In this episode, we get the opportunity to talk with Sheree Du Preez, Early Elementary Division Head at Trinity School in Atlanta, Georgia, about what makes an effective formative assessment and why they are so important in education.  Sheree has 35 years of experience in education, twenty-five of which are in leadership and has taught in and led schools in the US, Ghana, and Dubai.  Sheree holds a Masters in Instructional Leadership and Administration and an Ed. S in School Leadership and has been a teacher, a school librarian, a principal, an assistant head of school, a director of teaching and learning, and a head of school.  

This week, we talk to Lydia Edmonds. Lydia is an educator from Mobile, AL.  She spent most of her 22 years as a high school math teacher and International Baccalaureate Coordinator and has, for the last two years, worked as the Middle School Director at St. Luke's Episcopal School.  With her formal education in math, business, and educational leadership, Lydia finds analyzing data, building partnerships with families, and managing projects to be the work of school that excites her the most.  Lydia and her husband, Will, have three sons ages 13, 9, and 4, and look forward to quiet Friday pizza nights just as much as they do spending two weeks on a road trip!

Lydia will take us through one of the toughest aspects of the teaching profession: Parent / Teacher Conferences. 

Here 5 strategies for positive and productive conferences are:

1) Define your “win”

2) Have a plan and plan to be flexible

3) Prepare for action

4) Be personable and personal

5) Follow up for real

In this episode, we sit down with Kurtis Hewson, Lead Leader and Co-Founder of Jigsaw Learning. Kurtis walks us through how to establish responsive relationships within schools to design collaborative frameworks for educators and develop leadership capacity at all levels. He will also introduce the concept of a collaborative team meeting, an essential meeting layer that is solutions-focused and action-oriented by using data to focus on students closest to meeting expectations, in order to establish universal instructional responses and to develop a continuum of supports at all levels.

In this episode, we get to hear from Andrea Bitner who is an is an educator, author, and speaker.  She lives in Philadelphia, PA. She has worked with students in grades K-12 throughout her twenty-two years in public education from all around the world.   Her first book, “Take Me Home,” was published by Austin Macauley in July of 2021. "Take Me Home" is the true story of 11 of her former EL students who give a first-hand account of what it's really like to become bilingual in America.  She is also a co-author of Chip Baker’s “The Impact of Influence-Volume 3 and Dr. Rick Jetter’s 100 No-Nonsense Things ALL School Leaders Shout STOP Doing.”  She travels the country speaking and teaching educators how to teach and reach EL students, and effectively communicate with EL families! 

The Five Strategies:

1.  All EL students are not the same

2. Lack of language never equals lack of intelligence

3. There are 10 essential questions you should ask when you receive an English language learner in your class

4. There are many resources out there that you can use to immediately communicate with your EL families.

5. It takes a village to raise a student and there are many ways that we can be connecting EL students building-wide, district-wide, and county-wide.

You can find Andrea at www.andreabitnerbooks.com, or on social media @andreabitnerbooks.

You can purchase her book "Take Me Home" here: https://www.amazon.com/Take-Me-Home-Andrea-Bitner/dp/1398418919/ref=sr_1_1?crid=GH8CMOEEWKL&keywords=take+me+home+andrea+bitner&qid=1668188541&sprefix=take+me+home+andrea+bitner%2Caps%2C151&sr=8-1

The Principal's Desk is launching a podcast!

Be on the lookout for upcoming episodes focused around the educational issues you want to talk about!