General

This week has been a week of deep reflection for me.  Every one of us goes through periods where we doubt our gifts, where we wonder if the place we find ourselves in is the place we’re best suited.  And for whatever reason I’ve always felt that February is by far the most difficult month…

If you take just a minute to turn on the television or pull up a news article, you are bombarded with news and information.  Much of which has become a stream of gasp-inducing executive orders, mean-spirited Tweets/Facebook posts, or worse. One of my favorite things about being a principal is the opportunity to go into…

Something we talk about quite often is growing.  Growing as professionals and personally as well.  Not one of us has reached that pinnacle of knowing everything.  Though sometimes we all like to act (yes, even me) like we do! As campus leaders part of our job is to work with teachers to help them grow….

I know that each of us has worked on a team or campus where people complain.  Where people are negative.  They don’t like a certain person and talk about it all the time.  They don’t like a decision that was made and complain to you about it for hours (or sometimes days).  The parents are…

  On Friday, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) released information on a new Texas Rating system.  It’s a very simplified rating system that gives every school and district in Texas ratings on a A-F scale.  Even though this system will not officially go into effect until August of 2018 (yes, 2018), the state released preliminary…

Fear. When you think about that word I think we all have something different we think of.  Some have a fear of snakes or spiders.  Others may fear the thought of losing someone or dying alone. And in the education system we have fears too. The fear of failure is one. We work in a…

Well we’re here, 2017.  Every year brings the opportunities for goals, dreams, things you want to change, ways you want to improve.  For a few years now I’ve seen the idea of choosing “one word” that you want to define your new year. I really wanted to think about this, and truly choose a word…

This post was co-written with the INCREDIBLE Roman Nowak. For years we’ve heard, or talked, about the power of being a connected educator.  About how when you put yourself out there and learn from and with others, it changes you.  It grows you. It gives you a perspective you may have never had before. Today,…

About a week or so ago I wrote a blog post called “10 Educators Worth Following”.  It took off like wild fire. My goal in writing that post was just to introduce readers of my blog to 10 people they probably weren’t following, that are sharing great info online and doing exceptional things in education….

If you were to ask someone what the job of an educator is in today’s world, I’m sure they would say something to the affect of “Their job is to teach our kids what they need to know so they can pass that test, or go to college, or get a job”. But for anyone…

I’m sure you’ve heard of that saying of “you can’t see the forest for the trees”.  I have heard it before, but this week it was spoken to me by someone I greatly respect and reminded me of something. Sometimes we get so deep into things as an educator….the grading, lesson planning, parent meetings/phone calls,…

Every so often I love to use the platform I have to recognize other educators in our field.  I have learned so much through tools like Twitter.  But those tools are only as good as the people you choose to surround yourself with! These are some educators online who I think have some great resources,…