The solution is one step away from the problem in the right direction.

Your content plus one phrase. What would it be?

Sometimes we need a reminder of all that we know. This list is a great prompt for teams to dwell in the details and make things happen for freshman.

If there’s a secret sauce in education, it’s trust amongst adults. . . But don’t tell anyone. Here’s my definition.

For 11 years I have ask a Question of the Week at our weekly team meetings. If you do this, freshmen grades go up. I know that sounds crazy, but I believe it enough to set aside 10 minutes of our team time very week and our freshmen do great work. Don’t miss this!

In 2019, I summarized the work of The Freshman Academy in a Tedx talk. This provides a good overview of how the adults approach our work with freshmen.

This is a good summary of my work at Washington High School from my principal’s perspective. This is a regular video series created to recognize the work of District staff.

You don’t need to read this. Here is my crash and burn recovery effort after a rough 1st semester.

Parents matter!

Parents appreciate timely contact.

Parents are almost always open to ideas to help their kids.

Here are four things to accomplish during a parent contact that cut through teacher fear and parent disappointment and get things done.

In two weeks 450 freshmen will enter our building for a District mandated visit. If it were a holiday, it would be New Freshman Day. The visit is only 90 minutes long and we already have 2000 people in the building. Space is limited. So what’s the goal?

It’s spring. I read the paper this morning for the first time on my 3-season porch. Which means I’m thinking about fall. Which means I’m thinking about the class of 2021. Which means I need to ramp up . . . again.

Here are the facts. They are obvious facts as most could guess these realities without the data, but I have the data. It is also interesting that I have never seen these school realities in black and white. Maybe educators have thought they were so obvious that no one needed to go through the effort.

We have 35+ adults that come to our building each week to mentor students. We partner with Lutheran Social Services in recruiting, training, and managing the paperwork of this process.

These adults are fantastic. They are low maintenance and generous.

We do two specific things to honor their time.

There is one book that I keep going back to when working with teams. It keeps me grounded and focused.  It’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.

The student is called to our conference room. He enters the room and there is a slight hesitation as he sees four teachers and myself sitting at a conference table with an empty chair at one end ready to receive him.