Planning Season Kicks Into High Gear
This year, it’s more important than ever for principals to plan ahead. The 2021-22 North American school year may seem ages away, but with pandemic-related policies shifting so frequently, multiple contingencies related to hiring, professional development, technology purchases, curricular materials, and instructional interventions should already be taking shape.
In this issue, school improvement expert and former principal Dr. Kent Davis shares his top tips for school leaders to set the stage for success, and Tonia Gibson, a McREL managing consultant and also a former principal, explains how leaders can establish a school climate that encourages curiosity in teachers and students. Also check out our Research Roundup for recent academic work on school leadership.
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Bryan Goodwin, CEO, McREL International
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How (and Why) Principals Can Prepare Now for 2021-22
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Dr. Kent Davis, McREL’s associate director of learning services, learned a valuable lesson as a new principal: Your school year begins three months before everybody else’s. Now, with all the pandemic-related changes principals have to navigate, Kent says many aspects of the school year should be in the works six months out.
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How Principals Can Build Curiosity Into School Climate
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Curiosity and its many benefits are in short supply in many schools, especially in the older grades, with consequences ranging from student disengagement to, eventually, a poorer and less healthy life. Principals love the idea of infusing curiosity into their school, but is this really something a leader can influence? Definitely! Tonia Gibson shares ideas from Building a Curious School.
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Foundation Report Makes It Clear: Principals Matter
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An idea that McREL helped to popularize in 2005—that principals can and should be instructional leaders—is now widely accepted. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to accomplish. McREL’s Drs. Kristin Rouleau and Kent Davis summarize a recent foundation report on school leadership and introduce some new ways of thinking about professional learning for school leaders, all aimed to better integrate principals with the work getting done in classrooms.
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McREL’s Emphasis on Customization Shines in the Pacific Region
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The Pacific Islands loom large in McREL’s school improvement work. Several jurisdictions have invited us to co-create professional learning, coaching, consulting, and analysis solutions geared to their unique needs. In this Success Story, learn how education departments in Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Republic of Palau achieved their goals.
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Infographic Introduces Teachers to Pacific Islanders
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A new infographic series from REL Pacific is meant to facilitate greater awareness, understanding, and appreciation of the diversity of cultures and experiences of Pacific Island students, both inside and outside the classroom. The first infographic in the series provides an overview of the Compacts of Free Association, including the historical and current social and political context necessary to understand some of the experiences of Pacific Island students in U.S. schools.
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Check Our Updated Products & Services Catalog
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The McREL Products and Services Catalog has been refreshed for the spring. Learn about the many ways McREL helps state departments, education service areas, districts, and individual schools to thrive through change.
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A selection of research news that ties into our work on leadership, instruction, school improvement, and professional learning here at McREL.
Delving deeper into principals’ influence. The link between principals’ actions and student learning is so well established that it’s time to move past “whether” and focus on “how,” according to a U.S.-Canadian team writing in Educational Administration Quarterly. Analyzing four ways that principals can reach students, the authors found that collective teacher efficacy (CTE) had the highest correlation with student success. They defined CTE as “the level of confidence a group exudes in its capacity to organize and execute the tasks required to reach desired goals.” Read the article in Educational Administration Quarterly. How district leaders make decisions. Student data is hardly the only factor that influences how school district leaders make decisions, according to a new paper in the American Educational Research Journal. Class, race, and language also influence how they identify problems and solutions. The more controversial the policy, the likelier leaders are to invoke real-world stories to persuade one another, the researchers found. To make their observations, the researchers gained access to hundreds of hours of behind-the-scenes meetings that the public isn’t usually privy to at a midsized urban California district. Read the article in the American Educational Research Journal.Protecting principals’ well-being. Stress is the inevitable result as principals gain responsibilities but lose decision-making autonomy, says a study of Australian and Irish principals in Educational Management Administration & Leadership. Social capital, a complex web of relationships, can help principals thrive if it leads to trusting working partnerships and shared goals and values. Principals’ long work hours can make it hard to form networks, but doing so, within the school and in the broader community, makes it “easier to find support and face the increasing demands that negatively impact their well-being.” Read the article in Educational Management Administration & Leadership. Project-based learning gets multiple votes of confidence. The George Lucas Educational Foundation announced the publication of four studies that supported the use of project-based learning (PBL) in all grade levels. In addition to being a great way for students to build curiosity and capacity, PBL can help to address pandemic-related learning loss, the foundation said. Read the foundation’s press release, which contains links to the studies.
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As a growing organization, we’re expanding our team of educators, researchers, project managers, and communicators to provide supports and services to more schools, districts, and education agencies. Interested in joining our team? Check out this current opening on the McREL careers page:
- Research Director (Honolulu)
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Learn more about how our coaching, professional learning, and analysis services can help your school or system reach its goals.
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McREL International
P 800.858.6830 | F 303.337.3005
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REL Southeast
Dr. John Hughes
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