Back in December, I experienced one of the most struggling and discouraging moments in my educational career. It wasn’t one particular thing that happened that caused this moment. It was a million little things that led to a feeling of discouragement and a moment where I truly questioned whether or not I was in the right profession.

As we began the transition back from distance learning, I had this false hope that everyone would be so happy and grateful to be back on campus that student behaviors would be minimal and our greatest area of concern would be the loss of learning from the 18 months of quarantine. I was so wrong. Yes, the loss of learning was (and is still) a huge concern for anyone in education. However, I did not anticipate the amount of social, emotional, behavioral, and mental concerns our students had and would continue to experience due to the pandemic.

In my role as Vice Principal of discipline, my area of focus is on student behavior. Yes, that often means progressive discipline in the form of detentions, suspensions, et cetera. However, I also spend a lot of time trying to help students understand what they did and how to make better choices in the future. To help with this, our site has implemented a variety of strategies, such as suspension alternative programs, SEL classes and programs, behavior intervention plans, lunchtime support programs, counseling, and so much more. Despite this, I found myself feeling like all these programs and strategies were not enough. Our students were still struggling. I felt discouraged. I truly felt like nothing we did mattered because we were already doing everything we could. As a site, we had a very structured, specific, targeted, and tiered support system for students when they got in trouble. What else could we do, right?

The feeling of discouragement lasted for nearly a month. Then, one night, as I was getting ready for bed, I spent some time asking myself…Well, what haven’t we done? If I slow down and stop thinking about what we have done and started asking what we haven’t done…would there be something there for us to explore?

It was in this moment of reflection that I realized exactly what we weren’t doing. Everything that we were doing was reactive. We were responding to the behaviors after they occurred. While we had all these great programs to respond to behavior concerns, we were doing very little to prevent behavior concerns, especially on a sitewide level.

So, I started researching proactive approaches to behavioral intervention for students and the #1 word that kept popping up in my search was…PBIS. To be honest, I felt completely uninterested in this idea. In secondary education, I feel that there is a negative connotation associated with PBIS. Personally, I felt like PBIS was a thing that schools do to bribe kids to behave better. I felt it was grounded in nothing of substance – just simple bribery. However, I challenged myself to explore the idea since it seemed to be the most common system I continued to run across in my research.

During this research, I came across a book by Jessica Hannigan and Linda Hauser called, The PBIS Tier One Handbook (Amazon). I have no idea why this book grabbed my interest. I am sure it was partially due to the nearly 5-star ratings that it had on Amazon. I think the word “handbook” grabbed my interest because it sounded like it could have a practical implementation plan. Anyways, I immediately bought the book and began reading it that night.

And guess what? I was absolutely hooked. I read 25% of the book that night. Granted – there are a lot of pictures and graphs in this book…but it was so good! Many times, educational books are grounded in theory and not practical applications. That’s all well and good until the rubber meets the road and you quickly realize that the author clearly has no idea how schools actually operate. This is not how I felt with the PBIS Handbook. I felt like it was grounded in real-life applications that modeled effective leadership for a successful implementation of a school-wide PBIS program. In addition to this, it contained a Benchmark of Quality (BOQ) that allowed PBIS teams to evaluate where their site currently is, where they need to go, and numerous ideas and strategies to help thjem team get there. More importantly, it was not a system simply about “bribing” students as I incorrectly assumed. Instead, it was a systematic approach to implementing schoolwide structures (ex: clear discipline procedures, positive behavior reward system, schoolwide behavior expectations, etc.) that would have an impact on all students and staff.

Friends – there are so many more positive things that I could say about this book but…that is a story for many future posts. Today, I really wanted to give you the “why” behind the start of this journey, plus a little taste of how we got started. I am so excited for our students, teachers, and staff as we begin this journey. I have an amazing team of educators that are helping us to develop our PBIS program because there is no way that these systems can effectively be implemented on the shoulder’s of one person. I am so excited (but a little nervous) and hope that PBIS will be effective and make a positive change for our students. After all, there is only so much academic progress we can make if we do not first attend to the social and emotional needs of our students.

Over the next few months, I will have several blog posts focusing on the implementation of our Tier 1 PBIS program and I hope you choose to follow (and join) us on this journey!

To explore all of the books in the PBIS Handbook series, here are the links to their pages on Amazon: Tier 1 Handbook, Tier 2 Handbook, and Tier 3 Handbook.

Hello Friends!

Yep – I am still here. I know, it has been a while. In fact, my last post was nearly 5 months ago which is the longest I have gone without writing a post since I started this blog back in 2016. For several years, I wrote a post every single week but over the last year or two, my posts have certainly dwindled down to a couple of times a month, to once a month, and then the long hiatus that I previously mentioned.

I love this blog. Not writing on this blog for five months disappoints me. I feel disappointed in myself. Yet, the last couple of years has been…well, a lot. I have found myself in the worst state of writer’s block that I have ever had in my life. I am hoping that I can overcome this writer’s block and that I can commit two a couple of posts a month again.

In the meantime, I wanted to share a bit about the last couple of years and why this writer’s block has found its way into my life. If you have followed my blog for a while, you know that I am transparent to a fault. Why? Because I think that it is helpful to hear other’s struggles in education and, well, in life in general.

Writer’s Block Cause #1: My Personal Life

Before I dive too deep into this one, I am hesitant to even share my trivial struggles. There are people that have been through SO much more than I have in the last couple of years. Regardless, it is still my story and it had a huge effect on me. So, I feel it is worth sharing.

Our family has been through a lot of changes in the last couple of years. I was pregnant during the pandemic and had our son last summer. My pregnancies have always been difficult (ex: hyperemesis gravidarum) and adding a pandemic into it caused more worry than I realized. After our son was born, I had some complications and had to go through surgery. My daughter had a Lupus scare (she’s okay) but we spent months waiting to hear if she had Lupus or if it was an extreme allergy. Thankfully, it was the latter. Our son had surgery last month. Our family has been to the ER 6 times in the last year, urgent care more times than I can count, and countless doctor’s appointments. Crazy thing? All of this was just last year. Go back one more year and I have some stories about throwing out my back, another minor surgery, some possible heart concerns, and a variety of other medical-related issues.

In the end, everything has been fine…but it was a lot. I don’t say this for sympathy – just a life update to explain one part of my writer’s block.

Writer’s Block Cause #2: The Year(s) of COVID

Do I even need to go into this one? Everyone has live this time in different ways. My feelings during this time have been a roller coaster. It was exhausting – both personally and professionally. Personally, I often did not know what the right decisions were for my family, especially during my pregnancy. I wanted to do right by my family but that often had its own set of repercussions and heartbreaks. Some of these stories are too hard to share because they hurt just too much.

Professionally, it was exhausting in an entirely different way. Everything changed constantly in education. The rules, the mandates…it often felt like they changed weekly and we couldn’t keep up. Everyone was upset and it often felt like we couldn’t make anyone happy. Once students returned, it was clear that the struggles had just begun and there were so many ways our students needed support beyond academics, such as socially, emotionally, and mentally.

Trying to find ways to write during so much heartbreak and discouraging times just felt…well, impossible.

Writer’s Block Cause #3: Re-Finding My Passion

Finally, I have spent a lot of time trying to rediscover my passion and what makes me excited about education. As a teacher, my passion was instructional strategies and educational technology. Don’t get me wrong, I am still passionate about those things. However, as an administrator, I am starting to find new passions or, at least, slightly different versions of the passions that I previously had.

For instance, several of my future blog posts will be centering around the development of our PBIS program and trying to create a strong, tier 1 support system for behavior intervention. As a teacher, this would never have been a passion of mine. I did not have many behavior concerns in my classroom. As an administrator during COVID, I have found that this has become a passion of mine because it is a huge area of need. I truly believe that there is only so much movement we can make in education if we cannot make strong, positive strides towards behavior intervention in schools.

While this is only one example, it definitely inspired me to start looking at this blog through a different lens. It also encouraged me to tell myself that it is okay for this blog to take some new directions.

Phew – I feel like I just threw a lot at my readers! Again, I don’t share these stories for sympathy. I don’t share these stories for pity.

I share these stories to help others know that they are not alone.

If you have felt discouraged or heartbroken in the last year – you are not alone.

If you have felt stuck in the last year – you are not alone.

If you have felt exhausted – you are not alone.

We have all had big feelings in the last year…but it’s okay. You are not alone. We are in this together.

Thank you for listening to my story and stay tuned for some new posts in the next month!

Hey Friends! Did summer fly by for any of you? This definitely felt like one of the fastest summers of my life but I can say that I was able to enjoy some much-needed time off. While we didn’t go on any vacations this summer, I definitely had my hands full with Baby #2! Our son, Oliver, was born in June and I have been enjoying maternity leave with my family. I am soaking up the last few weeks of daytime snuggles while I can!

In just a few weeks, I will go back to work and I am SO excited to start a new school year and leave the old one behind. (Although I am going to miss my little ones at home!) Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely LOVE what I do. However, last year was definitely…unique, to say the least.

I certainly do not need to recap the last school year because I am pretty sure that everyone reading this blog has a similar story. It was an exhausting year – mentally and emotionally. It was a difficult year to watch and hear the stories of our struggling students, families, and staff. It was a confusing and frustrating year as federal and state legislation constantly changed. It was an isolating year where we didn’t often get to see family, friends, coworkers, and students. Due to all of this, I am sure summer break was much needed for many educators and I hope you took some time to refresh and rejuvenate for the new year.

As we move into a new school year, I am looking ahead and excited for what is to come. There is going to be a lot of support that our students will need as we come into this school year, whether that is academic, emotional, or social support. It will be challenging for students and teachers to readjust to being on campus. Even though we will have a variety of challenges, adjustments, and struggles as we head into the new year, I believe that we can be successful by keeping this very, simple motto at the forefront of our minds:

Do what’s best for kids.

That’s it. Just keep kids and their best interests at the forefront of your mind. I know, it’s kind of a “duh” motto. However, it can be easy for it to slip our minds from time to time as we get into the daily routine of life. As educators, our focus should be doing right by students and that extends far beyond their academic needs. Quite frankly, we will never be able to successfully educate our students if we do not keep in mind their emotional needs.

Our students have an entire world beyond the four walls of your classroom. As educators, we only see them for a tiny fraction of their day. Don’t forget that. Our world is only their world for a small portion of their day. Try to keep in mind that every student has a story that affects the way they will behave and/or perform in your class. To do right by our students, we must always consider their untold stories – even if we don’t get to know these stories.

Do what’s best for kids this year – and don’t forget to enjoy them, too!

I’ve been a Vice Principal of Distance Learning for nearly as long as I was a Vice Principal of Student Support (Discipline). Technically, my title hasn’t changed but the regular day-to-day duties have certainly adjusted. Nine months ago, my daily activities mainly included working with students to better understand and accept responsibility for their mistakes. Obviously, there was a piece of “discipline” to the job because certain actions could result in certain consequences. Regardless, I still had the opportunity to work with students daily and, hopefully, make a positive impact on their lives. These days, I come to a school where there are no students. Well, I mean there are students but they aren’t here. It’s a (mostly) empty campus except for the adults who choose to come in and work on campus. While I still find myself quite busy, it’s not the same. The best part of the job, which is interacting with students, is nowhere near where it used to be.

However, I keep reminding myself…This too shall pass. It won’t be like this forever.

It’s hard to remember that because I feel a variety of emotions right now. As I write this post, I feel emotionally exhausted by the world around us. You guys know me, I’m nothing but honest and I think it’s important to be honest and transparent during these times. The pandemic is emotionally exhausting. It’s hard to know what is real and true. It’s hard to know when you should appropriately worry. Distance learning is emotionally exhausting. There is a “wear and tear” that exists in distance learning, unlike anything in-person learning has ever had. It’s harder to engage students. It’s harder to get them to show up. It’s more difficult to provide the quality of education that we used to provide.

Yet…this too shall pass. It won’t be like this forever.

As I try to remember this, I begin to feel discouraged. I feel discouraged because things don’t appear to be getting better and, in fact, often appear to be getting worse. Cases continue to rise, which is putting us further into lockdown. The time until we can have kids back on campus feels like it keeps getting further and further away. It’s discouraging because I miss seeing students on campus. I miss seeing their smiles, goofiness, and happiness.

Again…I slow down. Stop. Remind myself…this too shall pass. It won’t be like this forever.

Then the biggest emotion rears its head. I’m heartbroken. I’m heartbroken for our students, families, and teachers. Mental health issues are on a rise. In my role, I have seen it firsthand and it breaks your heart every, single day. Kids are lonely, struggling, and scared. Their families might not know how to support them and, in some cases, they may not even have family that can support them. I’m heartbroken for our teachers. I see their hearts and how hard they are working for their students. They continue to try every day to engage students from a distance. I can see the discouragement in their faces as they share their concerns about not being able to reach all of their students. My heart breaks with them and I wish I could fix it.

Stop. Breathe. Remind yourself…this too shall pass. It won’t be like this forever.

I’m not going to lie. I think it’s going to be hard for a long time to come but it won’t be forever. It can’t. The world can’t handle this forever. Things will get better. I believe that because, well, the alternative is much worse. The alternative is to believe that it won’t get better. If I believe that, I will find myself in an emotionally unstable place where I am not able to best support our students, families, and teachers. So, I believe that it will get better. I believe that one day we will have kids back on campus – even if it is further away than I might have hoped. I believe that we will see their smiling faces. I believe that this will be better.

This too shall pass, friends. Take care of yourself and keep doing amazing things for kids. It won’t be like this forever.

Dear Teachers,

It is an understatement to say that this is one of the most unusual and unexpected times in education. I am going on my 14th year in education and I can truly say I have never seen anything like it. It is a physically, emotionally and mentally exhausting time for everyone going through the pandemic.  Yet, my heart reaches out to you because I know that there is something even more emotional about educating our youth. Our future. There is something even more emotional about being in the trenches every day with students and hoping that you are doing your best by them.

At this time of year, you should feel refreshed from summer break and excited to start the new year. I know you are excited to teach and meet new students. However, I also recognize that there are a variety of emotions out there for each of you. There are some of you that are ready to return to the classroom and it can be frustrating to not be on campus with your students. On the flip side, there are some of you that are torn between the frustration of not being with your students but also feeling like you are not ready to be on campus yet. It’s okay to feel either way. You are entitled to your feelings.

On top of this, I have seen how some of you have struggled with the change of narrative in social media. In the spring, you were regarded as heroes. Parents saw how challenging it can be to be a teacher. News agencies shared the amazing stories of how teachers were reaching out to their students and families. Everyone was grateful for all that you had done to support their students from a distance. Then, the narrative started to slowly change. When summer came, the news on education went silent for a time. It’s not a strange thing that occurred. School was out and there was a lot going on in the world. Yet, when education returned to the forefront of people’s minds, there was a shift from teachers being “heroes” to them “not doing enough”, “failing distance learning”, or only wanting to do “distance learning because they didn’t want to return to school”. Teachers – I beg of you. Hear these comments but don’t let them affect you. These comments come from a place of pain and frustration. You are doing amazing things. Do not let the narrative discourage you.

As we move into a new school year, I know that many of you are starting the year in distance learning. There is a lot of anxiety and uncertainty that comes with it. I know you are worried about reaching all of your students. I know that you are trying to figure out how to reach all of the content standards while still supporting them socially and emotionally. I know that some of you are new to technology and the learning curve can be steep. I know that all of this can be so overwhelming that there are times you feel like, or already have, broken down in tears because…like I said earlier, education is an emotional job. And, while my heart breaks for you during this overwhelming and anxious time, I also see hope for our students in the way that you care about them. I see that the passion that you have for them will carry you through the struggle and, more importantly, it will be a light to those students who are struggling as well.

Teachers, at the end of the day, I hope only one thing for our you and our students during this time:

I simply hope that you do your best to do right by students and then give yourself grace during imperfection.

Distance learning is not going to look perfect. In fact, it’s going to a hot mess sometimes. There will be times where you might feel like you are failing your students…and, I urge you not to feel this way. I urge you to slow down and reflect. Slow down and ask yourself, “Did I do my best to do right by my students?” and then give yourself grace for the moments that are not perfect. Whether you are a veteran teacher or a new teacher, this will be a struggle for everyone. Give yourself grace.

Finally, I urge you to support your fellow teachers. These are the ones in the trenches with you. They are the ones that understand the daily struggle – whether physically, emotionally, or mentally. Collaborate with one another. Share ideas and do not hold them tightly to your chest. Check on one another. Give grace to others. Share the good times and share the struggles. It will keep you sane.

I am not going to lie and say that this year will be easy. It won’t…but you will be okay. You will do amazing things. You will grow personally. You will grow professionally. You will become a stronger person because of it.

Remember, let go of the narrative, do your best by students and support each other.

Meagan

Hello Friends! As some of you may have noticed, I took a much-needed summer hiatus from blogging, Twitter, and, well, education to an extent. I’m always reading and always learning but…I really needed some time off. While some of you may be just beginning your summer break, mine is quickly coming to a close. I head back to work in less than two weeks and I’m really excited about it. I love where I work (both my site and district) and I’m also excited to start bringing new content back to I Heart EDU.

But back to that hiatus…I hope that each of you has taken some time to yourself this summer. For me, I was a bit burnt out for a variety of reasons – both personal and professional.

First of all, I am a full-time working mom and wife. That’s right – I’m both. It drives me crazy sometimes when people say that I’m not a “full-time mom”. It’s not like I take my “mom hat” off when I go to work and put my “work hat” on. I wear both hats every day, all the time. When I’m at work, I think about my daughter and how her day is going. When I’m at home, I think about the things that have to be done the next day at work. It’s a balance but I love it. Both jobs are incredibly demanding and I love each of them. In addition to this, I manage a blog where I have posted 207 posts in less than four years, which is roughly one post a week for those years. I’m active on social media and conversations on education tend to be a natural part of my daily thinking and conversation.

However, these are normal things in my life. They aren’t new. They don’t even really burn me out. To be quite honest, it was social media and the news that I have found to be incredibly overwhelming in the past several months. It’s funny…I actually think I’ll get some judgment on that sentence. Yet, this is how I feel and I believe I have a right to that feeling. I’ve been overwhelmed by the constant amount of information that has come at me and my family over the last four months. So, I needed limits on a couple of these worlds (specifically Twitter and Facebook) to better promote my own mental and emotional health. I hope you have been able to do the same.

Here are a few of the things that I have done this summer to support my “hiatus” and get my mind back in the right place for the upcoming school year:

Social Media Limits

In May, I downloaded the Stay Focused app to my cell phone because I found myself spending too much time on social media and getting very overwhelmed by it. The two platforms that I was experiencing the most stress were Facebook and Twitter. I am a big believer in the idea that people are allowed to have their own opinions – whether I agree with them or not. However, some of the opinions, conversations and news being shared were causing a lot of stress during an already stressful time.

So, I set two limits:

• Twitter: I completely blocked it from my phone for the last 5 weeks.
• Facebook: I limited it to no more than 5 minutes per hour with the app shutting off at 8 PM every night.

Now that I have had a chance to decompress and take a break, I think that I will move Twitter to the same set up as Facebook. I’m ready to start jumping back into conversations and preparing for the upcoming school year.

Also, you may have noticed that I did not include Instagram on this list. Personally, I haven’t found Instagram to be overwhelming or stressful, therefore, I have not set any limits on it.

Personal Blog & Hobby

Alright, I know that this is the strangest one to have on this list considering I took a break from blogging…and then I started a new blog. Trust me, I totally see the irony in this situation. That being said, I created a new blog to do something different – something non-work related. Something that allowed me to be creative and share my hobbies with others.

Enter…Crazy Little Life! My new, personal blog, as well as an Instagram account.

For me, I love blogging. It’s relaxing and it helps me get my thoughts out. I’ve been debating starting a personal blog for over a year and finally felt inspired to do it. Don’t worry – I Heart EDU isn’t going anywhere. I still plan on sharing weekly posts to support educators. However, I hope you will also join me on this non-work related adventure, too.

Reading

This summer, my brain was finally able to slow down and enjoy reading. I’ve read for pleasure, work, and my own spiritual growth. It’s been a relaxing hobby – but also a self-reflective one. Here are a few of the books I’ve read:

• The Origin Series, a sequel to The Lux Series
• Running Scared: Fear, Worry and the God at Rest
• Making Your School Something Special

Traveling

Due to COVID-19, we haven’t traveled as much as we normally do during the summer. However, we did get to take the trailer out a couple of times. We spent a week camping in Vail Lake in Temecula and next week we will be heading to Zion for a week. Camping has always been one of my favorite things to do and it feels great to get out of town and into nature. Given the strange times, it’s also a safe way to continue to social distance while getting away!

I hope that each of you are enjoying your break this summer. I will be somewhat off the grid next wee but stay tuned for more posts this month!

Distance learning has been a challenge for thousands of educators around the country. Not just professionally, but it has been a great challenge personally.

Working from home is not as glamorous or easy as it seems. It can be quite a challenge.

It can be a challenge to balance taking care of your own children and meeting the professional expectations of your career. It can be challenging to know where your personal and professional life begins and end. It can be a challenge to balance it all.

So, I decided to organize a webinar featuring a panel of educators from a variety of personal and professional experiences to share what they do for self-care during distance learning. It’s so important to me that educators hear that they are not alone in this and that it is hard for everyone. I hope you take a bit of time to watch this personal, supportive, and often silly webinar on self-care.

Below, you will find some of the resources that were provided during the presentation:

• Presentation
• YouTube

What are you doing for self-care during distance learning? Share in the comments below!

I’m going to be honest. This post is literally popped into my brain about 5 minutes ago. It wasn’t pre-planned. It wasn’t carefully lined out. It wasn’t something I have been thinking about for weeks.

Instead, this post is completely spontaneous and unfiltered. So, let’s see how this goes.

Times are a little crazy right now. I think we all know this. COVID-19 is ruling our lives and our minds at the moment. It’s the only thing that everyone is talking about. It’s dictating how we think, shop and interact with other humans. It’s making people paranoid and afraid. People are panicked and living in a state of fear. I’m not saying that it isn’t unwarranted, it’s just simply a fact.

And about five minutes ago, I started thinking…The kids are watching us. 

I’m not just talking about my students or my own children, I am talking about all of our students and all of our children. I’m not just talking about myself or other educators, I am talking about all adults. I’m talking about the entire country – the entire world.

All of the kids are watching us right now. They are watching how we react in these times, whether we are calm or panicked. They are watching how we treat each other, whether it is with kindness or selfishness. They are watching how we behavior on social media, whether it is with obsession or reflection.

The kids are watching everything that is happening right now because it is such a monumental moment in history. It’s a situation that most adults have never experienced. Yet, our students, our kids, are experiencing it during a very formative age. This means that the behaviors and attitudes that we model right now can have a lifetime impact on the kids that are around us.

We have to be the examples to them. We have to show them how to be calm in the storm. We have to show them how to treat others with kindness. We have to show them how to carefully reflect and make wise choices. We have to show them that we are all in this together. We have to teach them to be good humans.

I challenge you, as I have challenged myself, to reflect on what our kids are seeing through their eyes as they live through this situation. Because, quite frankly, they are watching everything we do.

Stay safe. Stay healthy. And, please, stay kind to one another.

Years ago, I read a book called How Full Is Your Bucket while I was attending graduate school for my administrative services credential. Although it wasn’t technically an “education” book, it was probably one of my favorite books of my master’s degree program. In this book, the author talked about the “magic ratio” of positive and negative moments that make up a person’s day. Essentially, the ratio is a 5:1 where it takes five positive moments to combat the one negative moment. Five to one…This means that four positive moments are outweighed by one negative moment in the day. It means that only at five positive moments do we break even with the one negative moment.

The magic ratio has been weighing heavily on my heart and mind this week.

I absolutely love my job but, I would be lying if I didn’t say that there were a lot of negative moments in my role as a Vice Principal of discipline. It’s just a simple fact that I don’t always get to see the students at their best moments. Although this is a fact, I have found that I love this role and forming relationships with some of our most struggling students. It’s amazing to see the progress that some of our students are making as we go throughout the year. Yet, it can be easy to fall into the trap of the magic ratio and allowing that 5:1 ratio to dictate the outcome of my day.

I remember thinking this way in the classroom, too. Perhaps it was reviewing the results of an assessment and seeing that 30 of my students performed well, while 5 of my students  struggled. It could have been the times where I reviewed a note from a substitute to find that four class periods were amazing but one class was disrespectful or off-task. The 5:1 ratio still held true in these situations. I couldn’t focus on the positive and all of the amazing things that happened that day. I could only focus on the negatives.

While there is a lot of research to support the idea of the magic ratio for positive and negative emotions, I’ve decided that I want to actively break that ratio into nonexistence. I want to be more mindful of focusing on the positives, rather than negatives – because guess what? There are a lot more positives in the day than negatives and those should carry the most weight.

While I have been thinking about this a lot lately, I was surprised to find that this was apparently on the minds of many people in our district. In fact, our district leadership meeting this week focused on this very idea, specifically on how we can create lasting positive change in our schools and lives. To help us start to develop sustainable and lasting change, our district leadership was taken through a series of videos and activities. These activities were short and simple ways to create more positivity…which has inspired me to create an activity for you to share with your students or staff, too!

Based upon some of my reflections, plus our amazing district leadership meeting, I created a HyperDoc that could be used with either staff or students to inspire positive thinking and change on your campus. Again, I have to reiterate that a majority of these activities were completely stolen from my own district, so major props to them for bringing great PD to us!

(View)(Copy)

(The easiest way to share this with staff for them to create their own link is by sharing the “copy” link above.)

As I move forward, I am hoping to put more of these “five actions” into, well, action in my own life on a daily basis. I do believe that it help defeat the magic ratio and bring more positivity to myself and those around me. There are so many positive things to focus on in our lives and in our careers – we just have to be more mindful about it!

How do you support your staff or students in creating and developing a positive mindset? Share in the comments below!

Over the last month, I haven’t written as many blog posts because, well, life has been busy! The first semester of my first year as a Vice Principal ended, the holiday season was upon us and we sold and bought a new house. Life is regularly a bit busy, however, throw in the move of a house (with an 18-month-old) can make things a little crazy. Yet, as so often happens, I find parallels between things that are going on in my personal life with things that are going on in my professional life. As we enter a new semester, I want to share this connection with you.

As I mentioned, my husband and I (plus our daughter, of course) moved houses in December. Yeah, that’s right. We moved houses right before Christmas…at the end of the semester…with an 18-month-old. And guess what? We didn’t hire movers. I’ll try to keep a long story short. Basically, we had a gap day between the time we had to be out of our house and into the new house. This meant that we had to pack up our whole house and put it somewhere for 24 hours until we could move into the new house. We checked with moving companies and they all were charging around $2,000 to move (since it would be two moves in their opinion) and store our belongings for the night. Even if we rented our own truck and stored it in front of our house, the moving cost was still significant because they considered it two moves. So, we enlisted the help of some very good friends and family members. Our family members helped watch our daughter – because, let’s be honest, who can really focus on moving a house with a toddler roaming around? Our friends helped us over a two day period (their weekend!) to move our entire house. And guess what – it even rained during most of the second day, which may not seem strange to you but we live in a desert. As we moved our house and as I watched our friends help us, one phrase kept coming to my mind:

We could not have done this alone.

Honestly, I don’t know how we would have done it without our family and friends. I feel like it would have either been 1.) Impossible, 2.) Expensive and 3.) The greatest test of our marriage ever. It was just a lot of work and there is no way my husband and I could have done it on our own. And that’s where the parallel between my professional and personal life hit me:

Education cannot be done alone. It can’t be an island. It has to be a community, a partnership, and maybe even a family.

If I haven’t convinced you of this yet, then let me give you three reasons why we cannot do this alone and why we have to rely on one other.

Reason #1: We can’t do it alone because…it’s hard.

Education is hard. It’s physically, emotionally and mentally exhausting. For people that have not ever worked in education, it’s hard to understand this. They see all the breaks and the 6.5 hour work day. They don’t see the late nights, the lesson planning and the grading. They don’t feel the tired feet and sore body from standing, walking and bending all day. And, most importantly, they don’t see the emotional struggle when your students struggle or make poor choices. They don’t see the emotional baggage that every educator takes home on a daily basis.

It’s why we can’t do it alone. We need support. We need people to challenge us for lesson plans, to give us ideas and help us when we hit a roadblock. We need people to share the bad days with and offer support when you’re heart is broken for a student. We need people to just be there because, well, it can be really hard sometimes.

Reason #2: We can’t do it alone because…it’s fun.

While my last reason was a bit more serious, this is one of the most important ones – education is fun! I absolutely love what I do and I have loved every role I have had in education. Each role has been fun in its own way, even when it can be challenging.

If you isolate yourself, you can’t share the fun, awesome and amazing things you are doing for your students. It’s not bragging – it’s celebrating! Like I said earlier, education can be very hard…so, it’s incredibly important that we celebrate all the fun that it has to offer.

Reason #3: We can’t do it alone because…we won’t grow.

If we want our students to grow, then we must also be willing to grow ourselves. I truly believe that if educators do not work together, then they will not grow and improve as much as they could. In turn, neither will their students. Some of the greatest growth I have had as an educator is working with educators in my districts but, also with educators across the country through social media. These educators have inspired and challenged me to be a better teacher and leader. They constantly make me think about what I am doing and they are my go-to for questions and advice.

We will not grow on our own. It has to be done together.

As we start a new semester, I challenge each of you to find a way that you will work together with other educators. Whether it’s department meetings, social media, or digital conversations on Marco Polo – find a way to work with one another, support each other and grow.

After all, we can’t do it alone…at least if we want to do it right.