Thursday, November 13, 2008

Visit us in D.C. at the National Staff Development Council's Annual Conference

We are excited to be an exhibitor at this year's NSDC annual conference, Dec 6-10 in D.C. You will find us in booth #407 just inside the main entrance of the exhibitor hall. I am sure it will be a great conference. Hope to see you there.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

How much time do you spend in classrooms? Impact?

Something that I thought I would share was a quick bit of information from the Q&A section of the November 2008 The Learning Principal newsletter from the NSDC. The topic was PLCs change school culture, but I found the last couple bits of information the most helpful. Below is a summary of the featured principal's responses to the two questions (as part of getting their PLC into action).

How much time do you spend in classrooms? 5-5-5, five classrooms a day, at least 5 minutes in each classroom, 5 times a week. If paperwork seems to be your excuse, drop your brief case first thing and get visiting before anything else.

What impact have you seen? Discipline referrals dropped from 1500 to 300, 8% to 49% pass rate on state writing test in 5 years, reading 37% to 66% and math 46% to 72%.

The bottom line, school leaders need to involve staff, integrate PLC initiatives into their school improvement plans, participate as an active team member in making change happen, GET INTO THE CLASSROOMS regularly and results will follow.

I'd love to know how much time you (school leaders) out there spend in classrooms and thoughts you have on what is the right amount. Share your thoughts.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Education in Action Blog is Born

Our Education in Action blog is up and running! We are looking forward to sharing information and experiences related to Teacher Leadership in Action, Principal Leadership in Action and School Culture. Actually, we hope to attract input from all educational professionals and those that have information to share about great instruction, educational leadership, student success and great schools. Creating a network of exceptional educational professionals would be a wonderful result of this blog.

It is with great satisfaction that we have started our Principal Leadership in Action Coaching and Development process as an approved Board of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES) provider here in Rochester. We are very pleased to be working with a group of seven administrators from area schools. Our program kicked-off with an orientation this past week and will continue through the end of the 2008-2009 school year. We look forward to hearing from our participants as they share their thoughts and best practices throughout the year.