In This Issue:

  1. Do’s and don’ts for superintendents working with school boards

  2. Pointers on managing difficult conversations

  3. Jennifer Gonzalez on cooling down classrooms with neutral language

  4. Using ChatGPT to design a high-school science curriculum unit

  5. Douglas Reeves on working with and around new AI tools

  6. When and how to teach print awareness

  7. Three models of instructional leadership

  8. Why the rise in suicidality among teenage girls?

  9. The impact of student absenteeism on teachers’ job satisfaction

10. Black history in living color, all year long

11. Children’s books on climate change

 

Quotes of the Week

“Just because you taught it doesn’t mean they learned it, and just because they learned it doesn’t mean they learned it from you.”

            Stuart Goldberg’s variation of a wise saying

 

“The characteristics of effective practice are feedback, response to feedback, and the immediate application of that feedback.”

            Douglas Reeves (see item #5)

 

“Schools exist for the purpose of cultural transmission. They signal to children which books are worth reading, ideas worth embracing, who are history’s heroes and villains and, through hundreds of daily interactions with adults, the values, beliefs, and behaviors we praise or condemn. Education is not now and can never be values-neutral. Whether intentionally or by neglect, schools and the adults who staff and run them cannot help but shape the moral and intellectual lives of children.” 

            Robert Pondiscio in “Culture War vs. Competence” in Education Gadfly, Feb. 6, 2025

 

“We multiply stress by putting things off… The best answer to anxiety is taking the next best step.”

            Dan Rockwell in “How to Lower Stress Quickly” in Leadership Freak, Feb. 6, 2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Do’s and Don’ts for Superintendents Working with School Boards

            In this article in School Administrator, Nicholas Caruso Jr. (Connecticut Association of Boards of Education) describes mistakes he’s seen superintendents make with their school boards and suggests better approaches:

            • A unanimous board hiring vote is best. Don’t assume you can win over no votes, says Caruso, and be especially ready to turn down a job offer if the board chair votes against you. Ideally the hiring process is where a candidate wins over the board and clarifies expectations going forward.

            • Respect each board member. Caruso was a plumbing and heating contractor when he served on his local school board and often felt looked down on as the “blue collar” rep – including by a superintendent. “Treat each one of your board members professionally and with respect,” he advises, “whether they reciprocate or not.” 

            • Be even-handed with board members. When responding to one member, share the substance with others, says Caruso, and reach out to the board chair if there are issues with a member.

            • Remain apolitical.  It’s never a good idea to take sides on political factions, says Caruso, either within the board or in the community. Stick to the knitting. 

            • Be honest. Board members can lose trust in a superintendent who doesn’t tell the truth, even on small things. They need to hear all the pros and cons to have faith in a leader and make good decisions. 

            • Delegate. There are some things that only the superintendent should handle, says Caruso, but others need to be delegated to competent colleagues so the superintendent’s time isn’t constantly being commandeered. 

            • Make the main thing the main thing. The superintendent’s job “is to provide a quality curriculum delivered by quality instruction to each child,” says Caruso. “Keeping the board focused on that is critical” – through a clear vision statement and strategic plan, high expectations, and regular agenda items and reports to keep the focus on teaching and learning. 

• Help the board do its job: macromanagement. Boards getting too involved in details is the most common complaint Caruso hears from superintendents, but sometimes they encourage it by providing minutia about day-to-day operations. Policy is board’s role.

            • Get consensus on the problem before debating solutions. “If people don’t agree on the problem at hand,” says Caruso, “they certainly won’t agree on the solution” – and will waste valuable time. 

            • Orchestrate smooth public meetings. The board chair is responsible for the flow of board meetings, but the superintendent’s agenda and presentations play a key role in keeping them civil and well-organized. A good working relationship between the superintendent and board chair is vital. Sometimes bringing in a consultant can help.

            • Use the threat to quit strategically. Putting your job on the line for a matter of conscience is sometimes the right thing to do, says Caruso, and usually that’s a move that can be made only once. It’s never good to threaten to quit over a matter of pride. 

            • Know when it’s time to leave.  “Keep your finger on the pulse of your community and board,” he says. Gauge when it’s time for a heart-to-heart conversation with the board chair. It’s great to leave on a high note.

 

“Boardroom Mistakes Superintendents Make” by Nicholas Caruso Jr. in School Administrator, February 2025 (Vol. 82, #2, pp. 23-25); Caruso can be reached at [email protected]. 

 

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2. Pointers on Managing Difficult Conversations

            “We humans have an innate desire to be liked and to belong,” says former tech CEO Steve Vamos in this Harvard Business Review article. “Unfortunately, being a great people manager is not about being a friend or being liked by everyone all the time. People want a boss who cares about them and helps them get their job done.” He lists five mistakes he’s seen rookie leaders make when sharing critical feedback with a subordinate:

            • Waiting too long to have the conversation – “Performance problems typically don’t get better with time,” says Vamos. The best approach is to give critical feedback soon after the issue comes up, scheduling a meeting and giving a heads-up on the subject so both of you can prepare beforehand. 

            • Being unprepared – Thinking through the meeting is vital, says Vamos, including the person’s responsibilities, goals, strengths and weaknesses, your expectations, the specific area of concern, and what has to happen to get back on track. “Focusing your explanation on the work – and not the individual traits of the person – is likely to get you a respectful (as opposed to a defensive) response,” says Vamos. 

            • Failing to probe for underlying issues – For the conversation to be productive, it needs to be a two-way street, and a well-framed question up front improves the odds of that occurring – for example, “Can you tell me what’s been going on from your perspective?” An open-ended query can build trust and reveal possible reasons for disappointing performance, including health and family problems, a lack of skills or experience in certain areas, unclear direction from you, or problems with morale and motivation.

            • Making the issue personal – Focus on the work, not the person, says Vamos. Position yourself as a facilitator between the organization’s needs and the employee’s capability and performance. “Taking on the role of facilitator significantly reduces the emotional pressure you may feel during difficult conversations,” he says. “If you show genuine care in the other person’s development, they will usually sense it and understand you’re trying to help them improve.” 

            • Not giving a roadmap for improvement – An essential wrap-up to a difficult conversation is a plan to address the issue going forward, including milestones and check-in dates to give feedback on progress. “Remember that how you say something and the words you use to express your feedback and intentions make all the difference,” says Vamos. “You can provide the most difficult or harsh feedback in a humane and caring way if you think of it as helping develop your employee.”

 

“5 Mistakes Managers Make When Giving Negative Feedback” by Steve Vamos in Harvard Business Review, January 7, 2025

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3. Jennifer Gonzalez on Cooling Down Classrooms with Neutral Language

            In this Cult of Pedagogy EduTip, Jennifer Gonzalez gives examples of how judgy, annoyed teacher language can unnecessarily raise the temperature in a classroom. She gives some examples of ways to create a calm and productive climate – “or at least avoid making it hotter and more intense.” 

Students hand in papers and two of them have no names on them. Instead of saying:

“OK, which of you geniuses forgot to put your names on your papers?” which will get a laugh but might, says Gonzalez, “be just one small turn in a sequence of events that eventually leads to a bigger behavior incident later on,” just say, “I have two papers without names.” 

            Instead of saying, “Apparently, no one wants to listen today,” describe the problem and prompt a solution: “I’m noticing a lot of side conversations. Let’s refocus.” 

            Instead of saying, “You’re making a huge mess,” say, “There are paper cuttings on the floor. Can you please throw them away.”

            Instead of saying, “This next unit is going to be really difficult,” say, “This next unit covers some advanced concepts, so we’re going to need to focus.” 

 

“Use Neutral Language to Keep Things Cool” by Jennifer Gonzalez in Cult of Pedagogy, February 9, 2025; Gonzalez can be reached at [email protected]. 

 

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4. Using ChatGPT to Design a High-School Science Curriculum Unit

(Originally titled “How to Unpack a Learning Standard Using ChatGPT”)

            In this Educational Leadership article, Canadian administrator/consultant Myron Dueck 

suggests an eight-step process for using a generative AI chatbot to save time unpacking a 

learning standard and boost the quality of a curriculum unit.

            • Choose a learning standard. For example, a high-school science team was getting ready to teach a standard on the characteristic properties of metals, non-metals, and metalloids, including their conductivity of heat and electricity. 

            • Confirm accuracy and credibility. The teachers entered a prompt in ChatGPT asking for the characteristic properties of metals, nonmetals, and metalloids for ninth graders. They got a detailed response showing a good grasp of the basics, and the teachers gave a thumbs-up. “This is just one of several steps in the sequence,” says Dueck, “where teachers’ knowledge and subject-matter expertise are crucial.” 

            • Develop an introductory activity, lab, or quest. The teachers then asked ChatGPT: Let’s start with a demonstration. Can you suggest three interesting activities that will hook my students? The bot produced three activities with explanations and discussion prompts, including a Copper vs. Aluminum Wire Conduction Race. The teachers were critical of one and asked ChatGPT for a revision, which it promptly produced.

            • Develop specific success criteria. Teachers asked for three follow-up questions for the unit and got these:

-   What factors contribute to the conductivity of a material?

-   How do the conductivity results align with the hypothesis?

-   Why are certain materials, such as metals, better conductors than other materials?

The teachers then asked for assessment criteria for student responses and were impressed with the detailed four-level grading criteria. This capability, says Dueck, “has the potential to catapult teacher competence in not only unpacking a learning standard, but also assessing student understanding of that standard.” 

            • Develop an assessment tool. Prompted to turn the success criteria into a rubric, ChatGPT produced lists in three key areas:

-   Scientific Understanding

-   Data Analysis and Interpretation

-   Critical Thinking and Application

and then responded to another prompt to change the proficiency headings to Extending, Proficient, Developing, and Emerging. 

            • Apply understanding to real-world problems. The chatbot responded to a request for a number of applications, allowing teachers to differentiate and reduce the chance of students using AI to plagiarize. 

            • Generate individual student inquiries. The team then asked ChatGPT to produce 28 different conductivity activities with real-world applications and it did, including suggestions on electric cars, wearable technology, sports equipment, and prosthetic limbs. 

            • Generate instructional activities that encourage human interaction. Concerned about students spending too much time on screens, Dueck and the teachers elicited suggestions on small-group activities, interacting with community members, and field trips.

            “Like many educators I’ve worked with,” he concludes, “these science teachers appreciated having a clear, scaffolded pathway for using GenAI – a way to harness this 

powerful tool’s potential while maintaining the teacher’s essential role in student learning.” 

In a sidebar in the article, Dueck includes a number of prompts for curriculum planning. A selection:

-   I’m teaching the following learning standard: ----. Could you please explain what it means and break down its key components?

-   Can you provide a student example of a paragraph/equation/solution that would be considered “basic” for the following skill? ----

-   Why is this an example of “basic”? How might I explain this to my students?

-   We are about to tackle ----. How might I explain this to my students?

-   What are a few ways I could teach the concept of ----?

-   What are three creative and interesting ways I could kick off my unit on ----?

-   What are 10 hands-on, face-to-face interaction strategies for my unit on ----?

-   How can I incorporate our community’s economy [farming, fishing, mining, tourism] to teach ----?

-   What are three completely different ways of describing ----?

 

“How to Unpack a Learning Standard Using ChatGPT” by Myron Dueck in Educational Leadership, February 2025 (Vol. 82, #2, pp. 42-48)

 

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5. Douglas Reeves on Working With and Around New AI Tools

(Originally titled “Ensuring Authentic Student Work in the Age of AI”)

            “AI has left Pandora’s box,” says author/consultant Douglas Reeves in this Educational Leadership article. He suggests three ways to exploit the potential of ChatGPT and other chatbots and minimize the downsides:

            • Have students practice in class. “The characteristics of effective practice are feedback, response to feedback, and the immediate application of that feedback,” says Reeves. Homework rarely meets these criteria, with students copying from friends or getting “help” from family members. That’s why it’s possible for students to always turn in homework and fail classroom tests – and ace tests without doing homework. “The verdict is clear,” says Reeves: “homework is unrelated to real performance, and in the age of AI this incongruity will only get worse.”

The solution: have students practice in class, get feedback from the teacher or classmates, and immediately put the feedback to work. If students use AI in class, teachers can monitor how it’s being used, teach the best uses (for example, comparing responses on the same prompt from ChatGPT and Claude), and have students debate alternative interpretations of historical events and science experiments. 

• Have students stand and deliver. Reeves suggests requiring students to defend their reasoning in oral presentations – for example, being asked to explain where the Pythagorean theorem might not be true (on Mars? on a curved surface?). Over the course of a marking period, the teacher might randomly select a few students each week to engage in an oral defense, giving them the option to “phone a friend” or answer a question with a question to make discussions more interesting and less intimidating. 

• Use AI for a first draft. Rather than striving to catch students cheating online, Reeves suggests having students use AI to generate a first draft of an essay, then students revise it and submit both versions. This tells students that improving the work of bots is an important contemporary skill and gives them practice at revision and critical thinking.

 

“Ensuring Authentic Student Work in the Age of AI” by Douglas Reeves in Educational Leadership, February 2025 (Vol. 82, #2, online only); Reeves can be reached at [email protected].

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6. When and How to Teach Print Awareness

            In this online article, Timothy Shanahan (University of Illinois/Chicago) responds to a teacher’s question on how much attention should be paid to print awareness (a.k.a. concepts about print), including a child’s recognition that:

-   Print, not pictures, tells the story;

-   Print represents words;

-   Words are made up of letters;

-   Words are separated by blank spaces;

-   Print has an orientation and directionality;

-   At the end of a line, you go to the beginning of the next line;

-   Words don’t include numbers;

-   The front and back covers of a book have different purposes. 

Some of these are essential to the mechanics of reading, says Shanahan – directionality and what to do at the end of a line. Others are conceptual – that print tells the story, not pictures. And others get picked up as children learn to read – the front and back covers of a book. 

            Shanahan got a vivid demonstration of conceptual print awareness reading to his 3-year-old daughter. When she covered a word with her hand, Shanahan stopped reading and she said, “Why did you stop? What’s the matter, Daddy?” He explained that he was reading the words and couldn’t see the one she was covering. She asked in a puzzled voice, “You read this?” He said, “Yes, those are the words that I read.” During their next few reading sessions, his daughter tried covering words to see which ones he was reading, laughing gleefully when she got it right and he stopped.

            “To tell the truth,” says Shanahan, “I was as surprised as she was. She was astonished that those black squiggles were what was read, and I was flabbergasted that this brilliant product of my genes, who I’d read to hundreds of times, had no idea that print told the story.” Children develop all kinds of theories about what the squiggles mean, including that each letter stands for a word or syllable. “The idea that multiple letters are needed to represent most words is not immediately obvious,” says Shanahan. “The purpose of blank spaces isn’t immediately apparent either.” 

            Once children have a “concept of word,” that expedites their phonemic awareness, and knowing consonant sounds facilitates the development of the concept. These realizations don’t proceed in a neat, orderly sequence, says Shanahan. Phonemic awareness and phonics are intertwined, each contributing to the other, and novice readers need both, perhaps in different sequences, as they read along with decodable texts and are exposed to lots of texts with word repetition. 

Parents and teachers pointing to words as they’re read is very helpful for developing print awareness, as is talking about text the way Shanahan did with his daughter. Language experience is also powerful – children dictating an idea, the teacher or parent transcribing, and then reading it back multiple times, with children reading along, pointing to the words. 

 

“Is Print Awareness Part of the Science of Reading?” by Timothy Shanahan in Shanahan on Literacy, February 8, 2025; Shanahan can be reached at [email protected]. 

 

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7. Three Models of Instructional Leadership

            The authors of this paper from Instructional Partners found that all principals see themselves as instructional leaders, focused on the critically important work of improving teaching and learning, “but no one defined what that means in the same way.” School leaders described their role in observing teachers, giving feedback, collaborative planning, data analysis, and other instructional leadership activities in quite different ways. 

“These findings,” concludes the study, “signal a significant leadership role clarity problem in the education sector, particularly when it comes to principals’ role in supporting teachers and students. We found little alignment about both the core activities (i.e., what leaders should do) and how to distribute responsibilities (i.e., who does what).”

The authors reviewed the research on instructional leadership but found it unhelpful. In interviews with a sampling of Tennessee K-8 principals and their supervisors in public schools and charter management organizations, they identified what they believe are three promising models of instructional leadership:

            • Deliver – The principal personally sets the vision for the instructional support teachers receive, ensures that logistical requirements (including the schedule) are in place, and facilitates the delivery of that support, delegating most non-instructional duties to others. 

            • Coach – The principal sets the vision for instructional support and then selects, coaches, evaluates, and holds others accountable for the delivery of those activities.

            • Designate – The principal deals with non-instructional duties and designates others (e.g., an assistant principal or a dean of instruction) to be fully empowered as instructional leader. The principal backs the designee’s decisions and puts the logistical pieces in place. 

 

“Principal Role Clarity” by Instructional Partners, November 2024

 

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8. Why the Rise in Suicidality Among High-School Girls?

            In this Educational Researcher article, Joseph Cimpian (New York University) and Mollie McQuillan (University of Wisconsin/Madison) note the recent “soaring” rate of suicidal ideation, planning, and attempts among teen girls in the U.S. – much higher than for teen boys – and suggest a possible explanation: the percent of high-school girls identifying as LGBQ rose sharply from 2015 to 2021 – from 15 to 34 percent – whereas the percent of high-school boys identifying as LGBQ increased only slightly – from 6 to 9 percent. Girls identifying as non-heterosexual “face the well-established structural and social pressures LGBQ youth have long experienced,” say Cimpian and McQuillan.

            “Based on our results,” they say, “LGBQ females across all racial and ethnic groups need educational supports to offset the risk of suicidality… Policymakers and practitioners interested in decreasing the high rate of suicidality among females should target additional educational and mental health resources to support LGBQ females.” 

 

“An Overlooked Explanation for Increasing Suicidality: LGBQ Stressors Felt by More Students” by Joseph Cimpian and Mollie McQuillan in Educational Researcher, January/February 2025 (Vol. 5, #1, pp. 56-60); the authors can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected]. 

 

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9. The Impact of Student Absenteeism on Teachers’ Job Satisfaction

            In this article in Educational Researcher, Michael Gottfried and Colby Woods (University of Pennsylvania) and Arya Ansari (Ohio State University) report on their study (conducted before the Covid-19 pandemic) of the link between U.S. kindergarten teachers’ job satisfaction and their students’ attendance. The researchers found that higher rates of student absenteeism were strongly correlated with both novice and experienced teachers’ job satisfaction, potentially contributing to the growing problem of teacher shortages.

            Other studies have documented the negative impact of kindergarten absenteeism on students’ achievement and their future trajectories, say Gottfried, Woods, and Ansari, so their findings add to the urgency of improving student attendance in the early grades. The researchers mention some possible steps:

-   Professional development on strengthening relationships with students and families;

-   Implementing trauma-informed teaching practices;

-   Zeroing in on the needs of students at risk of absenteeism;

-   Improving teachers’ professional working conditions, reducing administrative burdens;

-   Increasing staffing to address the root causes of absenteeism;

-   Strengthening connections between schools, families, and community organizations.

 

“Do Teachers with Absent Students Feel Less Job Satisfaction?” by Michael Gottfried, Arya Ansari, and Colby Woods in Educational Researcher, January/February 2025 (Vol. 5, #1, pp. 34-45); Gottfried can be reached at [email protected]. 

 

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10. Black History in Living Color, All Year Long

            In this Mind/Shift article, Nimah Gobir describes a teacher’s aha moment when a student looking at black-and-white photos of heroic figures in the civil rights era asked, “Did people see in black and white a long time ago?” This made the teacher, Dawnavyn James, realize that many of her students saw historical figures of that era as distant and unrelatable rather than flesh-and-blood people. 

            James, author of Beyond February: Teaching Black History Any Day, Every Day, and All Year Long (Routledge, 2023), makes a point of finding color photos of key figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks and using three strategies in her classroom:

            • Teaching about whole people – For example, with Rosa Parks, telling about her childhood, including a photo of her wearing a pink dress at her birthday party, and connecting her to other key figures of the era, including Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till. 

            • Going beyond the standard curriculum – Too often, Black History Month covers the same narrow group of historical figures. James advocates for creating “powerful people sets,” with groups of three or more figures who share a common theme – for example, George Washington Carver, NASA astronaut Mae Jemison, and zoologist Charles Henry Turner. James’s favorite source is ABCs of Black History by Rio Cortez (Workman Kids, 2020). 

            • Teaching the truth – For example, one in four cowboys in the American West were African-American. James makes a point of including a diverse set of cowboys, as well as Mary Fields (Stagecoach Mary), the first black woman to be a star route postwoman.

 

“Three Tools to Help Teach About Black Historical Figures in a Modern Light” by Nimah Gobir in Mind/Shift, February 4, 2025

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11. Children’s Books on Climate Change

            In this School Library Journal feature, Tennessee school librarian Suzanne Costner recommends books on climate change and environmental activism:

-   Cactus Queen: Minerva Hoyt Establishes Joshua Tree National Park by Lori Alexander, illustrated by Jenn Ely, grade 1-3

-   The Ocean Gardener by Clara Anganuzzi, kindergarten-grade 3

-   Loop de Loop: Circular Solutions for a Waste-Free World by Andrea Curtis, illustrated by Roozeboos, preschool-grade 3

-   Marjory’s River of Grass: Marjory Stoneman Douglass, Fierce Protector of the Everglades by Josie James, grade 1-4

-   My First Earth Day by Karen Katz, preschool-grade 2

-   We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom, illustrated by Michaela Goade, kindergarten-grade 3

-   Our Planet! There’s No Place Like Earth by Stacy McAnulty, illustrated by David Litchfield, preschool-grade 1

-   Angela’s Glacier by Jordan Scott, illustrated by Diana Sudyka, preschool-grade 2

-   To Change a Planet by Christina Soontornvat, illustrated by Rahele Jomepour Bell, preschool-grade 2

-   Love, the Earth by Frances Stickley, illustrated by Tim Hopgood, preschool-grade 2

-   Global: One Fragile World. An Epic Fight for Survival by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, illustrated by Giovanni Rigano, grade 3-8

-   Ducks Overboard! A True Story of Plastic in Our Oceans by Markus Motum, grade 3-5

-   Climate Action: What Happened and What We Can Do by Seymour Simon, grade 2-6

-   The Global Ocean by Rochelle Strauss, illustrated by Natasha Donovan, grade 3-7

-   Team Trash: A Time Traveler’s Guide to Sustainability by Kate Wheeler, illustrated by Trent Huntington, grade 3-6

 

 “Great Books: No Planet B” by Suzanne Costner in School Library Journal, February 2025 (Vol. 71, #2, pp. 41-43)

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