Transformative Principal

Jeff Zoul and Anthony McConnell are the authors of The Principled Principal: 10 Principles for Leading Exceptional Schools.

• Anthony followed in Jeff’s role as assistant superintendent and is now going to be the superintendent of the district.
• Being part of the development process for four years set Anthony on the right course.
• How Jeff helped prepare Anthony for success in moving into his new role.
• I believe in always being innovative and always getting better.
• The Harmony principle.
• Some people think they thrive when they are in crisis mode, but their schools do not.
• Thinking I was supporting the teacher, I was equally elevated with the teacher.
• How to stay calm when inside you are seething.
• You get better with practice. Focus on the real issue.
• Don’t come with the answer already decided on in your head.
• How can I help? Ask this question often.
• What you have to leave the conversation with is integrity.
• It’s not about the nail.
• Trust - if you don’t have trust, you don’t have a whole lot.
• Address underperformance: It isn’t fun, but the best principals do that.
• Doing what you say you’re going to do.
• When the leadership does it, other people feel comfortable holding people accountable.
• What sort of actions do you take so that people know you care about them?
• 5 faculty values statements: “We will…”
• I’m going to lead the way by asking you to hold me accountable.
• How to be a transformative principal? Anthony - make your school more welcoming. Take a walk around.
• How to be a transformative principal? Jeff - be super visible in the school. I’m not trying to be right, I’m trying to the right thing.

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.

Dan Kreiness is an aspiring administrator who hosts the Leader of Learning podcast. He focuses on educational leadership. [email protected].

• Challenges with becoming a principal.
• There is a lot of good to be done.
• What is your number 1 strength that you bring to a school leadership position?
• How did you find that strength out?
• Disrupting, changing, going away from the status quo.
• Our students are ready to move and change faster than we are.
• Looking to be resourceful.
• The power of connecting with Twitter.
• How to be a transformative principal? Really be present.

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.

Dan Kreiness is an aspiring administrator who hosts the Leader of Learning podcast. He focuses on educational leadership. [email protected].

• Aspiring administrator
• Mark Crowley Lead from the Heart
• Instructional coach is the sweetest gig in all of education.
• Tricky position to be a coach.
• Really hone in on the things they identify as what they need to be working on.
• How to get teachers to jump on a technology bandwagon.
• The power of reflection.
• The Edumatch 2017 book

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.

This is a cross-post for the PrincipalPLN podcast that I was on last week. I talked a lot about masterminds. Get started on that today. Give me a call!

Here are the podcasts that I have been on lately:

Planning Period Podcast with Brad Shreffler

“Jethro and Brad talk about the importance of leaders being in classrooms and coaching teachers, that we need to ask “why” way more often, being reflective and outwardly recognizing your mistakes, the power of MasterMind groups, and unlocking the genius in all of our students. It is a really great conversation, and you’ll notice a few times in there that I am literally left speechless by what he says. So, sit back and enjoy episode 37 of the Planning Period Podcast, my interview with Jethro Jones.”

Leaders of Learning with Dan Kreiness

“In this episode, I talk to principal and host of the Transformative Principal podcast Jethro Jones and talk to him about making the transition into the role of a school administrator, how to create buy-in with followers, and how to empower others.”

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.

Richard Kincaid Twitter is EcoRise’s Chief Innovation Officer and is the lead designer for project-based learning professional development program, which integrates sustainability & design thinking methodologies into the Buck Institute's PBL framework. Richard has extensive experienced in K-12 public education, as a former CTE director, campus leader, and teacher in Texas. Richard's linked in profile is here: Linkedin

• Hill elementary eco-audit
• Green building and performance measures. Aikens high school action plan.
• Ongoing improvements to make sustainable projects.
• How to teach kids to get in touch with the right people.
• Design studio - helps teachers facilitate conversations in their classroom.
• Empower students to seek out the right people.
• Microgrants for kids.
• Up to $500 per student project.
• Small enough that kids can actually do something.
• Looking for every reason possible to fund an application.
• The average project funded is about $470. Average return on investment is about $4500 of bottom-line savings.
• At the end of the day, we want kids to be engaged.
• Put budgets together and then put it out to a group of people who can do something.
• how to be Create a Culture where you give people permissions to fail.

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.

Richard Kincaid Twitter is EcoRise’s Chief Innovation Officer and is the lead designer for project-based learning professional development program, which integrates sustainability & design thinking methodologies into the Buck Institute's PBL framework. Richard has extensive experienced in K-12 public education, as a former CTE director, campus leader, and teacher in Texas. Richard's linked in profile is here: Linkedin

• Ecorise.org is a non-profit that helps schools implement sustainable education.
• Richard’s educational background.
• Microgrants directly to students.
• Elementary literacy coaches, and K-12 curriculum director, and CTE director.
• Helping teachers not knowing the path to make that happen.
• Helping students focus on a challenge local to their community.
• Giving kids tools to focus on making change happen in their area.
• Project-based training program.
• PBL programs don’t sound very accessible. We want to be facilitators, but then daily life in the classroom is overpowering, and we can easily give up.
• 3-day program to design a standards-based project for their classroom.
• It’s ok to not feel comfortable with this approach.
• Deeply embedded support model.
• Make these projects feel real, because they are.
• Advice for reluctant learners.
• Maybe a single strong project over the course of a year.
• How to support teachers who are not naturals at project-based learning.
• Start with teachers that are eager to have this happen.
• Teachers aren’t resistant because it isn’t effective, but resistant because they don’t believe it will work.
• If there is a working model that your campus can see, the resistance will gradually reduce.
• Some teachers need a model to see that the support is there.
• Getting everyone in a room and talking about what PBL looks like.
• Worked in the district 6 months before we even begin the first training.
• Without that administrator support, any initiative will fail.
• Classrooms are laboratories.
• What basis am I using to reevaluate what I’m doing to make my practice better.
• Teach a protocol of precise feedback for process. Peer review model.
• Teaching people how to move forward, how to have honest conversations.

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.

Matt Miller is the Founder of School Spirit Vending.

Top 10 school fundraising ideas.

CASH! 4 Questions to Ask Before Your Next Fundraiser!

• Finding the right choice for school fundraising is challenging.
• schoolzonepodcast.com for the top fundraising ideas.
• School Spirit Vending - stickers placed in schools
• Different needs for school fundraising.
• checks come in monthly, varies based on how much school embraces program.
• Giving kids access.
• Doing the same thing they’ve always done.
• Why not tie it all together?
• Incentivize the teachers and students.
• Leadership opportunity.
• Matt’s passion project - stickers that have cardboard backing. Matt prints a comic series on the backing
• Marlin and Percy
• Inspire-a-kid providing additional inspiration for kids.
• Read-a-thon - Collect pledges for the amount of reading that they do.
• Scrip fundraising - affiliate relationships with local (and non-local) companies.
• get movin’ crew
• We Fund For You
• It’s important to be better educated.
• How to be a transformative principal? Do a better job of defining exactly what it is you want to accomplish in the upcoming semester. Don’t simply assign the PTA to fundraise, give better guidance.

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.

Pedro Noguera is a sociologist by training and is a professor at UCLA. Center For The Transformation Of Schools.

• Once we have trust and respect, we can start having hard conversations.
• You can only have conversations like that that don’t come off as judgment if you have trust.
• We should ask parents to do things for which they have adequate resources.
• How do we find the kids that need the most help.
• The challenge is getting to know each child.
• None of this is easy.
• Meets with each student every day.
• When kids are known, they behave differently.
• The sense of belonging is so essential to kids’ success.
• Forging relationships through extra activities.
• John’s Hopkins University Talent Development High School. Robert Belfants. Interest inventory to start kids.
• Age and class determines where they go.
• The model we have created does not allow us to meet the needs of children.
• Any kid who came in with a criminal record in the high school would get a mentor.
• First days of school community building days.
• It’s part of building strong sense of community.
• Human beings don’t do well in isolation.
• Relationships save lives.
• How to be a transformative Principal? To really focus in on the culture of their schools.
• Culture is about values, norms, how people are treated every day.
• Create a culture that affirms the importance of children.

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.

Pedro Noguera is a sociologist by training and is a professor at UCLA. Center For The Transformation Of Schools.

• Author of many books.
• If ideas are too abstract and we can’t address the practical needs of kids then academia is in trouble.
• Address both the academic and non-academic needs of kids.
• Equality vs. Equity.
• Equality is treating everyone the same.
• It makes no sense in education because we know all kids are different.
• Equity is about understanding differences. It is not about lowering the standards. Compensate for needs that kids that bring.
• Adjust how we do homework to meet the needs of kids that are in front of us.
• Don’t penalize kids because they don’t have the same circumstances as someone else.
• Many kids are relational learners and they will learn better with people they trust and care about.
• You start from the premise that we do best when we are in a community.
• The conditions for learning
• Community
• More likely to punish kids with the greatest needs.
• What sorts of things must we do to make edu equitable for kids.
• Build a partnership with the family.
• Partnership must be rooted in trust and respect in order for it to have success.
• Teachers get almost no training on how to work with parents, especially when parents are from a different
• We don’t want to judge anyone.
• What we want is empathy. It is not pity, it is not looking down on anyone. We don’t make excuses for them.
• When we act with empathy, we demonstrate that we care.
• How do we build empathy?
• “You know more about your child than I do. What can you tell me about your child that will help me teach him or her.”
• It is important to let the parent know that we are aware of their child.
• Parents want their child to be successful.
• It should Never be the case that the only time we talk with parents is when children are in trouble.

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.

Heather Staker is a former Mckenzie Consultant and coauthor of the book Blended Learning: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools.

Download the “Getting Clear on Technology Purchases” guide.

• Questioning our own assumptions is a huge piece of opening up what learning can look like.
• Every child has their genius.
• There is value in finding the right path for each child.
• Some teachers can be great at different things.
• Allow teachers to specialize and micro credential.
• How to match kids up with the right kinds of teachers that really help them.
• Coming at the content in a variety of ways.
• Sustaining innovations allow us to serve our customer even better.
• Disruptive innovation completely changes the paradigm.
• Online learning - adults are not unlike children.
• When we are more engaged and active learners we are able to learn much better.
• Blended Learning Live seminars - not traditional sit and get instruction.
• Helps people learn in a different way.
• How to be a transformative Principal? Walk your building and note any instances that technology is replacing them, and then make sure you change the message.

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.