Report From The Principal’s Office: A 200-Day Inspirational and Aspirational School Leadership Journal is a uniquely formatted book, written by a former teacher, principal, and school-district superintendent, that combines the creative task of daily journaling with critical readings that reflect on the art, craft, and skills required to be a successfully school-building administrator.
Where the RFTPO Book is available
On Amazon:
Paperback edition with notetaking daily journaling pages included: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578916509/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Report+From+The+Principal%27s+Office&qid=1647679684&sr=8-1
eBook edition: (Note: The eBook will not contain the journaling pages)
https://www.amazon.com/Report-Principals-Office-Inspirational-Aspirational-ebook/dp/B09VHCB8WF/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3KEL25MH28J0N&keywords=Report+From+The+Principal%27s+Office&qid=1647450093&sprefix=report+from+the+principal%27s+office%2Caps%2C830&sr=8-1
Presented in a format that employs multiple stylistic approaches, ranging from chucklesome sense-of-humor stories to soliloquies of sensitive solemnity and from creative storytelling to school-based experiential documentaries. All of the commentaries speak to and about real school-based practices, possibilities, “people-to-people” situations, events, triumphs, and setbacks; and the powerful (good and bad) impacts of all of those happenings on all of the people relying on those schools; the effects, particularly “the emotional toll” of organizational events, adverse incidents and experiences on the leaders of those schools; and most importantly, their ultimate effects on the students of those schools ability to achieve academically.
Although specifically designed for current serving principals or assistant principals and professional educators who are aspiring or studying, or are presently serving in the capacity of a school-building and/or district level administrators, superintendents, district-level directors, coordinators, and supervisors, the language is structured to allow broader access to a diverse non-school based leadership public education stakeholder audience (e.g., parents, college professors, journalists, senior public education policymakers, elected officials, and tax-paying citizens) to find this Book accessible and “eye-opening” helpful in understanding the often “forgotten,” “unclear” or “hidden-from-public-view” inner workings of public Pre-K-12 schools. And the unique challenges the leaders of those schools are forced to correctly problem-pose and successfully problem-solve daily.
Serving as a principal and supervising principals has given me a unique and deeper understanding of “what happens” or “does not happen” along the school building leadership effectiveness spectrum. For example, this Book seeks to answer the call for having a much more in-depth, “on-the-ground” case study based research and thoughtful analysis approach about topics like: the measurable attributes of an effective school building principal, the quality level of a school’s enhancing educational opportunities “environmental culture,” the effects of good instructional coaching on teaching and learning, a school’s staff mentoring and professional development capabilities, the level of administrative and operational management effectiveness; a school’s capacity to emotively embrace those students who are kept at arm’s length from our nation’s welcoming spirit of promised fairness and opportunity; and finally, what is that schools overall (across multiple diverse-needs cohorts) students’ academic performance profile; therefore, ultimately revealing the efficacious core collective thinking and daily good or bad habits-of-work quality of that school’s staff and specifically, its primary political, philosophical and pedagogical leader——the Principal!
In this Book, I explain, based on my experience as a principal, but mainly as a superintendent, why some schools, commonly referred to as “good,” are really not that “good.” While other schools (many Title 1) that may not receive the “good” designation are in actuality “punching far above their academic achievement expectations weight!”
These 200-Daily practical conceptualizations offer aspiring school administrators a road map for realizing the essential work that awaits them. In addition, it offers presently serving school-building leaders the opportunity to reflect on their current leadership work; while simultaneously providing a process for the daily reflection and documentation on what that leadership practice could become if it were to reach its highest highly-effective performance stages.
Where the RFTPO Book is available
On Amazon:
Paperback edition with notetaking daily journaling pages included: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578916509/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Report+From+The+Principal%27s+Office&qid=1647679684&sr=8-1
eBook edition: (Note: The eBook will not contain the journaling pages)
https://www.amazon.com/Report-Principals-Office-Inspirational-Aspirational-ebook/dp/B09VHCB8WF/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3KEL25MH28J0N&keywords=Report+From+The+Principal%27s+Office&qid=1647450093&sprefix=report+from+the+principal%27s+office%2Caps%2C830&sr=8-1
Contact Information:
[email protected]
P.O. Box 264
Fairview New Jersey 07022-0264
Report From The Principal’s Office: A 200-Day Inspirational and Aspirational School Leadership Journal.
Report From The Principal’s Office: A 200-Day Inspirational and Aspirational School Leadership Journal.
Table of Contents:
1. The Principal is the single most influential difference-
maker in a school’s success or failure.
2. The Principalship is a singularly unique position in
PreK-12 education.
3. School leadership ‘growing-pains’: Making sure your first
year as a principal is not your last year as a principal!
4. The 12 fundamental and foundational programmatic steps for
raising student academic achievement.
5. If a school is chronically underperforming, then ‘game-
changing’ strategies are needed!
6. The school-house doors are opening for a new school year,
is your personal house in order?
7. Are you getting hit from all sides and feeling
overstretched? (Welcome to the principalship!).
8. The past need not always stay in the past.
9. Artfully Crafting a Leadership Collage Personality.
10. The new students and parents orientation: A tremendously
useful teachable moment!
11. Back to school events: Don’t waste this fantastically
excellent information sharing opportunity!
12. That very bad start to a new school year.
13. The Ethical Principalship.
14. The amazingly important new school-year opening teacher-
staff meeting/conference.
15. It’s almost always not about you——until it is!
16. The importance of getting to know your students.
17. The best counter-moves for that faux-bullying parent.
18. What’s the best approach to help new staff-members to be
awesomely successful?
19. Bushido SuperVision: Connecting your principalship life
with that samurai life.
20. Ethical Righteous Authority means you can’t always ask
for permission to act.
21. Wise Righteous Authority means there are times when you
should ask for permission to act.
22. The Empathetic Principalship.
23. “Is this a public school?”
24. How to best prepare for those unforeseen problematic
school incidents.
25. Meta In Loco Parentis: “Would I want this for my own
child?”
26. The Beautiful Simplicity: Applying Ockham’s “Law of
Parsimony” hypothesis to raise student academic
performance.
27. The Elegant Complexity: Operationalizing Chekhov’s
“Literary Gun Theory” to raise student academic
performance.
28. Embracing the learning of a Common Core Curriculum for
leadership standards.
29. Dealing with that recalcitrant staff person.
30. Dealing with that recalcitrant principal—possibly
yourself?
31. The Emotionally Intelligent Principalship.
32. The Authentic Principalship.
33. The Principal as a Principled Peacemaker.
34. Serving as the school’s Chief Fairness Officer (CFO).
35. Establishing the critically vital parent/principal
alliance.
36. A core good school leadership principle: Reduce the
possibility and severity of emergency incidents.
37. In your principalship practice, be totally
comprehensible, and at the same time, be totally
mysterious!
38. The art of strategic-luck-making: Not relying on chance
for something great and wonderful to happen in your
school.
39. Are you thinking about becoming a superintendent? Well,
there are some things you should consider first.
40. It’s one of those Beauty and Beastly days of a high
school principal.
41. Honestly principal, who can you talk to, honestly?
Building a safe psychotherapeutic zone around yourself.
42. For those aspiring to be school administrators: Have you
had “The Talk” with the people you love?
43. Write yourself a survive and thrive P.A.S.S. (Principled
Administrators Strategic Selfishness).
44. The Special Education of the Principalship: Learning to
Embrace Doubt.
45. Is it realistic to want to be highly-effective in both
your Principalship and Parentingship roles?
46. Investing in and effectively managing the outside-of-
regular-classroom programs and activities.
47. “It’s not a matter of if it will happen; it’s only a
matter of when will it be your turn!”
48. The ‘Good School’ correlation and connection to highly-
effective principal coaching.
49. Your School Family Members (SFM’s) have some key
questions to ask about your leadership capabilities; it
won’t work trying to avoid them!
50. Why SuperVisionary school leaders need an annual
SuperThinking vacation.
51. Just focus on being your best strongest self in your leg of the professional educational relay race!
52. Those essential (end-of-the-school-day) school leadership informational, debriefing, and evaluation sessions.
53. Those critical (end-of-the-week) school leadership analysis, advisement, and planning sessions.
54. What you don’t know will hurt you: The hard truth about the ‘soft-skills’ knowledge required for the principalship.
55. Are highly-effective principals born, or can good leadership skills and talent be taught and developed?
56. An uncompromising principalship imperative: Give teachers a safe-space to teach and students a safe-place to learn!
57. Bad Leadership is Like a Bad Virus!
58. A constructive response to the self-destructive habits of Black and Latino male students: Case Study #1.
59. A constructive response to the self-destructive habits of Black and Latino male students: Case Study #2.
60. How to best prepare for the Superintendent’s announced or unannounced school visit.
61. The best schools discover and grow every student’s skills, gifts, talents, and hobby interests!
62. What you fail to supervise and manage in a school-building will still get supervised and managed —just not by you!
63. Don’t ever neutralize or diminish a student’s access to strong parental support.
64. The Mindful Principalship.
65. Decision-Making & Difference-Making: Braking Ineffectual Cycles of Same-Difference School Improvement Plans.
66. Do you feel at times like walking away from your principalship? (Well, so did I for eleven years!).
67. Bad Educational Service Leads to Bad Customer Service.
68. Successfully Managing the Principal-Superintendent Relationship.
69. The Subversive School-Based Leader.
70. What is the true Culture of your school?
71. Every school needs an Assistant Principal of operations and administrative management.
72. Desperately needed in public education: A Serious Series of Ethical Directives.
73. Yes, by all means, have your teachers teach to, above and beyond the (standardized) test!
74. “Principal, do you have ‘staff-favorites’ in your building?”
75. Part of the effective principalship practice is not throwing yourself under the bus!
76. Some interesting school-leadership phenomena to ponder.
77. The District Office’s ‘calling’ is not to constantly call schools—helping to reduce the stresses of the principalship.
78. Design a main and principal’s office escape plan.
79. That which we call a school by any good name is still…
80. Bringing backpacks full of pain and trauma to school every day, it’s not enough to ask those kids to act ‘normal’.
81. A few reflective pre-action and after-action situational principal’s thoughts.
82. Why even if it doesn’t appear to be broken, you may still want to fix it—Hidden bad organizational-habits can undermine the best work of even the best schools!
83. Want the people you supervise to be successful? Start with questions about them and end with questions about you.
84. The Principalship as Poetry.
85. A smart and easy principal win: Back your teachers when they hold students to high expectations and standards.
86. It takes a school-village of Courageous, Committed, and Consciously aware adults to effectively educate a child.
87. Those clandestine relaxation-tricks utilized to off-set a principal’s hectic and challenging days.
88. “I led the staff effectively, but they just did not follow me effectively!”
89. “Did that parent just say what I thought she said?”
90. “I Am The Boss Of This School!” ——But is that who you really want to be?
91. The influential reach and constraining limits of supervisory power.
92. You are replaceable, so take good care of both your hearts!
93. Build an ARC before student destructive behaviors and academic failure reigns in your school!
94. Effectively managing high-risk (of something terrible happening) events and activities that occur every school year.
95. Four politically correct “Eduspeak” throwaway lines that hide how we throw away too many children.
96. 20 of the best ways to effectively invest in the professional development and success of Assistant Principals.
97. A holiday gift list for that principal who (you believe) has everything they need.
98. Avoid those unprincipled and unprincipal-like fights.
99. Be smart and strategically-thoughtful when designing instructional practices professional development activities.
100. Create an educationally dynamic school by building up a full head of school-culture S.T.E.A.M.!
101. A Thinking Principalship: The most effective school-building leaders continuously think about leadership thinking.
102. L.E.A.D. or get out of the way of your school’s potential for success!
103. The highly-effective principal’s tool-box will always contain these 7 critical leadership skills tools.
104. With so many stakeholder friends like these, public school children don’t need any enemies!
105. When doing a serious incident investigation, utilize True Detective techniques.
106. Give some quality strategic-time to those students who are very capable academically but are quietly underperforming.
107. The principalship is not just a title or what you do; it’s who you really are as a person!
108. What do the best and brightest principals do after…
109. Some brief but important school-building leadership things to think about.
110. Reclaiming, Redefining, and Reaffirming: The 3 R’s for ritualizing and operationalizing a powerfully-positive school profile.
111. I theoretically traveled autobiographically backward to help my students to move effectively forward academically.
112. I have become a retired but not yet tired school leadership thinker about life and the present state of public education.
113. Academic competitions are both indicators and incubators of a school’s academic achievement aspirations.
114. “It’s not my fault; the MTA bus made me late!” : Helping students to expand their locus of physical and linguistic control.
115. Should public schools be forced to follow “truth in advertising” laws and regulations?
116. When seeking support from non-public school entities, principals should not get in their own way.
117. There are times when you may want to give your own self a timeout!
118. Education is political… Schools are instruments of political power… The Principalship is a political practice.
119. What’s your ‘next act’ professionally and personally?
120. The school operational leadership task of always mindfully magnifying your message.
121. Building a learning community and a community of learners’ school: A projects-based pedagogical model.
122. What does your website tell others about your school? What does your website do for your school?
123. A special type of leadership-quality is made possible by having a special type of humility wisdom.
124. Language in education is never neutral.
125. What defines a school’s coaching-character?—That school’s approach to the formal lesson observation process.
126. “Where in his IEP does it say that he can act like a doggone fool!”
127. First, Be an ethical-proficient leader, and then Be a proficient-ethical leader!
128. How do we carefully but honestly tell poor students and students of color that life is basically unfair?
129. “My bad, I forgot to celebrate last year’s victories!”
130. The hidden job description: The unstipulated set of need to knowables, doables, and beables of the principalship.
131. The importance of having a club, team, and special activities recruitment fair early in the school year.
132. Supporting the superintendent’s school-building administrators ‘who’s next up’ bench list.
133. Designing a school’s budget is ultimately a political, pedagogical, ethical, and leadership competency act.
134. Preparing for your end-of-year Superintendent’s Principal Performance Review Meeting.
135. You learn a lot about parenting and the human personality while serving in the principalship.
136. School-building crimes and punishment: A professionally ethical student disciplinary procedures practice.
137. My dream school is a D.R.E.A.M. and S.T.R.E.A.M. School!
138. If their last principal was an S.O.B., there’s a good chance that you’ll be the next S.O.B.!
139. The art and craft of effective school-leadership is the balancing of consistency and adaptability in your leadership style.
140. The Inspirational Principal.
141. When society pushes low-expectations, the principal should push high-expectations!
142. Public schools should be working and teaching models of a good civility civics education.
143. We can’t build societal ‘walls-of-protection’ high enough to keep us safe from the young people public education has failed.
144. Protecting students from child abuse by school staff-members.
145. The standards and rubrics for the effective initial assessment of a teaching position candidate.
146. Designing interview questions that reveal the head and heart of a teaching position candidate.
147. There are no ‘do overs’ in public schools for those things that we don’t get right the first time!
148. The 2020 Coronavirus—a painful teachable-moment in exposing the worst leadership qualities, as well as revealing public education’s equity inadequacies.
149. Educational Linguistic Integrity: Let the words of our mouths match our practice!
150. If you find a love that will love you back during your time in the principalship, go for it!
151. The practice of leadership questioning and the questioning of leadership practices.
152. The not-so-good, the good, the great, and the highly-effective school-building leader.
153. For academically struggling or underperforming students, time is and is not their best friend!
154. A not ‘Robbing-the-Hood’ of educational opportunity principalship practice.
155. Seeking to help male students succeed in an often ‘hostile and antagonistic’ public school environment.
156. We must seek to support and empower female students to gain access to leadership positions.
157. Should parents with political, social, financial, class and ethnic advantages try to take further unfair advantages?
158. The Self-Reflective Principal. (1).
159. The Self-Reflective Principal. (2).
160. The Self-Reflective Principal. (3).
161. Schools should be all about the Benjamins, da Vincis, and Galileos—Creating a school with HIGH-E3STEAM.
162. A faithful leadership-calling question: “Am I looking for trouble, or is trouble looking for me?”
163. Are we playing a viciously mendacious game of pedagogical musical chairs?
164. The fine-tuning of your leadership moral compass through spiritual-scholarly readings.
165. The urgency of practicing a pedagogy of insurgency!
166. Learning to love and embrace staff and student’s eccentricities!
167. A Leadership wisdom that is grounded in knowing your students, staff, and, equally important, knowing yourself!
168. A consistent production of highly-effective principalships can only be accomplished through a thoughtfully designed and well-executed Principal Professional Preparation & Development Plan.
169. Where is your school’s annual S.W.A.G. attitude?
170. Faith in Your Leadership is…
171. Having Leadership Courage is…
172. Practicing Leadership Charity is…
173. Offering Leadership Love is…
174. Providing a Leadership of Hope is…
175. Successful principals employ attracting success principles!
176. The somewhat normal up and down motions of emotions that exist daily in the principalship.
177. There is nothing comical about the need to be a real-life school-leadership SuperHero.
178. Endorsing Public Educational Reparations!
179. They call them learn-less Mondays, but Fridays can turn out to be extra learning-less bad!
180. Some classic prospective staff interviews greatest misses.
181. What is the school-administrators best practical approach to the decision-making process in a crisis?
182. Much good and helpful school leadership knowledge can be learned both inside and outside of the school building.
183. How a walking-around leadership can inspire a strategic-thinking leadership!
184. Can one be a great principal without having been a great teacher?
185. The Rewarding Principalship.
186. Has the concept of Professional Expertise lost its meaning in our modern world?
187. I engaged my senior class as if they were embarking on a hero’s rites of passage journey.
188. The level of high: self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-expectations, reveals the quality of a principalship personality.
189. “Why is it that so many American-born students can’t read at grade level by the end of eighth grade?”
190. School Volunteerism: Getting good and giving people to donate their talents to enhance the talents of your students!
191. The Entrepreneurial Principal.
192. What is your Entrepreneurial Principal’s “elevator pitch”?
193. “You do know principal, that it’s ultimately (in-the-end) all about the quality of instruction!”
194. The Passionate Principalship.
195. This section is for superintendents (principals can peek, I won’t tell).
196. Some Lessons I Learned in the Principal’s and Superintendent’s Office (1).
197. Some Lessons I Learned in the Principal’s and Superintendent’s Office (2).
198. Some Lessons I Learned in the Principal’s and Superintendent’s Office (3).
199. And then there were some lessons I wished I’d learned earlier and better in the principal’s office.
200. God’s gonna trouble the waters —— God’s gonna calm the waters!
Where the RFTPO Book is available:
On Amazon:
Paperback edition with notetaking daily journaling pages included: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578916509/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Report+From+The+Principal%27s+Office&qid=1647679684&sr=8-1
eBook edition: (Note: The eBook will not contain the journaling pages)
https://www.amazon.com/Report-Principals-Office-Inspirational-Aspirational-ebook/dp/B09VHCB8WF/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3KEL25MH28J0N&keywords=Report+From+The+Principal%27s+Office&qid=1647450093&sprefix=report+from+the+principal%27s+office%2Caps%2C830&sr=8-1