then What Are Your Students Learning?

🎯 The Ruckus Report

Quick take: You can't force engagement — but you can design for success. Tommy Floyd breaks down how one meaningful win can transform disconnected students into confident, motivated learners.

🎓 Meet Your Fellow Ruckus Maker

Tommy Floyd originally became involved in NASP® in 2003, while serving as a high school principal and NASP® coach. Several of the first NASP® state champions were on the Somerset High School team that Tommy coached.

He has seen, first-hand, how the program positively impacts students, parents, and teachers.

He has seen NASP® promote constructive teacher/student relationships, academic motivation and the promotion of students becoming involved with their school – many for the first time.

🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules

In this episode, Tommy Floyd challenges traditional education paradigms:

😎 Key Insight #1: You Can't Force Engagement

• What's broken: Schools rely on surveys, incentives, and interventions to "drive" engagement.
• The shift: Create authentic success experiences first.
• Impact: Students become intrinsically motivated and eager to participate.

📌 Key Insight #2: The "Invisible Middle" Doesn't Need More Programs

• What's broken: Schools focus only on high achievers or behaviour problems.
• The shift: Design opportunities for the disengaged majority to feel capable and connected.
• Impact: 68% of students report feeling more connected to school.

🧰 Key Insight #3: Motivation Comes After Success (Not Before)

• What's broken: Expecting students to care before they've experienced competence.
• The shift: Give students a win → build confidence → unlock effort.
• Impact: 34% of students say they work harder in class after experiencing success.

🎙️ Quotable Ruckus

"Every child needs success. What are you doing?" – Tommy Floyd

🧗‍♂️ Your Do School Different Challenge

Ready to implement these ideas? Start here:

• Tomorrow: Identify 5 "invisible middle" students and ask: where can they experience a quick win?
• This Month: Launch or pilot one new opportunity (club, program, experience) designed for belonging — not performance
• This Semester: Build a system where every student experiences success in at least one meaningful domain on campus

🔗 Connect & Continue

🎯 Get the full episode transcript here

👩🏻‍💻 Follow Tommy Floyd:

• Website: https://www.naspschools.org/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/naspschools/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ArcheryintheSchools/videos

📌 Ruckus Makers Don't Just Listen — They Act

If education ain't a bit disruptive, then what are your students really learning?

This show isn't about doing school better.

It's about Doing School Different — and joining a growing movement of bold, creative school leaders who reject legacy models and reimagine what's possible.

🧠 Here are four ways we can help you on your Do School Different journey

📬 Subscribe to the Free Newsletter — An opportunity to Do School Different 3x a week. Tools, mindset shifts, and strategies that actually work: ruckusmakers.news

🗞 Read Ruckus Maker Media — Exclusive content on Substack. Premium leadership insights, AI prompts and custom gpts, new books before the bookshelf. ruckusmakers.media

💥 Join The Ruckus Maker Club — Our private network + workshops, The Automatic School tools, AI Prompt Library, and more: ruckusmakers.club

🧨 Apply to the Mastermind — Weekly coaching, peer mentorship, and our proven leadership system (The Ruckus Maker Flywheel) to help you transform your campus: Apply Now

🎙 Today's RUCKUS cast in Partnership With:

• ODP Business Solutions®

For over 30 years, ODP Business Solutions® has helped schools transform from whiteboards to smartboards. Why? Because when you get the right tools, everyone wins.

🔍 Visit odpbusiness.com/education to revolutionize your school's learning spaces.

• IXL

Over 1 million teachers rely on IXL because it is empowering, it helps them make better decisions with reliable data, and it adapts instruction based on student performance.

🔍 Get started today at ixl.com/leaders

• Frontline Education:

1,000+ school leaders just weighed in on staffing, absenteeism, AI, and funding shifts. The 2026 K-12 Lens Survey Report gives you a national view of where the pressure is — and where momentum is building.

🔍 Learn more: https://frontlineeducation.com/leaders

© 2026 Twelve Practices LLC | If Education Ain't a Bit Disruptive, Then What Are Your Students Learning?

📕 The Ruckus Report

Quick take: Most strategic plans fail for one simple reason — leaders try to sell a vision the community didn't help create. Drew Howick and Dr. Jeffrey Axelbank reveal how the Future Search process flips that script by putting the whole community in the room to design the future together.

🫂 Meet Your Fellow Ruckus Makers

Drew Howick is the founder of Howick Associates, a highly regarded consulting firm based in Madison Wis, and is well regarded as a trusted advisor and collaborative partner to hundreds of schools districts, most of which are in Wisconsin.

He is the author of the book, The New Compleat Facilitator: A Handbook for Facilitators.

Dr. Jeffrey Axelbank is a psychologist and consultant based in Highland Park, NJ. His consulting work focuses on strategic engagement - getting everyone pulling in the same direction.

He is particularly passionate about whole-system interventions such as Future Search, to help diverse stakeholders in organizations and communities discover common ground in their vision of their shared future.

🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules

In this episode, Drew Howick and Dr. Jeffrey Axelbank challenge traditional education paradigms:

🧰 Key Insight #1: Stop "Selling" Strategic Plans

• What's broken: District leaders build a strategic plan internally, then try to convince the community to support it.
• The shift: Bring 60–160 diverse stakeholders together to co-create the vision.
• Impact: When people help build the future, they defend it, support it, and help implement it.

🎯 Key Insight #2: Replace Hub-and-Spoke Engagement

• What's broken: Schools collect feedback separately through surveys, focus groups, and stakeholder meetings.
• The shift: Put parents, teachers, students, business leaders, clergy, nonprofits, and civic leaders in the same room so they talk to each other.
• Impact: Silos disappear, polarization drops, and the community discovers real common ground.

🧨 Key Insight #3: Make Strategic Planning an Event, Not a Process

• What's broken: Two years of scattered meetings that lead to a plan nobody owns.
• The shift: A 12-hour Future Search event across three sessions where stakeholders explore the past, analyze the present, and design the future together.
• Impact: Stronger trust, better ideas, unexpected partnerships, and a plan the community actually wants to execute.

🎙️ Quotable Ruckus

"Strong schools require strong community partnerships — and those partnerships don't just happen. Someone has to start the conversation." – Drew Howick

"When people help create the vision for the future, they don't fight the plan — they help build it." – Dr. Jeffrey Axelbank

🔗 Connect & Continue

🎯 Get the full episode transcript here

👩🏻‍💻 Follow Drew Howick:

• Website: *www.howickassociates.com,*

AASA JSP Comm'ty Engage using Future Search.pdf

👩🏻‍💻 Follow Dr. Jeffrey Axelbank:

• website: https://axelbankconsulting.com/
• The website of the Future Search Network: https://futuresearch.net/
• Amazon page for the book, Future Search: Getting The Whole System in the Room for Vision, Commitment, and Action: https://a.co/d/0dMt4o3p
• The article can be found on the web here: https://www.aasa.org/resources/resource/community-engagement-using-future-search-a-systematic-evaluation-of-the-wisconsin-experience

🧗‍♂️ Your Do School Different Challenge

Ready to implement these ideas? Start here:

• Tomorrow: Ask three stakeholder groups (students, teachers, and parents) one simple question: What are you glad, sad, and mad about in our school system?
• This Month: Map the full ecosystem of your school community — businesses, nonprofits, faith groups, civic leaders — and identify who's missing from your conversations.
• This Semester: Host a community vision event that brings diverse voices together to define what success for students actually looks like.

📌 Ruckus Makers Don't Just Listen — They Act

If education ain't a bit disruptive, then what are your students really learning?

This show isn't about doing school better.

It's about Doing School Different — and joining a growing movement of bold, creative school leaders who reject legacy models and reimagine what's possible.

🧠 Here are four ways we can help you on your Do School Different journey

📬 Subscribe to the Free Newsletter — An opportunity to Do School Different 3x a week. Tools, mindset shifts, and strategies that actually work https://ruckusmakers.news/subscribe

🗞 Read Ruckus Maker Media — Exclusive content on Substack. Premium leadership insights, AI prompts and custom gpts, new books before the bookshelf.https://ruckusmakers.media

💥 Join The Ruckus Maker Club — Our private network + workshops, The Automatic School tools, AI Prompt Library, and more: https://members.ruckusmakers.club/plans/1428145?bundle_token=e8203ab7f9df767a6cf6b98e18a4ff0d&utm_source=manual

🧨 Apply to the Mastermind — Weekly coaching, peer mentorship, and our proven leadership system (The Ruckus Maker Flywheel) to help you transform your campus: https://www.betterleadersbetterschools.com/mastermind-application

🎙 Today's RUCKUS cast in Partnership With:

• ODP Business Solutions®

For over 30 years, ODP Business Solutions® has helped schools transform from whiteboards to smart-boards. Why? Because when you get the right tools, everyone wins.

🔍 Visit odpbusiness.com/education to revolutionize your school's learning spaces.

• IXL

Over 1 million teachers rely on IXL because it is empowering, it helps them make better decisions with reliable data, and it adapts instruction based on student performance.

🔍 Get started today at ixl.com/leaders

• Frontline Education:

1,000+ school leaders just weighed in on staffing, absenteeism, AI, and funding shifts. The 2026 K-12 Lens Survey Report gives you a national view of where the pressure is — and where momentum is building.

🔍 Learn more: https://frontlineeducation.com/leaders

© 2026 Twelve Practices LLC | If Education Ain't a Bit Disruptive, Then What Are Your Students Learning?