Transformative Principal

My wife told me she just couldn't do it anymore. "It's too hard," she said. "Every time I drop him off, the tears, the yelling, and the crying. I just can't take him to school anymore. We've got to figure something out."

We had talked about different things, from counseling to medication to other options.

For the time being, our solution was that I would drop him off at school. For some reason, his reactions to his anxiety seemed to be less when dad dropped him off.

Any parent who has experienced this knows how difficult it is to deal with the intensity of the emotions on a daily basis.

This was especially challenging for me, because I struggled with this as well. All the way until I was 19, any new change was especially difficult. My heart broke for him every day, because I knew how powerless he felt.

When he started kindergarten, we were living on a small island in the gulf of Alaska, and the community didn’t have the resources to offer a lot of help.

We did all kinds of things to try and help, meditation apps, calming techniques, praying, blessings, and more, and nothing really seemed to work.

When we moved to Fairbanks, we were ready to get more serious, but then he took care of this himself.

Before I get to what actually happened, let me back up a bit.

I read a book when I was 21 called “Write it down. Make it Happen.” Actually, I think I just read the first chapter or so. That was all I needed. It talks about the power of writing things down to make them come to fruition.

Well, I wrote down a bunch of goals that I wanted to accomplish when I turned 30, and guess what? I accomplished them all.

I’ve been a big believer in goals for a long time, and this really solidified what I knew.

So, I decided to start setting goals with my family each week. My four kids would set their own goals every week, and my wife and I would set our goals. We share them with each other and track them on a piece of paper.

Eventually, that has now grown into yearly and monthly goals we set with each other, and help hold each other accountable.

Back to my son. We had set goals as a family for a couple years, and after we moved to Fairbanks, he started taking an interest in setting meaningful goals for himself.

It started with little goals.

We are pretty strict that we don’t tell the kids what goals they should set, but rather help them set their own goals.

So, my son spent some time setting little goals like play with certain toys each day, or do his chores when he first got up, or play Minecraft.

Then, one day, it happened.

“My goal this week is to go to school without complaining.”

My wife and I looked at each other in stunned silence. For over two years, this had been a battle, and now, he was saying he wasn’t going to complain.

We played it cool, and said, “Good goal. Let’s see how it goes.”

Honestly, we didn’t think he would do it.

But sure enough, he got out of the car on Monday, without a single complaint. And each day after that, he has done the same.

I’m not going to lie, having some AMAZING teachers who really cared about him and helped him has been a really powerful experience. But the thing that really made the difference has been him setting his own goal to be in control of his life.

Get our goal sheet from OurFamilyCoach.com

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Kip Motta is a principal in Rich Utah.

• You have to deal with people.
• Everything is about relationships.
• Doing what’s best for the team.
• Everyone is different, and you need to adapt your leadership to that person.
• A history of four-day school weeks.
• Change based on school district transportation costs.
• Waiver to reduce day requirement (152 vs 182) and still meet 990 hour requirement (now meet over 1000 hours)
• Start school at 8 am, out at 3:30.
• Parent teacher conferences count as
• Very few breaks - Labor Day, thanksgiving, Christmas for 1 week.
• Student and staff attendance increased.
• Ask staff and community to do personal appointments on Fridays
• 4 day school week is much more difficult for elementary school.
• Helped us go down the road of standards-based instruction.
• Struggles with 4 day school week
• Finding coaches is difficult
• Daycare for Friday’s with no school.
• You have to do everything through the lens of what is best for the most children.
• Kids are more recharged after a 3-day weekend every week!
• March and April can be long months with no break.
• Restorative practices, mindfulness to help kids cope with added pressure.
• How to be a transformative principal? Find someplace to go and learn!
• Contact [email protected]

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

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We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Revolutions Start with Relationships with Darren Ellwein Transformative Principal 286

Social media: Tailor everything to the learner - via @dellwein

Darren Ellwein is my dessert bro and principal at the middle level in South Dakota!

• Revolution is about a group of people.
• From a staff culture standpoint: there was some kickback.
• It’s so much fun!
• Personalizing learning - what small steps do you need to take?
• Tailor everything to the learner.
• Mastery projects - success criteria
• You have to give up control.
• Relationships “it feels like my family.”
• Let the kids decide the norms.
• Waiting on content for 2-3 weeks.
• Done with our standards before we get to the standardized tests.
• personalizedlearningtools.com
• Personalized Learning is not about sitting in front of a computer all day.
• Starts with a relationship, then goes on to flexible content.
• Those kids broke in adults every year!
• Hannah and Alex - there was a pace set for everyone, even though it didn’t match.
• She would tell you she wouldn’t go back to the way it was.
• How to be a transformative principal? Be your own person. Hold on to your beliefs. Have the mindset of serving kids.

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

Buy Communication Cards

Show notes on TransformativePrincipal.com

Download Paperless Principal.  

Take Control of your email

Web Site

Transformative Principal on Stitcher

Refer A Principal

Best Tools for Busy Administrators Survey

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

After a career in innovation, Ted Dintersmith is most well-known to educators as the executive producer of the movie, Most Likely to Succeed, coauthor of the book of the same, and the man who traveled all fifty states to see What Schools Could Be.

• How to change schools?
• Changing everything overnight - the sharp knives come out.
• Thoughtful, supportive resources at innovationplaylist.org
• Have your community define essential competencies for your kids.
• Look for success points in your school.
• Encourage the innovators to do things.
• Ask them to keep an open mind.
• Native villages
• Carving up a moose carcass.
• How to be a transformative principal? Spend some time with young kids and recognize that this is the fight we can take on. change happens slowly right up until it happens quick
• What do teachers have in common that do innovative things within the system?
• What are you seeing China?
• Deleted scenes about kids not having homework from Most Likely to Succeed - share that story.
• http://teddintersmith.com/innovation-playlist/ *

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

Buy Communication Cards

Show notes on TransformativePrincipal.com

Download Paperless Principal.  

Take Control of your email

Web Site

Transformative Principal on Stitcher

Refer A Principal

Best Tools for Busy Administrators Survey

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

After a career in innovation, Ted Dintersmith is most well-known to educators as the executive producer of the movie, Most Likely to Succeed, coauthor of the book of the same, and the man who traveled all fifty states to see What Schools Could Be.

• Education is the only antidote
• Machines are taking over so many jobs.
• Social media fueled technology is making it challenging to know what is real.
• What they could do vs. what they do.
• the people who get to the top of these bureaucratic systems are bureaucrats
• If we just focused on setting up the conditions for educators to do their best work.
• It’s time for us to be more like activists.
• What are you working on and why?
• The purpose of school is to rank kids.
• Why isn’t that the way we do it?
• New Hampshire portfolio assessment system.

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

Buy Communication Cards

Show notes on TransformativePrincipal.com

Download Paperless Principal.  

Take Control of your email

Web Site

Transformative Principal on Stitcher

Refer A Principal

Best Tools for Busy Administrators Survey

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Mia Pumo is a former teacher and math specialist and currently is the cofounder of Constructive Learning Design, which supports teachers and learners by making learning joyful.

• Partnering with community organizations.
• Schools often don’t know how to partner.
• Businesses don’t know how to join in the work with schools.
• Use coaching skills to build relationships.
• Learning is much more beneficial when they come together and make a real impact.
• Experiential learning - year long process developing a plan around a real issue.
• You never know what seeds have been planted through that experience.
• How to start the conversation.
• Focus on quality partnerships.
• How to be a transformative principal? Active listening to create a shared vision.

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Mia Pumo is a former teacher and math specialist and currently is the cofounder of Constructive Learning Design, which supports teachers and learners by making learning joyful.

• Making learning joyful
• I was really starting to contemplate leaving the profession I love because the joy was not there.
• We believe that if we design and deliver powerful learning experiences for educators, they will design and deliver powerful learning experiences for students.
• Coaches can transform the learning and cultural experiences of a school.
• You can’t afford to not have coaches! There are many ways to incorporate coaching into a culture.
• Leaders with coaching skills are more effective and more impactful.
• Communication, active listening, developing a culture where coaching and feedback are part of the norm.
• Have leaders take on that coaching role as part of what they do.
• Developing culture falls on the leader.
• Set up protocols and structures to make that an enjoyable experience.
• Coaching cycles
• The best professional development is the teacher down the hall.
• Position coaching to the staff as a support, not another observation.
• Why is there a stigma related to coaching?

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Brittni Schroeder is the founder of Compassion Clubs, dedicated to the memory of her late son who passed away tragically at the age of 14.

• Started with a scholarship fund for students.
• Received hundreds of cards and letters from people who cared about Gage.
• The “Can Man”
• People wanted to be with our family.
• “We only suffer when we think about ourselves.” - Tony Robbins
• We have to serve. That’s how we heal.
• Gave kids pizzas and told them to sit with kids who didn’t have anyone sitting with them.
• Elementary and secondary curriculum.
• Secondary the kids lead it.
• Elementary is teacher/counselor/parent run.
• If they don’t know how to serve and think outside of themselves they are going to have a rough adult life.
• 12 different values: compassion, kindness, gratitude, charity, courage, etc.
• Teach about the value, share a story, then serve.
• Teenagers don’t seem to have coping skills.
• Nominate kids for scholarships and grants.
• My son’s legacy is compassion.
• Most successful club in Michigan.
• How to be a transformative principal? Look for those kids that need to belong.

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, @jchorvath is an educator and researcher with expertise in the areas of cognitive neuroscience, biological psychology, brain simulation, the learning sciences, and effective teaching/learning practices

• There is 1 learning process!
• It is the same for everyone.
• You don’t differentiate so students learn differently, you differentiate so students engage differently.
• If you want to learn something you have to engage in it, but not too much!
• Attenborough effect.
• Science of learning and craft of teaching.
• Thinking principle
• Learning principle - all learning has to begin with facts.
• Semantic memories for the key 10 or 15 facts. Three episodic memories for a fact.
• Episodic memories vs. semantic memories.
• All starting of learning builds episodic memories.
• How we use inquiry wrong in education.
• Surface learning is semantic facts. Binary.
• Conceptualization - how are you going to organize your facts. Forming a concept. Can’t be binary.
• Contextually emergent skills.
• Fear of failure
• Learning resilience
• Education gives you experience in learning.
• How to be a transformative principal? People who you don’t really know what they think at the end, because they are trying to get you to question your own assumptions.

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Michael Reichert is an applied and research psychologist who has long been an advocate for children and families. From counseling youth involved in the juvenile justice system through experiences leading treatment teams in a psychiatric hospital, all the while managing an independent clinical practice, Dr. Reichert has tested his understanding of children with practical, even life-saving, challenges.

• Every single kind of problem was transformed based on relationship.
• It’s the adult’s job to be the relationship manager.
• Live up to your goals.
• Relational breakdowns.
• How do we promote the relationship between the boy and the teacher.
• Breakdowns happen all the time.
• It’s the responsibility of the relationship manager to monitor whether it has broken down.
• The boy that simply checks out and underperforms.
• Book I Can Learn From You: Boys as Relational Learners
• I won’t learn from you
• You may have to develop new skills out of your repertoire to reach kids.
• Every type of boy can be reached.
• When a teacher reaches their end of their rope, they need to reach out for their help.
• You recognize that this is really challenging and it is frustrating. You have the power to change this boy’s life, and I know it is hard, If you can bear with him and continue to check in with him, you can reach him.
• How to be a transformative principal? Understand that you are asking your teachers to do this emotional work and validate the challenge that it is while saying boys are relational learners first!

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

Buy Communication Cards

Show notes on TransformativePrincipal.com

Download Paperless Principal.  

Take Control of your email

Web Site

Transformative Principal on Stitcher

Refer A Principal

Best Tools for Busy Administrators Survey

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.