The Modern Principal Podcast

When the Boss Goes the Wrong Way

We've all been there - your boss makes a decision you disagree with. Or maybe you're the boss heading in the wrong direction. This week on the pod, Karen and Christy dive into how to disagree with your boss respectfully and make the change you think needs to happen! 

Mistakes, Missteps, and Moving On!

Are all failures and mistakes created equally? This week on the Modern Principal Podcast, Christy & Karen discuss some important life lessons we've learned in leadership and how those have guided the leaders we are still working to become today. Learn from our missteps in this episode and discover how you can move forward even after a failure!

Welcome, 2022...Mixed Reviews So Far

In this recap episode, Karen & Christy reflect on 2021 and all the grand plans we laid out that may or may not have come to fruition. We discuss the crisis in education now with the stress facing our educators and the toll it is taking on people's mental and physical health. We hope you'll join us for this episode and this year as we drop more pods to guide you on your leadership journey!

The Inevitable Out-of-Balance Reading Implementation Missteps

This week we continue our focus on leading reading in your school, chatting through the common missteps Karen and Christy have both taken while focusing on implementing a reading initiative. Ever so often, our goal to strengthen one of the five pillars of reading and writing instruction causes the pendulum to swing and weakens another area. Covered in this pod is how to make sure balanced literacy stays balanced, guiding teachers on implementing reading strategies and reading standards and even the best ways to guide your teams through drafting a balanced assessment calendar. Listen in! Be sure to check out Just Right Reader for all your decodable text needs, too!

Just Right Reader Mini Pod

In this mini-pod, Karen and Christy walk you through the benefits of Just Right Reader! Check them out for all of your decodeable text, phonics continuum, and building-and-district-level needs! www.justrightreader.com - Tell them The Modern Principal sent you! 

Reading Series 1 of 4: Research vs. Resources

In this four-part series, Karen and Christy will walk you through our instructional leadership mistakes in reading! This episode begins with a story of a classic mistake of putting the resource before the research which causes a disconnect between leaders, staff, and, ultimately, students. Listen in! 

Did you see that Facebook Post?!

What do you do when someone screenshots and sends you a post on social media that is complaining about your school or staff? What do you do when it feels so personal? This week, on the podcast, we discuss this very scenario. Step one is to be proactive with your social media post. If you aren't telling the story of your school, someone else will! We discuss various systems to help with that, as well as, how to be strategic with the content. We also discuss how to react when a post has made false claims about your school or staff. You'll have to tune in to hear about that and the tips we have to not take it personally.

Time is Ticking

As a building leader, we often think we need to prioritize our instructional leadership roles above all else. But without a strong organizational systems in place for your school, time will slowly get away from you and you may feel like you are doing nothing right! This week on the pod, Christy and Karen talk through the various ways they manage the day-to-day, more like week-to-week, tasks so that the priorities of the school can be balanced. We talk through calendar tools, structuring the day, and even ways to get paperwork done at school! Hope you'll listen in!

Not My Circus...Yet!

In this episode, Christy & Karen take on a scenario from a building title reading/instructional coach who is assigned a new-to-her building and finding she is putting out fires and subbing in classrooms instead of the job she felt she was hired to do. We work through how to create connectedness to a new team and a new role--even when the work you find yourself doing isn't what you signed up to do! We also talk through how to build systems in order to preserve some of the priority tasks you need to accomplish even if the 'grenades' get thrown to you mid-day! Join us as we dive into this topic and look through the lens of scholar, systems and soul!

Our School Culture is Strong Except For...

You work hard as the administrator and building leader to set the tone for a positive and supportive staff culture. But what about when one or two teachers consistently don't buy in and push back against the work of your team? Join Christy and Karen this week as we tackle two separate topics in this giant topic--first we briefly chat through bringing change to a culture and what it means to set the tone. Then we jump in and provide strategies and supports on how to examine a teacher who isn't buying in, the motivations behind their actions, as well as, how to have the critical conversations to move the building and your teachers forward. Join us!