Looking for the “so what?” in our data If you’ve read this blog for any period of time, you’ve probably figured out that data tracking is kind of my thing. My super Type-A personality gets a lot of satisfaction from crossing every “t” and dotting every “i” and making sure that I can quickly access… Continue reading Looking for the “So What?” In Our Data
Use your data to celebrate families Educators: you’ve made it! It’s finally the end of the school year. And what a school year it was. I’m sure that there are all kinds of celebrations happening as this confusing, exhausting, stressful, and probably scary year comes to a close. But if you’ve been tracking your student… Continue reading Use Your Data to Celebrate Families
Education’s lessons learned from a year at home It’s hard to believe that a year ago this week, my husband and I returned from a trip to visit my family and went into lockdown for the first time. At that time, the thought of staying at home for even two weeks straight sent my anxious… Continue reading Education’s lessons learned from a year at home
Start the School Year By Hearing from Stakeholders Growing up in New Jersey, the day after Labor Day always marked the start of a new school year … and the day I finally got to wear the new outfit I had carefully planned and crack open my new, pristine notebooks. If you couldn’t tell, I… Continue reading Start the School Year By Hearing from Stakeholders
Don’t Be Like Myers-Briggs: Measure Your Impact When I started my doctoral program at Vanderbilt, I certainly didn’t expect to get into a … heated discussion, shall we say? … with the professor of my first course. We were discussing characteristics of effective leaders, and our professor mentioned that the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, one of… Continue reading Don’t Be Like Myers-Briggs: Measure Your Impact
Now is the time. Fear. Uncertainty. Frustration. Isolation. In recent conversations with districts across the country and in analyses of surveys for clients, these words have come up a lot. Families, educators, and community members are feeling a whole lot of unpleasant things as we grapple with how – or if – we can simultaneously… Continue reading Now is the time.
Lifting Up All Families’ Voices Around School Reopening It’s easy to feel discouraged and upset when you turn on the news these days. So much is happening to progress the fight for racial equity and justice in this country that even a global pandemic seems to have taken the backseat. The truth is that without… Continue reading Lifting Up All Families’ Voices Around School Reopening
What will be your story? It’s not always easy to measure the impact of family and community engagement efforts. Some aspects of education — like test scores or report card grades — (notwithstanding the wide variety of controversies around their use) are pretty straightforward to measure. They’re already quantified. They’re known entities. We can tell… Continue reading What will be your story?
Adapting for Improvement in Light of COVID-19 I naively said to my family a few weeks ago that I was lucky that my business wouldn’t be affected in the way that so many restaurants and other small businesses are by the pandemic. I couldn’t see then, but it has become incredibly clear since that every… Continue reading Adapting for Improvement in Light of COVID-19
Telling Community Stories to Affect Change It’s funny where the most interesting and engaging conversations can happen. At the gym last week, I had a few random, but passionate conversations with other members of the educational (and martial arts!) community about youth experiencing trauma and how it impacts their ability to participate in school, learn… Continue reading Telling Community Stories to Affect Change