Articles
Writing on instructional leadership, classroom walkthroughs, teacher evaluation, and school improvement from Dr. Justin Baeder.
Observing With Instructional Purpose In Mind
Evaluating teachers through observation has always been tricky. Teaching is hard to observe—because it's long-term, cognitive work.
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Tier 3 Instructional Leadership: Building Systems for Learning
How can instructional leaders extend their impact beyond the individual teacher?
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Confronting the Brutal Facts with 15-Walkthrough Weeks
Every school has great things happening—but also has problems lurking in classrooms:
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Differentiated Instructional Leadership: Developing Teacher Practice Through Autonomy
Great teaching can't be micromanaged. Here's how to improve practice by developing teacher autonomy.
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How Instructional Leaders Change Teacher Practice
Leaders don't just give suggestions—they can play three distinct roles in helping teachers improve. Here's how to differentiate your leadership based on...
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The Instructional Leader's Guide to Handwritten Notes for Teachers
Handwritten notes can be a more personal option than typing, though they can be slower and harder to organize. How can we get the best of both worlds?
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How To Avoid Leading Questions in Feedback Conversations
Leading questions can ruin a feedback conversation fast.
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Lean Change: The Educational Leader's Guide To Sustainable Improvement
How can leaders overcome resistance, work through implementation challenges, and achieve sustainable improvement? Lean Change is the answer.
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How To Write With ChatGPT But Still Sound Like Yourself
ChatGPT can make professional writing much faster and easier for school leaders.
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Brockton Special School Committee Meeting 2024-01-31
Brockton Special School Committee Meeting 2024-01-31
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The Principal's Guide to Taking Notes in Teacher Observations
Taking high-quality notes in teacher observations is essential for capturing evidence of practice—so you can have meaningful discussions with teachers.
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How to Write a Crushing Cover Letter For Principal/AP Jobs
If you're looking for a new ed leadership job, a critical first step is to put together a cover letter that crushes it.
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Instructional Leadership Without Micromanaging
Getting into classrooms doesn't mean impinging on the autonomy teachers need to do their jobs. Here's how leaders can pay attention to practice without...
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Rethinking Suspension: A Guide for Equity-Minded Instructional Leaders
Suspension has been misapplied so often that it's wrongly gotten a bad rap. It's time to rethink its proper role in K-12 schools.
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Classroom Walkthrough FAQ for Instructional Leaders
At the Principal Center, we frequently get questions about the best way to approach classroom walkthroughs and informal observations.
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What Is Progressive Discipline? An Overview for School Leaders
Progressive discipline is the hidden infrastructure that allows people to co-exist in organizations by setting boundaries for acceptable behavior. Here's...
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How To Deal With A Boss Who Yells At You
How can we establish firm boundaries for acceptable behavior with those above us in the organizational hierarchy?
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The Principal's Guide to Writing High-Quality, Evidence-Driven Teacher Evaluations Quickly
Formal teacher evaluations are one of the most important and time-consuming responsibilities principals and assistant principals face each year.
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Evidence-Driven Teacher Observation: How To Take Low-Inference Notes Aligned with Evaluation Criteria
Low-inference notes are the foundation of evidence-driven teacher evaluation.
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Mental Health Days For Educators
What are mental health days, how do they align with district policies and professional norms, and how should school leaders address them?
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New in Repertoire: Keep Evaluation Criteria In View with Pinned Snippets
It's essential to keep your evaluation criteria in mind while you're observing in classrooms.
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Recommendation Letters for School Administrators: A Guide for Candidates & Their References
It's always a bit awkward to ask for—or be asked for—a recommendation letter.
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How To Convert Anything You've Written Into A Re-Usable Template with Repertoire
Much of the professional writing we do is semi-repetitive: a familiar situation, with slightly different details each time.
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New in Repertoire: Rapid Notetaking Features
Repertoire has always been the best way to take evidence-rich notes during classroom walkthroughs and teacher observations.
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How To Get Your Résumé Ready for Admin Hiring Season
Your résumé is your foot in the door in the hiring process. Revise it with these tips now, so you're ready for principal and assistant principal job openings.
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How To Schedule & Protect Time for Classroom Walkthroughs
Instructional leaders who want to get into classrooms will never "find" the time. It's essential to make time—and protect it from some (but not all)...
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Classroom Walkthrough Forms for Data Collection & Feedback: A Guide for School & District Leaders
One of the first steps leaders often take when they're thinking about classroom walkthroughs is to design or select a form , to be filled out during or...
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The Iceberg: Seeing Beneath the Surface of Teacher Practice
Like an iceberg, most of teacher practice lies beneath the surface, where it's difficult to observe directly.
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The Principal's Guide to Teacher Motivation: Beyond Jeans Passes & Other Extrinsic Rewards
School leaders are always looking for ways to maximize teacher motivation. Yet some of the most eye-catching approaches are counterproductive, undermining...
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Educators Need A Break from Being On The Front Lines
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How To Clear Your Desk And Keep It Clean—A Guide For Principals
A clean desk doesn't just look more professional—it saves time, reduces your stress, and helps you get more done. A few simple systems can make it easy.
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Whole-Staff Gift Ideas for School Leaders
Wondering what to give your staff? A single big-ticket gift is best:
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First-Order vs. Meta-Work: It's Time To Scale Back To Keep Teachers From Quitting
Gerry Brooks has some straight talk for school leaders—watch the video above if you haven't already seen it.
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Bubble Kid Logic vs. Equity—Ethical Principles for Resource Allocation
I was recently reading an online discussion among principals about how to organize intervention services for students. In this situation, a full-time math...
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Alternatives To Collecting Lesson Plans: A Guide for School Administrators
In this article, we'll explore why teacher lesson plans are collected, why it's worth rethinking the practice, and what can be done to accomplish the...
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How To Make A Classroom Walkthrough Form in Google Forms & Email Your Observation Notes & Feedback to Teachers with AutoCrat
Each new school year, instructional leaders resolve to get into classrooms more often, to provide feedback to teachers and have a greater impact on student...
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Two Kinds of Writing Critical for Principal Success
There are two kinds of writing critical to your success as an instructional leader:
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This barely counts as instructional leadership"—When To Use A Walkthrough Checklist
Thanks to some great discussion with readers of last week's article, How Instructional Leaders Can Develop Shared Expectations, In 3 Steps, my co-author and...
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How Instructional Leaders Can Develop Shared Expectations, In 3 Steps
Shared expectations are one of our most powerful tools for leading improvement.
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Two Steps for Turning Your Vision Into Instructional Framework
How can you turn your vision into a specific, actionable framework? Continuing our series:
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Instructional Vision: What Practice Is Like, Not What It Looks Like
Too often, we make a critical mistake when trying to articulate a vision for improvement:
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How To Make Your Vision Specific & Actionable
How can you make your vision for improvement specific and actionable?
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Why There's A Gap Between Your Vision and Reality
In every school, there's a gap between the vision and the current reality.
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Why Educators Need A "Hard Stop" To The Work Day—Parkinson's Law
As instructional leaders, one of our most important roles right now is making teachers' jobs doable, and helping them set healthy boundaries.
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How To Hire Teachers Remotely with Virtual Interviews
Every summer, schools hire thousands of teachers to fill last-minute vacancies. This year, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we may see additional...
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Low Walls for Protecting Time for Classroom Visits
Are you on track to get into classrooms 500 times a year?
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The Evidence-Driven Leadership Manifesto
K-12 leaders must abandon the delusion of “data-driven” decision-making, and instead embark on a serious evidence-driven overhaul of learning, teaching, and...
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Lecturing from the Back of the Room: The Data Conspiracy
Earlier this week, I asked for examples of oversimplified expectations——when administrators reduce teaching to whatever is easiest to observe and document …
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Instructional Purpose: The Right Practice for the Right Circumstances
When should teachers use any given instructional practice?
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Rubrics as Growth Pathways for Instructional Practice
Who's the best person to decide what instructional practices to use in a lesson?
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Visibility & Zoom: the Evidence of Practice Grid
Is teacher practice always something we can actually see in an
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The Observability Bias: A Crisis in Instructional Leadership
Our profession is facing a crisis of credibility:
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How To Organize Your Experience On Your Résumé So You Get In The "YES" Pile
How should you list your work history, experience, and skills on your résumé, so you get in the "YES" pile and land an interview?
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How To Respond When Someone Asks You For A Reference or Recommendation Letter
What should you do when someone you work with asks you for a recommendation letter or reference for an educational leadership role?
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Winning The Three Tournaments of the School Administrator Job Search
How can you rise above other candidates in the educational leadership hiring process, even if you're an outsider with less experience?
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Why The Admin Job Search Is Won In Advance
If you want to land the next-level leadership role you're aspiring to, the moment of victory is now.
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How To Start Visiting Classrooms After Putting It Off For Too Long
How can you start getting into classrooms mid-year, after several months have gone by?
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Ending the "When Can You Meet?" Back-and-Forth with Self-Service Calendar Booking Tools
As a leader, your time is in short supply, but a lot of people need it.
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Classroom Conversations for Leading Learning
Our profession has had no shortage of efforts to help leaders improve their schools.
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The Challenge of “Calibrating” Teacher Observations
When districts strive to provide great training for their administrators on doing high-quality observations and evaluations, I’m delighted.
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Jeff Bezos on Handstands and High Standards
What can the richest man in the world teach us about learning to do handstands?
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The #AnnaKarenina Challenge
Announcing an all-new mini-challenge as part of the Instructional Leadership Challenge…
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The #EveryClassroom Challenge
The #EveryClassroom Challenge is part of the Instructional Leadership Challenge. Sign up here.
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How Instructional Leaders Can Create Healthy Work-Life Boundaries
Principal stress seems to be at an all-time high, as a recent tragic story out of Western Australia illustrates. The West Australian reports:
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My Top 10 Recommended Books for School Leaders
Here's my list—what would you add?
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How To Document Quick "No Feedback" Visits in Repertoire
Sometimes when you're visiting classrooms, you don't want to provide feedback.
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How To Track Your Classroom Visits
When I was a new principal, I spent a lot of time and effort figuring out how I wanted to do walkthroughs.
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Visit #EveryClassroom The First Week of School
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Success Stories: Leaders Who Made 500 Classroom Visits This Year
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How To Be Taken Seriously As A New Leader
How can I manage professional interactions with those who may not have respect for me or take me seriously?
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The High Performance Triangle
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Get Current and Get Into Classrooms
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Is Instructional Leadership Undermining the Teaching Profession?
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Why No One Wants To See Your Stupid Portfolio
Thus ended half a dozen interviews I've conducted over the years. Every time, a thick folder or 3-ring binder was briefly passed around, barely perused, and...
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How To Build Capacity for Instructional Leadership In Your Organization
Your school needs more instructional leadership than any one person can provide. There are simply more opportunities, more needs, and more challenges than...
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How To Schedule Time To Get Into Classrooms
That's what we explore in the Instructional Leadership Challenge, and I thought I'd elaborate a bit on this particular strategy.
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4 Ways To Decide What Not To Delegate
How do you decide what to spend your time on as a leader?
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The Price of Excellence: Managing the Stress of Leadership
How hard should we push ourselves?
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Struggling To Connect With Students? Let Them Get To Know You
Guest post byJames Alan Sturtevant
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Using The Evaluation Process To Help Teachers Grow: Who's In The Driver's Seat?
There's an old Harry Wong saying about classroom management and pedagogy that goes something like this:
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Get Into Classrooms 500 Times This Year
I want to challenge you to get into 500 classrooms this year.
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Staying In The Game: Preventing Principal Burnout
According to this report from School Leaders Network, replacing a single principal can cost a total of $75,000—or more.
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A School With No Principal (But Plenty of Leadership)
Can you imagine your school functioning without a principal? Not just for a day here or there…but forever?
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The Price of Excellence: Managing the Stress of Leadership
How hard should we push ourselves?
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Growth or Dismissal? Choosing Your Evaluation Path for Each Teacher
An "unsatisfactory" teacher evaluation should lead to either improvement or termination.
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How To Build Capacity for Instructional Leadership In Your Organization
What Is Capacity for Instructional Leadership?
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Focus: Leadership for Strategic Simplicity
If we want to achieve results for students, it's no secret that focus is essential.
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Balancing the Stress Equation
How hard should we push ourselves?
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Why Twitter Doesn't Reach Families
Twitter is great for a lot of things—connecting with your PLN, sharing ideas, participating in the #ILCHAL chat, and more—but there's one thing it's not...
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Do You Need A Workflow For That?
Our recent member survey was very clear: instructional leaders are stressed and overwhelmed.
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Using the Evaluation Process to Help Teachers Grow: Who's In the Driver's Seat?
There's an old Harry Wong saying about classroom management and pedagogy:
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Setting Students Up For Success—An Interview with Mitch Weathers
Every year, millions of American students fail a class—or several. As school leaders, what can we do?
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Why Assessment Literacy Matters
Hardly a day goes by without someone complaining that we do too much testing in US schools.
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Standing Desks for Students in K-12: Great For Health and Learning
As an administrator, you probably spend a lot of your day on your feet—walking to classrooms, supervising in hallways, circulating within classrooms—and not...
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Should You Use A To-Do List?
Time to settle an argument: Kevin Kruse doesn't like to-do lists. Sir Richard Branson does. Who's right—the billionaire or the productivity expert?
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What To Do In An Interview When You Don't Have A Good Answer
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Why Instructional Leaders Belong In Classrooms
We're often needed in the office, but we like to be "visible." We like to be in hallways, in dropoff and pickup zones, in lunchrooms and at recess.
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Video Enhanced Professional Development—Is It Worth The Risk?
I had three years of public school teaching under my belt when I learned the importance of professional development.
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Thanks! You're Confirmed—Here's Why We Require You To Click Our Emails
Thanks for clicking to confirm that your email address is active! No further action is needed—our system will register the click so your address doesn't get...
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0 Emails: How to Empty Your Inbox Every Day
If you're overwhelmed by email, you're not alone. The average principal gets hundreds of emails a day, and keeping up with them can feel like another...
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The 48-Hour Brevity Challenge
I got this reply from a Principal Center Professional Member this week
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How Habits Work
Hi, I'm Justin Baeder. In this video, we're going to explore precisely how habits work. This is a critical area for increasing our performance in just about...
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Why John Wooden Was Wrong When He Said "You haven't taught until they have learned"
Is learning the true measure of teaching? We see quotes like this all the time:
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