Essentials for Principals

You're ready to start collecting and utilizing school data, but what data? How exactly will you find it and how will you use it once you have it? This informative resource takes an in-depth look at best data collection practices and guides the elementary school principal on how to reach struggling learners, strengthen instruction, and achieve schoolwide improvement.

Learn how to harness students' natural curiosity to develop them into self-directed learners. Discover how technology allows students to take ownership of their learning, create and share learning tools, and participate in work that is meaningful to them and others. Real-life examples illustrate how every student can become a teacher and a global publisher. The embedded QR codes link to supporting websites. Benefits: Read real-life examples that illustrate how technology is revolutionizing instruction and learning; Develop techniques that will enable your students to own and direct their learning; Discover hidden opportunities to create your own Digital Learning Farm communities.

English learners face not only the challenge of learning English, but also learning English in English. How, then, do you set reasonable expectations for developing proficiency? School leaders will find the answers inside, including how to assess the individual needs of ELs, how to create a quality instructional program, and how to evaluate performance. Each chapter offers reliable, research-based ways to implement solutions you can count on.

Examine the pivotal role family engagement plays in student achievement, and explore in depth the process of creating and implementing a family-engagement plan. This research-based guide includes many specific strategies, handouts, and reproducibles leaders can use to make their schools family friendly and connect with those families who may be hard to reach.

Discover how systems thinking can enhance teaching and learning schoolwide. Examine how to use systems thinking-which involves distinguishing patterns and considering short- and long-term consequences-to better understand the big picture of education and the intricate relationships that impact classrooms. Identify strategies and tools to create clear learning targets, prepare effective lessons, and successfully assess instruction.

Ensure your school's grading procedures are supportive of learning, accurate, meaningful, and consistent. Discover how the "seven essential Ps" can improve your effectiveness in supporting assessment and communicating student achievement. You will also learn how to avoid inaccurate grades caused by penalties for lateness or academic dishonesty; extra credit; group rather than individual work; and marking down for attendance.

Awaken the Learner: Finding the Source of Effective Education aims to create kind, compassionate, and caring students and school environments. In this motivational book, Dr. Robert J. Marzano partners with Rachel's Challenge founder Darrell Scott, father of Rachel Joy Scott, the first student killed in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado. The authors explore the necessity and ability for K 12 teachers and administrators to promote positive change and kindness among students and teachers.

This resource provides information and tools for teachers and others on how to support children whose primary way to communicate is through challenging behaviors, including young children and those with disabilities. The authors build an understanding of what behaviors children use to communicate, what kinds of messages they may be sending, and how adults can ask six critical questions to better understand and meet children s needs. As experts in autism and speech pathology, the authors explain, in accessible language, the effects of central nervous system disabilities and hidden issues on a child s behavior and ability to communicate. They then show how to create an improved learning environment and offer proactive behavior and instructional strategies to support more acceptable behavioral alternatives. Throughout the book, stories provide enlightening, sometimes humorous examples of how children use behavior to communicate. Engaging exercises and end-of-chapter questions can be used by individuals or teams to examine and improve their current practice.

In this addition to the Essentials for Principals series, authors Richard DuFour and Rebecca DuFour continue to provide aspiring and experienced principals with useful strategies for creating high achieving professional learning communities in their schools. The School Leader's Guide to Professional Learning Communities at Work is based on the following assumptions: 1. The school s job is to ensure high levels of student learning. 2. The process of fulfilling that responsibility entails developing professional learning communities through staff. 3. It is the principal s job to lead the effort to create a professional learning community that fosters high levels of learning for students through processes that promote adult learning. The School Leader's Guide does not list chronological steps principals must follow to achieve its PLC, but rather provides sound, research-based strategies and suggestions to help principals address specific challenges that inhibit PLCs in their schools. Chapter 1 helps principals initiate and lay the foundation for PLCs. Chapter 2 analyzes how principals lay the structure to support collaborative team processes, while chapter 3 distinguishes between teams and groups and what tools should be used to create teams. Chapter 4 emphasizes the point of being collaborative to promote high levels of student learning, and chapter 5 focuses on effective monitoring strategies for principals. Chapter 6 explores how student progress should drive a continuous improvement process. How to implement intervention systems to aid struggling students is the focus of chapter 7. Chapter 8 helps principals reflect on their communication effectiveness, and chapters 9 and 10 focus on sustaining school improvement initiatives and informing principals of the important role they play in helping their team members believe in themselves.

Social media holds potential benefits for schools reaching out to our communities, preparing our teachers, and connecting with our kids. In this short text, the authors examine how enterprising K-8 schools are using social media tools to provide customized professional development for teachers. They explore the marketing and communications value of developing a social-networking presence and examine the kinds of school and district practices necessary for supporting successful school-based social media efforts. As part of the Essentials for Principals Series, the book explains several ways that administrators can use social media spaces to communicate with staff, students, parents, alumni, and other stakeholders. The authors focus on how administrators can structure practical, meaningful, and engaging professional development sessions on social media. The book further explores the kinds of core behaviors that can help to ensure the responsible use of social media in schools, and the epilogue focuses on the future of social media in education.

The key to student success starts in the classroom. Principals face the challenge of finding and keeping highly qualified teachers who will work to ensure learning for all. The authors use firsthand experiences and observations to guide readers through effective processes for recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and supporting faculty who best fit the needs of individual schools.

Educators and administrators are increasingly coming to realize the importance of making decisions based on reliable, accurate data. It is not always clear how to gather that data, however, or what to do with the data once collected. This short guide provides a clear and easily implemented blueprint for evaluating academic programs, practices, or strategies. With examples and clear direction, this resource will guide the reader through a five-step process for systematically gathering, objectively evaluating, and constructively acting on data. Part of the Essentials for Principals Series, this guide provides a framework for transparent, accurate evaluation of current practices and inclusive planning. It includes a step-by-step walkthrough of the program evaluation cycle and an appendix that explains vital concepts and vocabulary in accessible language.

Special education is often a confusing and expensive consideration of running a school. You have IEPs and BIPs in place, but are they really working? Find a refresher on the key legal rights of students with disabilities along with methods for designing and implementing IEPs and BIPs that work, approaches to creating effective instruction and assessment practices, and opportunities for inclusion in the general education classroom.

The far-reaching consequences of academic failure are now well known. High-poverty, low-performing schools in particular face an urgent need to transform in order to meet the needs of all their students. The school improvement audit a research-proven process of self-evaluation yields evidence-based conclusions that can significantly enhance education for children at risk. Turning Your School Around: A Self-Guided Audit to School Improvement follows a step-by-step process, with, tips and practical examples that can help all schools become high-performing learning communities. Research over the past decade has identified the specific factors that work to turn around high-poverty, low-performing schools. The school improvement audit looks at every aspect of a school or district, including its personnel, students, finances, achievement, professional development, and demographics. This is a challenging task requiring complete openness and transparency, but schools that use the audit no longer have to respond to low report cards intuitively or out of fear. And because the audit requires the rigorous and active participation of the entire community, it also builds trust, consensus, and dialog, along with higher achievement. The rubrics used by the school improvement audit are based on the same research used in the nationally recognized The Kids Left Behind.