It won’t surprise anyone that the start of school has always been one of my favorite times of the year.  I love the sense of a fresh start and new possibilities.  I love seeing friends and family post pictures of their kids heading back to school.

As a teacher, you know how important the beginning of school can be to launching a successful year.  When I was still teaching, you couldn’t keep me out of my classroom a week or two before classes were scheduled to start.  As principal architect of the learning space, I returned each year with new ideas and plans to make the learning experience more meaningful.  I put up new artwork on the walls, redesigned centers and access to learning resources, and worked to make the physical space reinforce the day to day practices students would experience in my classroom.  Once students actually arrived on day one, my highest priority was to learn students’ names as quickly as possible – it made a huge difference in building relationships quickly, and my students were always surprised when they came in the door on day two and I greeted them by name.   Yesterday, I saw a teacher who was taking time to not only learn student names, but encouraging students to share the story of their names.  It’s a great practice to get students talking on day one while simultaneously celebrating each student’s unique history.

As a principal, the first day of school was an all-out celebration.  We brought the entire staff into the school entryway to welcome students as they came in the front doors.  Student leadership posted welcoming messages all around the building.  In Santa Ana, our principals have a similar approach, with students being welcomed by cheering administrators, school mascot themed selfie-stations, and relationship-building activities throughout the day.  Some schools literally roll out the red carpet.

And when you think about it, having our students come back to school really is a celebration.  Without them, we don’t have a school, or a job, or a profession.  They are quite literally our raison d’etre.  Imagine how our schools would be transformed if every student really felt that sense of belonging and importance on a deep level.  Imagine if every student, every day, knew without question that the adults on campus were over the moon just to have them there.  This first week back at school is when the energy and enthusiasm is perhaps at its highest – it’s the time we come closest to realizing our aspiration of truly student-centered schools.

In leadership, change and transition are inevitable, so I try to learn as much as I can during the sometimes short time I have with the mentors and leaders with whom I work.  Last month, our current superintendent, Dr. Stefanie Phillips, announced that she would be leaving Santa Ana Unified.  Dr. Phillips will forever be the superintendent that gave me a shot to work and serve on her cabinet – my first assistant superintendent role.  To say the learning has been intense would be a gross understatement.  During our time together, it has been my privilege to watch Dr. Phillips as she has navigated the rigor and challenge of the urban superintendency.  While a blog post hardly does justice to the skillsets and mindsets necessary to lead a large school district, here are three leadership qualities that quickly come to mind when I think about Dr. Phillip’s tenure in SAUSD:

It Isn’t About You

Not long into the job, I came into my office and found a book on my desk, “The Four Agreements: A Toltec Wisdom Book.”  It’s a great leadership read, and it didn’t take me long to figure out that Dr. Phillips had dropped it off for me.  One of the four agreements was something that I had heard mentioned by Dr. Phillips before in our cabinet meetings.  “Don’t take anything personally.”  The idea was that it can be easy to confuse our professional role and title with our identity.  We get seduced by the idea that it really is all about us.  It isn’t.  It is about moving the work forward.  You have to take both the attacks and the compliments with a grain of salt.  Rather than getting caught up in rumors or personal politics, Dr. Phillips kept conversations about the sustainability and success of the district.

Dr. Phillips has been one of the most steady and centered leaders I have had the opportunity to work with.  No matter the external context, she always maintained her composure and her focus on what was necessary to move forward.  Even in the face of criticism or conflict – situations that all superintendents must face at times – Dr. Phillips remained steadfast and focused.  It was never about her ego, and I genuinely never felt threatened that I might run afoul of her sense of position or power.  When I made a mistake in that regard, she was firm and direct, but also forgiving.  Of course I’m certain that internally there were times when she was flooded with feelings of frustration or overcome with grief in the face of tragedy or disappointment.  Even so, she kept her head up and her vision forward focused.  She was always the adult in the room.

Financial Stewardship

With a background as a Chief Business Officer in multiple high-profile positions, it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that Dr. Phillips brought a steady financial hand and vision to her role as the superintendent.  During her years with Santa Ana, the district has not only remained financially stable, but has steadily seen its credit rating improved with lenders – something that also saves money as we go to the bond market to finance facility improvements and modernizations.  She has helped her entire leadership team develop an awareness and expertise with the financial systems that turn our plans and vision into operational reality.

I remember that as a graduate student in school leadership, I took a course on financial management of non-profit organizations.  The professor would often say that while the financial foundation of the organization might not be the most exciting aspect of the work, if we got it wrong, it would be the most consequential.  If we didn’t pay close attention to the financial forecast, we would end up in the newspaper for all of the wrong reasons.

Good financial management embraces a “do no harm” approach to leading a complex institution.  The idea of leaving the organization on better financial footing is applicable here – and Dr. Phillips certainly has navigated what could have been more troubling financial waters were it not for her insistence that we all operate as strong financial managers.  At its best, good financial management moves into the strategic realm where limited resources are strategically applied to move the work forward and strengthen the organization’s sense of purpose and vision.  Dr. Phillips helped us all develop our ability to prioritize, monitor, evaluate, & repurpose our limited resources in an ongoing effort to be as effective and strategic as possible on behalf of our students.

Preparation

Dr. Phillips is always, and was always, remarkably prepared.  She did not leave the details to chance.  During our board prep sessions, it was always apparent that she had reviewed all of the items and already had feedback ready for her cabinet members.  That is saying a lot when your board packets regularly run into the hundreds of pages.  Sometimes the feedback was more technical in nature – as when she had suggestions to adjust a title or ensure that supporting materials and overviews matched in scope and language.  At other times, that feedback was more adaptive & strategic – as when she helped us forecast questions we might anticipate from board members in reaction to specific items on the agenda.

In any case, Dr. Phillips had an expectation that you meet your deadlines and come prepared.  Board submissions, cabinet meetings, program plans, and follow-ups all came with clear timelines and expectations.  This approach to management in a large urban district is essential – the volume and pace of work is indeed intense.  I came to take pride in our ability to move work quickly and efficiently.  I developed a clear process and discipline for bringing forward written plans and recommendations to cabinet along with supporting materials.  When I first joined cabinet, I found myself making time commitments more out of a sense of what I thought Dr. Phillips and others wanted to hear.  My time with Dr. Phillips taught me to forecast the real situation in my planning timelines, including the ability to advocate for the time and resources necessary to do the work and provide a realistic overview of what was possible and when.  While I brought a strong work ethic and discipline to the work before I joined her cabinet, Dr. Phillips was instrumental in elevating my capacity to manage and move the work.

In education, we use phrases like master teacher, mentor, or expert teacher to describe a professional educator who has developed a wide and effective repertoire of instructional practices and classroom strategies.  In a profession that doesn’t always feel like it is treated professionally, these are hard fought skills and deserved recognitions.  But they also feel dangerous.

Yes, it is important to recognize and celebrate instructional expertise.  As an administrator responsible for teaching and learning across a large school district, instructional skill is one of the most valuable and needed skill sets I look for in our pursuit of dynamic, engaging learning environments and experiences for our students.

Real learning, of course, happens as we develop conceptual understanding and develop skills that we didn’t have before.  When learning happens, it changes how and what we think.  Learning builds on and sometimes replaces previous knowledge.  It assumes the acquisition of something we did not know or could not do before.

While we may proclaim ourselves to be lifelong learners, the more accurate truth is that we can sometimes get comfortable in our “expertness.”  We take things for granted.  We may get defensive when new approaches emerge, or we may interpret new ideas as a threat to our tried and true practices.

The key to being a model learner is to stay humble and eagerly pursue opportunities to learn.  Here are a few strategies for embracing the need to model lifelong learning.

Structure Your Discomfort

Learning takes time and exposure to new ideas.  You need to deliberately structure time and experiences that will force you to learn new skills and consider new approaches.  In the context of school, you could volunteer to take on a new club, teach an elective you haven’t had before, or take on a leadership role.  Sometimes, you just have to ask for the opportunity to help.  Perhaps you are a secondary teacher who would like to understand how master schedules are built, or an elementary teacher who wants to support recruitment or fundraising efforts at the school.  Even little assignments can stretch you and build your skill set.

Of course I recognize that teaching every day takes a tremendous amount of energy, planning, and determination.  Sometimes we may be looking for ways to buffer ourselves from additional assignments as opposed to seeking them out.  Yet we know that learning requires we place ourselves in new situations and in novel contexts.  By the same token, sometimes teachers get pigeonholed into the same assignments year after year precisely because they are good at the task.  Deliberately mixing it up can go a long way to encourage new learning and rejuvenate your professional aspirations along the way.

Question & Reflect

Perhaps the most important practice in being a model learner is constantly submitting your own assumptions and practices to scrutiny and review.  When I was preparing to submit a portfolio application for National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certification, I participated in a prep class where we were constantly prompted to ask the question, “I do (action), which causes students to (action), which impacts learning by (outcome)?”  This simple phrase challenged me deeply to constantly articulate my theory about how my teacher choices and actions were impacting student learning.  How do you know what you are doing has an impact on learning?  What data are you using to draw your conclusions?

I acknowledge we work in a profession where teachers constantly feel performance threat; there are dangers to being vulnerable or acknowledging gaps in performance.  Teachers work with a full range of administrators, whose own instructional expertise and reflective practices vary tremendously.  It can feel dangerous at times to acknowledge where we are struggling or need improvement.  Yet public opportunities for reflection and learning remain essential.

Get Into Classrooms

That may sound ironic, owing to the fact that you already spend the bulk of your professional life in a classroom.  The true irony is that in the course of a school year, you may be able to count on one hand the number of times you spent in the classroom of a colleague with the purpose of observing instructional practice and learning new skills.  There are few activities as insightful to your practice as watching others teach.  If you are lucky, you are at a school where practices like instructional rounds or lesson study are already in place and where you already have ample opportunity to get out of your classroom to observe others.  If not, then you may have to get creative on your own with a group of your colleagues.  I would argue that if you haven’t been in other classrooms in several months, it is urgent that you make arrangements and set aside time to learn from your colleagues – and not just via collaborative discussions.  You need to see teaching and learning happening in real time.

Earlier this semester, I found myself in a large high school auditorium.  Hundreds of middle school and upper elementary school students sat expectantly with their teammates, parents and siblings anxiously waiting further back.  A buzz of chatter filled the room, a tangible sense of anticipation in the air.

When the first chord of Also Spracht Zarathustra rang out from the auditorium speakers, the students burst into spontaneous and enthusiastic applause.  All eyes were on the front curtain.  As the music continued, the curtain slowly rose.  The deliberate coordination of music and stagecraft drew the crowd from excited applause to feverish delight.  The full exposure of the awards table on the stage was timed perfectly to coincide with the resolving chords of the music, and the auditorium burst into an ear thumping roar.

Hard to believe this level of excitement was for a Speech & Debate awards ceremony.

For the past 3 years, Santa Ana Unified has invested heavily in a Speech & Debate program that is becoming is the envy of the nation.  The defending middle school national champs call Santa Ana home.  We’ve recruited college level Speech & Debate champions from around the country to come coach our students after school and over the summer.  Surrounding schools district have been paying to get in on the tournament scene.  Virtually every intermediate and high school has a team, and many of our elementary schools are starting their own teams.  Sometimes it seems like there is a competition every weekend, be it a high school regional, a district semi-final, the elementary championships, or an annual trek to Harvard or nationals.  We even hosted the National Forensic Association competition back in April, with college students descending on Santa Ana from universities around the country to compete for the national championship. 

When I got to Santa Ana 4 years ago, Speech and Debate wasn’t really a thing.  We had a handful of small high school teams.  The local Kiwanis club approached district leadership with some interest in starting something more robust, and together recruited a local city councilman and educator Sal Tinajero who was coaching an award winning team up in Fullerton.  We poached Sal from our neighbors with the expectation of building a strong program in the district.  The initial budget was modest but there was an appetite to see the program grow with time.

It didn’t take long.

At first, building the program felt a little dangerous.  As can be the case in a large educational bureaucracy at times, there were rules to follow.  Sal came into my office on multiple occasions, panic on his face when it seemed an event reservation was going to be bumped, when a check for visiting tournament judges hadn’t been cut, or when we didn’t have a job description for college coaches coming to work with our students.  Sal always kept the faith, used some political muscle to elicit support when necessary, and steadily an idea became a full fledged success story.  Speech and debate now is part of our district identity.

The rise of Speech & Debate in Santa Ana reminds us all that transformational change can and does happen.  It reminds us that the recipe for dynamic opportunities for students requires a potent mix of political, financial, and organizational will power.  When those forces come together, transformation really can (and does) happen.

It’s hard to contain the joy of the last week of school.  Memorial Day weekend gives us a little taste of what is just around the corner.  Students are giddy.  Teachers even more so.  Energy and anticipation is high.  Celebration assemblies and awards ceremonies fill the calendar.  It’s hard not to break out in a broad smile.

Unless you are a principal.  Yes, you share in the enthusiasm.  You are likely to give out more congratulatory high fives, handshakes, and hugs in the final days of the year then at any other time of the year.  On many levels, watching your students finish out the year and prepare to transition for their next challenge is deeply satisfying.  It speaks to the reasons we became educators and administrators in the first place.  Graduation and promotion ceremonies are major rites of passage, and our communities build tremendous meaning and celebration around these traditions.

But the end of year experience can be deeply bittersweet as a principal.

First off, the end of school year is when your logistical skills are most clearly on display and open to scrutiny. Families, community partners, district officials and board members are all in attendance.  You are pulling off a series of highly visible and well attended events, from awards ceremonies and celebration breakfasts to the granddaddy graduation ceremony itself.  On the surface you are all smiles, but underneath is a simmering anxiety that you combat by trusting your support team and investing in good planning and lots of practice.    

Even more difficult, and rarely seen by others, are the extremely difficult conversations with students (and their families) who have not met graduation requirements.  At least for me, this is one of the most difficult parts of the job as a secondary administrator.  It is extremely difficult to watch students and their families as they wrestle with the consequences of unmet expectations.  To further the agony, these situations typically highlight gaps in your systems of support and communication as a school.  Parents and students under threat of exclusion from end of year festivities are extremely good at pointing out where you and members of your team have fallen short.  Yes, the student does bear responsibility for failing to meet the standard for graduation, but so too do you as the leader of a system that has similarly failed the student.

In the end, the exuberance of graduation will triumph.  It is virtually impossible not to share in the authentic joy of the moment.   Yet for a student-centered school leader, the end of the school year is often punctuated with difficult decisions and moments of deep disappointment.

Sometimes I refer to the classroom as the black box.  Of course for a classroom teacher, that sounds silly.  Teachers spend all day in the classroom – they are acutely aware of what is happening there.

But for parents, the classroom is opaque.  We rarely see what happens in our kids’ classrooms.  If we are lucky, we hear about it secondhand from our children.  We can also monitor the outcomes of what happens in the classroom, to some extent, through online gradebooks or periodic test results.  We may even see the room on Back to School Night or at Open House.

Getting parents into classrooms during the school day is a much rarer feat, especially as students get older.

Last week, one of our schools hosted Parent Learning Walks, and I had the chance to attend.  The event itself is part of an ongoing grant collaboration between my home district, Santa Ana Unified, Anaheim Union High School District, and El Sol Academy, a local charter school.  The purpose of the collaboration is to share practices around parent engagement, and the Parent Learning Walks have figured predominately in that work.  Our walk last week was hosted by our very own Esqueda K8 School.

Basically, parents visit classrooms in small groups, accompanied by staff members who encourage parents to take note of the learning tasks and levels of student engagement.  After each classroom visit, the group spends time outside discussing what they saw and trying to make sense out of the teacher’s purpose and the corresponding learning experience of the students.  The dialogue is fascinating, and you can see parents piecing together the things they have previously only heard about at home.   

While the process might seem intimidating to some teachers, when facilitated well (as I have witnessed it), I think it actually makes parents more empathetic and supportive of what the teacher is trying to accomplish.  It equips parents with pedagogical vocabulary and familiarity that enhances their ability to reasonably advocate for improvement and innovation.

It’s one of the best strategies I’ve seen in action for encouraging authentic parent engagement in our schools.

Anciently, the keystone was the central block fitted to hold up an archway.  Like the first domino to fall, removing the keystone would set off a collapse of all of the other bricks in the arch.  The beauty and practicality of the archway thus relied primarily on a small piece of the construction.

More recently, the concept of “keystone habits” has been popularized in productivity literature and podcasts.  The idea here is that there are certain life practices that have a domino effect and kick other habits into gear.  For example, I consider exercise as one of my keystone habits.  Exercise clears my head, lifts my mood, motivates me to make better food choices, and allows me to better manage my energy.

Likewise, there are certain leadership practices in a school setting that can have a multiplier effect.  These potentially small actions have an outsize ability to move work in powerful ways.  Here are just a few practices that I’ve seen have a keystone like impact across a school.

Classroom walkthroughs

This is the bread and butter practice of an instructional leader.  You spend as much time in classrooms as you possibly can.  It seems simple, but can prove to be surprisingly elusive.  The temptation to retreat to the office is real.  There are so many moving pieces in a school that require constant attention.  Sometimes putting out fires literally requires you to extinguish fires in the trash can.  Yes, you are the lead learner, but you are also the lead investigator, student advocate, conflict mediator, chief business officer, incident commander.  Despite your efforts to build the capacity of your team to take on the pieces of the work that draw you away, it is easy to spend a lot of time sorting out the logistical details.  Plus, in a profession where teacher autonomy and privacy are highly valued, being in classrooms can sometimes feel risky.

That is why it is so critical to push through and get into classrooms as often as possible.  It reinforces instructional expectations.  It leads to conversations and feedback about student learning.  It grounds decisions in awareness of what is actually happening in classrooms.  It provides visibility.

One of my favorite trainings, one that I have blogged about in the past, is the Breakthrough Coach with Malachi Pancoast.  While there are many critical elements to his approach to principal effectiveness, at the core is his declaration that principals are coaches, that the game is unfolding in real time in classrooms, and that your primary leadership responsibility is to be in the places where the game is being played so you can coach and guide your players.  He points out that many of the things school leaders do in their offices could also be done in classrooms – writing memos, answering email, reviewing data, etc.  Admittedly, sitting in the back of a classroom checking email may not be the best way to engage in a classroom (and I doubt Malachi thinks that either), but the point is well taken that sitting in your office checking email has even less positive benefit.   

My personal strategy was always to get into classrooms first thing in the morning for as long as I could.  I would put off other tasks until I could at the very least ground my day in classroom instruction.  Some principals strategically calendar with their APs (if they have them) to rotate supervision and “emergency” coverage to provide everyone the opportunity each week to spend extended blocks of time in the classroom.   Whatever the strategy, committing time to be in classrooms signals that what happens in classrooms is what matters to you.

Collaboration by Substitution

Just like a principal should be in classrooms every day possible, as a district administator I try to start each morning at a school.  There is something about being in classrooms and other school spaces with our kids that keeps me tethered to the work.    Being on campus allows me to see the work as it unfolds, interact with the staff members who provide direct services to our students, and get ideas for how to improve current practices and potentially enact new ones that will have a positive impact for kids.

This week, for example, I spent an hour walking classrooms with the principal of one of our smaller elementary campuses. Our conversation touched on a broad range of topics.  This principal mentioned something, almost in passing, that immediately struck me as deeply powerful.  He mentioned how each month he offers to teach the ELA block in each classroom to provide the general education and special education teachers time to collaborate.  For context, this school is a site where they have promoted a co-teaching model.  I went from room to room where general education and special education teachers were working closely together, coordinating their combined expertise and capacity to provide powerful small group learning experiences for all students.  .

Now fast forward back to the comment about substituting monthly in each class.  Not only was the principal creating time for staff to collaborate – the most important ingredient for quality co-teaching – but he was also demonstrating his belief that teacher professional learning and collaboration is worth his time.  He was demonstrating that he was willing to roll up his sleeves as a partner to move the work forward, not to mention showing his staff that he still loves to teach.  This one simple act of subbing into classrooms has a keystone effect on his school, enhancing relational trust, improving coordination of instruction, driving an inclusive culture, and building leadership capital to enact the next piece of the improvement agenda.  It’s simple but brilliant.   

Student Leadership

Your students can move your school faster than anyone on your campus.  They immediately bring clarity and moral authority to the improvement work of the school. They spend ALL DAY in your classrooms and offices with your staff.  They know who is there for them and who can’t be bothered.  They know who is holding them to high academic expectations and who is letting them off the hook.  They are the native experts of school.

Which is all why engaging the student voice in the improvement of school is not just the educationally sound thing to do, it is a strategic necessity.

Sometimes, when I walk into a classroom, I will immediately be approached by a student who has been trained and developed as the classroom ambassador.  The student answers my questions about the structure of the class and the purposes behind those structures.  The student gives me the tour and points out key information about how learning happens in the different spaces of the room.  Even for the skeptical visitor, there is something authoritative about coming face to face with an articulate student who is ready to explain, champion, and defend the learning space.

Similarly, school leaders who prepare, empower, and invest in student leadership at the school are setting into motion a powerful set of forces.  Students can internalize and capture the vision you are trying to promote, and then spread it faster and deeper than you could ever hope to accomplish on your own. It’s a natural collaboration, as your student leaders share a vested interest in the quality and reputation of the school.  Plus, some of the most powerful mentoring and leadership learning your students will experience in your school will come from your investment in them as leaders.

Content, inquiry, literacy, citizenship.  I was excited to see these four words at the top of the descriptive narrative for the new History/Social Studies framework for the state of California.  While social studies has a seat at the table of core academic disciplines, our K-12 schools don’t always give it the attention it deserves.  Yes, Math and English are important, but are they inherently more important than learning how societies, economies, and politics work?  I don’t want to get into a competition for which discipline is the most important, or the most neglected.  I taught Spanish as a World Language and have plenty to say about the powers that shape curricular priorities.

Of course I was a little disappointed that the new framework wasn’t more explicit in its commitment to authentic critical thinking.  I think the critical lens takes things one step past “inquiry,” towards issues of bias, power, and control.  One of the essential questions for a middle grades social studies class, for example, asked how “distant regions of the world become more interconnected.”  The framework seemingly treated “interconnectedness” as a benign phenomenon that had little to say about power, violence, racism, and war.  Unfortunately, these are often areas of common ground for humanity.

But despite my critiques, I was very much heartened at the broadened ambition to ensure that our social studies classrooms become centers for inquiry, literacy development, and the promotion of genuine citizenship.  Where better than a social studies classroom to break down the reliability of sources of information?  Where better than a social studies classroom to make meaning of non-fictional text?  Where better than a social studies classroom to analyze data tables and trends?

Yes, we need to learn history.  But honestly, we all carry around an incredibly powerful database for historical facts and figures at our fingertips.  We have to move towards these other keys components of the social studies curriculum – to analyze sources, cite textual evidence, compose cogent arguments, marshall statistical data, and perhaps most importantly, exercise our rights and duties as citizens.

So, I’m excited about the direction we are headed.

This week I did some classroom observations and debriefs known as “teacher learning walks” at one of our schools.  It’s a fantastic practice, similar to instructional rounds or lesson study, where teachers spend time observing their colleagues and then discussing what and how students were learning.  It’s the type of professional development I want for every teacher.

As we were discussing together, one of the teachers referred to the administrators and other guests in the group as “non-teachers.”   It was said very matter of factly.  No intention to offend or upset.  She was just trying to explain a point to those not working in the classroom. 

I like to believe I have the heart of a teacher, and that I have a strong teaching skill set.  Indeed, I find the art and science of teaching as a professional practice to be infinitely complex and fascinating.  I hope anyone who has watched me facilitate learning knows that it genuinely brings me joy.  

But when you choose to leave the classroom, a real choice is being made.  The title of a teacher is one I revere and admire tremendously.  Most of that reverence stems from an understanding of the work and dedication required over years to develop a rigorous, student-centered, and high quality instructional practice.  And I happen to agree to a large degree that you can’t qualify for the title when you aren’t doing that work.  There is a certain labor associated with it.  There is a camaraderie in the struggle that brings shared appreciation and shared empathy. 

Admittedly, I’ve never regretted the decision to leave the classroom to become an administrator.  I don’t get offended when people point out or emphasize my “non-teacher” status.  Some administrators fight it, holding on to their identity as a classroom teacher.  That’s actually a good thing, I think, to value and call upon your teacher perspective and awareness.  But in many teachers’ minds, if you aren’t currently in the classroom, you aren’t a teacher, and I don’t begrudge them that opinion.  

I have other practices and aspects of the work that I love – perhaps even equally to the practice of teaching.  I deeply enjoy the challenges of organizational management, of helping adults find their purpose and drive, of shaping educational institutions into more student-centered spaces.  I enjoy solving problems and challenges, designing learning spaces and experiences, and having a place at the table where decisions are made that impact teachers and classrooms across an entire system.  These are responsibilities I find compelling and necessary.  

I have conceded and rarely introduce myself as a teacher.  I’ve come to favor the title “educator.”  But I have to admit that being referred to as a “non-teacher” still comes with  a sting.

Great schools celebrate their students.

Pausing to take time to celebrate and recognize student excellence is in the DNA of most elementary schools.  The school year is filled with pizza parties, glow dances, certificates of achievement, and any other excuse to let students know they are on the right track.  In some circles perhaps it is seen as part of the over praising our kids – but I happen to think it’s just good feedback for kids.

Yet as kids get older, the opportunities to be celebrated seem to diminish.  Students are increasingly more likely to be called out for inappropriate behavior as opposed to efforts to reinforce the good.  By high school, it seems formal opportunities for recognition come primarily at the end of the school year in the form of awards assemblies and scholarship recognitions.

Last year, I attended a student recognition ceremony at one of our Intermediate Schools.  Parents were invited and students dressed up to be recognized for their academic excellence.  It was a genuinely touching experience to watch parents as they were invited to the stage to place a medal of achievement on their son or daughter.  Parents and children alike were glowing.

One of our high schools recently adopted a practice of dropping in on classrooms randomly to recognize outstanding student efforts and achievement.  Much like the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Prize Patrol, students are just sitting in class when a whole entourage of administrators, counselors, and other staff show up to celebrate.  Yes, perhaps it’s a little humiliating – but mostly it’s fun.

Last night, I was invited to a principal’s excellence ceremony held by one of our high schools.  Perhaps a little more traditional in nature, the event highlighted those students’ on the honor roll and who had perfect attendance.  The kicker came at the end, when the principal announced “front of the line” lunch passes for the students who had been honored that evening.  But it wasn’t just a one-time pass , or even a week-long perk.  Students received a pass for the entire semester!  Upon this announcement, the students in the auditorium were ecstatic. I would define it as spontaneous bliss.  It was almost comical to watch the students’ excitement.  Yes, I know, it’s perhaps a commentary on the drudgery of school lunch.  But it caught the students off guard – a true surprise from an institution that typically is anything but unpredictable.

It often doesn’t take a lot to signal that appreciation to students – “hey, we see you.  We want to celebrate you.  You’re moving in the right direction.”