Before we get started, I have two quick announcements

1.     I’ve been hearing a strong interest in how to support beginning teachers. I went into some key practices last year in episodes 214 and 215, so if you are in the mode to think about how to support your BTs (and ECTs), give a listen to episodes 214 and 215

2.     The July 22 episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast we feature a panel discussion with myself and five assistant principals. Some are national/state AP of the Year awardees and others are just wrapping up their first year as assist principals. The focus of our discussion is being a first year AP! We would love to hear from you. If you have questions, topics, advice, or stories, please consider sharing. Please email them to me at [email protected]. I would love to be able to name contributors but will only do so if you explicitly give permission for us to include your name and affiliation. We are recording on July 15, so don’t wait.

Okay, now onto the episode…

Show Notes, Episode 18: The Math of Leverage

About this show:

The four principles of leverage, described last week in episode 17, can guide us to creating progress in our organizations. A key to progress is focusing on incremental progress as opposed to big changes to fix things. In today’s episode, we will apply leverage to a real school situation.

Notable Quotes

Frederick

“If you invest 5 minutes a day in one of these teachers, over the course of a week we can probably make a difference”

“One of the reasons that students are tardy to class is because class doesn’t start on time. Or you check into class and there’s nothing going on, so why hurry up to be there? So starting work at the beginning of class gives students more reason to get to class”

“in the course of a day, if you get one less referral, that’s another 20-45 minutes that you get back… now imagine what we can do to support those teachers”

“I would challenge you to go around and look at the classrooms that you get the most referrals from. I am going to bet that in most cases, 70-80% of those cases, those teachers do not teach bell to bell. That’s when problems are happening, during the beginning of class and end of class.”

“We can’t necessarily make a teacher love kids and we can’t turn a teacher into a charismatic kid magnet, but we can give them very simple, concrete strategies to start building rapport with their kids”

“Don’t go after it unless you’re willing to invest the time to follow up”

“I want things to be immediately better for me, which means I get more time to invest in teachers”

“There are problems all over our schools, there are teachers that need to get better, there are opportunities for growth, but our time is so limited. There are so many tasks facing you, just focus on one teacher and just focus on one thing for that teacher. Just make it a little bit better, and then once you’ve got that, then figure out where the next place is to go”

“One teacher, one change”

Links:

My email: [email protected]

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

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Website: www.frederickbuskey.com

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