Top 10 Tips for First Year Principals

This blog post was co-written with Todd Nesloney.  You can find Todd's website and blog here.

The first year.  We all remember it, and some of us remember it more fondly than others.  Both of us remember our first year as principals.  It was fun, scary, exhausting, exhilarating, full of laughter, and yes even some tears.

As we sit at the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), we were both reminded of our first year.  And as we were reminiscing and sharing stories, we had an idea! Why not share some of our ideas on how to make your first year as a principal be the best it can be!  We’ve both made plenty of mistakes and learned tons of examples of what TO do and what NOT to do.

So here are a few of our favorite ideas on how to make sure that your first year (or any year) as a principal is the best year ever!

1. Before making any moves stop and have a conversation

At some point in the year you will have to ask staff to help you or your school.  It is so important to start your relationship with them by getting to know them.  Learn about their family, what they love about the school, what they would change about the school, and how you can help them.  Staff will appreciate you taking the time to hear them out and get to know them.

2. Learn every staff member’s name before you start working with them

There is something powerful about hearing your name.  Knowing that someone knows your name.  But also that they know how to pronounce it correctly.  It’s so important that when you become a principal that you utilize tools at your disposal (yearbooks, website, school secretary, etc) to learn the name of every staff member before you even meet them.  Set the tone immediately that they’re important to you.

3. Be a servant

One of the best ways to lead is by serving.  Every chance you get take time to serve the staff, students, and families around you.  One thing we both do is morning, lunch, and afternoon duty every single day.  It’s so important for your team to see that you’re willing to get down in the trenches with them. It lets them see that you’re willing to get your hands dirty and that you’re not just sitting in your office.

4. Be visible, every single day

Your reputation will get set pretty quick with parents, students, and staff. It is important that they see you everywhere, especially the first few weeks.  Talk to teachers before school to see how they’re doing.  Greet students as they arrive.  Go out to recess and lunch.  Especially the first few weeks, go into every single classroom even if it is only for a few minutes.  Be so visible that parents, students, and teachers are tired of seeing you everywhere.

5. Find Ways to Lighten Loads, Not Weigh them Down

Your job as a principal is to move your school forward and improve the school.  There are many ways to improve your school without adding to all that your staff already does.  Find those ways.  When the load becomes too much, listen to your staff about what adds to their stress, and take what you can off their plate.  They’ll respect you so much more when you notice those “extras” and remove what you can.

6. Read with Classes

One of our favorite things to do is to read with classrooms. We make it a point to get into every classroom a couple times a year and read.  We read books we like, books that cover our themes, or even books recommended by students or other teachers.  When a principal reads to a classroom it shows that literacy is important.

7. Feed Them

It is amazing how food can change the tone of a meeting or a Friday.  We both know that budgets can be tight and there are sometimes rules around spending money on food.  But find a way to treat your staff.  It might be something as easy as popcorn and chocolate at a staff meeting.  Or maybe a nacho bar on a Friday.  Find a way to treat your staff from time to time.

8. Listen More Than You Talk

One of the most important things you can do as a first year principal (or any year for that matter), is listen more than you talk.  And genuinely listen.  Ask people how their day has been, and wait for an answer.  Ask how you can help, and then help them! Ask your staff for feedback, ideas, and more!  Listen, listen, listen.

9. Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know” or “I’ll get back to you”

There will be parents and teachers that want answers to their questions, and want them immediately.  As first year principals we both didn’t deal with that pressure well and would give answers too quickly.  It is important to know you can tell a staff member or parent that you don’t know or you need more time to think about it, and that you will get back to them.  Make sure you do get back to them in a timely manner, but just know it is ok to step back and give yourself time to make the best decision possible.  

10. Stop and Take Care of Yourself

As principals, whether we’re a first year or not, we can forget to take care of ourselves.  Sometimes the load becomes more than we can bear.  It’s important to remember to stop and breathe sometimes.  Schedule in time to sit and eat if you need to, take a moment to close your office door and have 5 minutes to clear your head, go sit in the middle of a kindergarten classroom and be surrounded by wonder and awe.  Whatever is “your thing”, find time to do it.  When we don’t take care of ourselves we injure the whole team.  It’s like the saying goes, “when the principal sneezes, everyone gets a cold”.

BONUS: You’re not in this alone

It’s incredibly important to remember this point: you are not alone. Being a principal can be one of the loneliest education jobs out there. There is a constant incredible amount of weight placed on your shoulders.  Find your people.  Utilize social media (twitter, voxer, blogger groups, etc) to connect and surround yourself with others who will lift you up, hear you out, and challenge you all at the same time.  Don’t try to do this job alone.  

Being a first year principal brings many ups and downs.  There will be days you leave school thinking you are the greatest principal in the world and days you leave thinking that there has to be a better leader for your school.  Just know being a principal does matter.  The job you’re doing is an important and worthwhile job.  You will make a huge difference for your students, your teachers, and your staff.

Being a principal is hard. It’s not meant for everyone, and can often feel like a very lonely position, but we wouldn’t change our decision to step into this role for a second.

As you begin getting ready for a new school year, we hope you consider using a few of the ideas we’ve come up with above. Both of us absolutely loved teaching in the classroom but we can honestly say that being a principal is the best job in the world.  

Ideas For Teacher and Staff Appreciation

Principals in my district and PLN are always looking to share ideas of how to show our appreciation for our teachers and staff members.  Here are a few of the fun things our Parent Teacher Club (PTC) and I did to help show our Stoneridge staff how much we appreciate them during Staff Appreciation Week.

PTC's theme this year was Dr. Seuss.

Awesome decorations in the staff room.

Some of the things we did cost money, some were completely free.  I am lucky that I have parents that help celebrate our teachers and that we set aside part of the PTC budget for this week.  Even if you don't have the same parent support, I think you can still do a lot of these things and let your staff know how thankful you are for all their hard work.

Dessert day treats

I started the week off by asking students what makes staff members the best.  Using iMovie on iPad is so easy.  Just take the videos and dump them into iMovie and upload it to YouTube.

We do something special each day during the week.  Here is the schedule we had for students. Students were encouraged to:

Monday: Wear your teacher/staff member's favorite color
Tuesday: Bring your teacher/staff member a flower
Wednesday: Write your teacher/staff member a note or poem
Thursday: Bring your teacher/staff member their favorite snack
Friday: Bring your teacher classroom supplies or other fun surprise!

Also every staff member received a framed photo of their class.  We took the pictures during PE so teachers would be surprised.

Framed photo of their class for each teacher.

In our staff room we had food or drinks each day.  Here is the schedule for the food and treats:
Monday: Pink Yink Ink Drinks.  Lemonade, Iced Coffee, Tea provided.
Thursday: Biffer-Baum Breakfast.  We did a Sign-Up Genius for parents to bring in breakfast foods.
Wednesday: Hop On Popcorn Bar.  Different types of Popcorn.  Also parents could bring in $25 gift cards for staff members.  We did a Sign-Up Genius for the gift cards with the hope to get 25-30 gift cards.
Thursday: Who-Feast Luncheon.  We did a Sign-Up Genius for parents to bring in lunch food.
Friday: Who-Treats Dessert Bar.  Desserts for the staff.

Handwritten notes from a student to his teacher.

We have promoted the love of reading more than ever this year, so instead of just giving the gift cards, I put them in books.  Throughout the year I have gone in and read books in the classroom.  I have collected books all year long and gave them away on Wednesday.  Every teacher received a book with a gift card inside.

Now I know some of this seems like it costs a lot of money but the last thing might be what made the teachers feel the most appreciated.  I asked them to fill out a Google form with the name and address of someone special in their life.  I then wrote a handwritten letter to each teacher's special person.  It was fun to let their parent, spouse or child know just how much I appreciate the hard work of each teacher at our school.  Thank you to Todd Nesloney for blogging about the great idea.

Our teachers, librarians, secretaries, psychologists, nurses, speech therapists, custodians, aides, cashiers, cooks, meal duty supervisors, and whatever other positions you have on your campus all work so hard.  The staff loved the week and all the hard work by the community.  Parents and students seemed genuinely happy to be able to show our staff how much they appreciate everyone's hard work.  It was a really special week for our school.

Below are some other pictures of the decorations from the week:

Why I Don't Do Countdowns

As the calendar turns to May the inevitable always happens, people start asking how many days are left of school.  Just this past week three different parents asked me.  It is not that they mean any harm. They are just making conversation and let's face it, the school day countdown has been a part of our culture for a long time.  But here is the thing about how many days are left in the school year, I genuinely do not know.  The parents seemed surprised but I tell them, I don't countdown the days until the end of the year.

Before you say this is coming from a grumpy old administrator, I didn't do countdowns as a teacher (well after my first year) either.  Don't get me wrong, I love summer.  Summer means I get to spend more time with my kids, family, read more books, go on more bike rides, go on a few trips.  I love summer, but I also love my job and love that we get to make a difference.

It also doesn't mean that I don't plan out what I have left to do for the rest of the year.  I know there are only so many more days for professional development, days to meet with teachers, days to get into classrooms.  There are only so many days left to get things done for this school year so I still plan.

From an educator's perspective I get it.  Teaching and working with kids is a lot of work and there is a break not too far in the distance.  Teaching can be exhausting.  Being a principal can be exhausting.  But I do not believe in counting down the days left in a school year.  There are a few reasons for it:

It Can Send the Wrong Message
Obviously not every teacher, parent or principal that has used a countdown has used it in a negative way but some definitely have.  At the first school I taught, I saw teachers counting down like they couldn't wait to never see their students again.  And students can feel it.  Sure some of them can't wait for school to be out but some need the structure of school.  For some students, school is the best thing they have going.  And for other students they just love learning and why would they want to see something they love end?  Counting down can come across that you aren't making the most of everyday and that you can't wait to see your students leave.

Great quote from Chris Pombonyo, first grade teacher in Florida.

Each Day Is Too Important
We only get so many days with our students.  Our students deserve our best every single day.  It doesn't matter if it is day 1 or day 179 of the school year.  They deserve our full effort and attention.  Let's say we don't give it our all for just the last 5 days of school.  That is hardly anything right?  Well if every year a student has that in their TK-12 education that is 70 days of learning that they will be missing out on.  Each day we get to influence and teach our students.  While counting down doesn't mean you aren't giving your all, it comes across that you are just waiting out the rest of the year.


The More You Act Like the School Year is Over Soon, The More Students Will Act The Same Way
My first year teaching I counted down days just like everyone else.  I realized the more I acted like the year was almost over the students' behavior got worse.  So my second year and every year after that I told my students we will learn until the last day of school.  The more I emphasized that learning never ends and that we keep learning, the more students would work and their behavior would be more like it was in October than like 8th graders that were a few days away from never seeing middle school again.  The end of the school year is a perfect time as a teacher to try new things.  You might find something you love and want to start from day 1 next year.

Teachers need a break and teaching can be exhausting.  But signs like this one I just saw last week in a local store gives teachers a bad name. 

If you feel you need to countdown you can countdown how many days you have left in a fun way like Principal Melissa Kartsimas describes in her blog ABC Countdown or countdown how many days you have left to make a difference like my friend Todd Schmidt says in his blog post How Many Days Left to Make a Difference.

For me though I won't be counting down.  I am unfortunately all too aware that the number of days we have left to enjoy this school year and make a difference are getting lower.  My own children go to my school, and everyday that passes is one less day I get to be their principal.  Luckily I still have a few more years with them.  But for the rest of this school year and every school year after this one I won't be counting down days.  I am too busy having fun and enjoying what I do to countdown the days.

Why We Are Moving On From AR

This post was written with Rachael Peck (@rachaelpeck23, you can check out her blog here).  Rachael and I are both elementary school principals in the Roseville City School District.  Before being principals, Rachael was an elementary school teacher and then a middle school ELA/History teacher, and I was a middle school math teacher. Both of us are passionate and avid readers.

What has Accelerated Reader (AR) been used for in the past at our schools?

AR has been used as an accountability system to set point goals for kids to achieve by taking quizzes that only include multiple choice questions to check for basic understanding. The points and quizzes are used to monitor if students are reading.

For one year, AR would cost Stoneridge, a school of 550 kids, $4,085.  For Sargeant, 450 kids, the cost would be $3,515.

What do we want for our students?

As principals and parents we want our children to develop and continue a love of reading.  We want them to enjoy reading.  We want students to engage in conversation about books and topics they’ve read.  We want students to be excited about what they’re reading and choose to read; not feel they have to read.

The Stoneridge Staff all dressed up for Storybook Character Dress Up Day.

What do some students and some teachers like about AR? AND What can we do instead?

What do some students and teacher like about AR? Earning points creates competition      →                  Taking quizzes holds kids accountable → for reading and makes it easy to know if they are reading

What can we do instead? Book Challenge   Book Conferences with the Teacher Padlet (See example below) Google Forms (See example below) Book Reviews and Commercials

Example of 3rd Grade Google Form

3rd Grade Padlet Wall

What do others say about AR?

There are many resources and articles linked below, but we also wanted to pull out a few excerpts from authors, teachers, and principals around the country.  

In The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller, she states, “Programs like Accelerated Reader or Scholastic Reading performance counts, in which books are assigned a point value and students must complete a multiple-choice test after reading them, are the worst distortion of reading I can think of….Furthermore, shifting the purpose for reading a book toward the memorization of plot details and away from an overall appreciation for the books changes how students read.”  

In a recent blog post, teacher and author Pernille Ripp stated, “We must be reading to read.  Not for rewards, not for points, not for accomplishment charts, or even to move through levels.  We must read to become better human beings.  We must read so that we can shape the world around us.”

Jennifer LaGarde, Lead School Library Media Coordinator said: I don't know about you, but... I did not become a reader because someone held me accountable for reading. I did not become a reader because someone offered me "points" or other incentives for the quantity of books or pages I read. I did not become a reader because someone limited my reading selections to only to those titles on a certain reading level or within a specific lexile band. And I did not become a reader because someone forced me to complete reading logs, write book reports or create (and then reuse) the occasional diorama.

Stephen Krashen, educational researcher, stated,  “Despite the popularity of AR, we must conclude that there is no real evidence supporting it, no real evidence that the additional tests and rewards add anything to the power of simply supplying access to high quality and interesting reading material and providing time for children to read them.”

Brandon reading to 1st grade students

As a school, what are you doing to develop the love of reading in both students and staff?

BB: Posters around school for teachers to write “What I am Currently Reading”

Free Book for every student

Storybook Character Dress Up Day

Principal Reads to Every Class at least 4 times a year

Reading Book Whisperer -  entire staff

Collective Commitments Around Reading

RP: Staff Displays their “Hot Read”  - book they’re currently reading or a favorite

Principal Reads to Every Class at least 4 times a year

Monthly Book Cart at Recess - students give a book/take a book
Surprise Guest Readers

Read-A-Thons

Door Decorating with Favorite Dr. Seuss Book

Rachael reading One to 3rd grade students 

What are your personal experiences with AR?

RP:  I’ll admit, as a teacher I used AR in my classroom.  I tweaked it to make it work for me, but there were some things that I liked. Over the past two years I’ve been reading about reading. I’ve taken the time to ask myself what I truly want for not only my own two children but all of the students at our school. I want them to enjoy reading and develop a passion for reading that stays with them throughout their life. This leads me to the question, does AR support that desire?

I think AR can appear to create a desire to read, but it's really just a desire to earn the points and reach the goal. What if the points are gone? Will the child still want to read? What happens if there is something they want to read without points?

On a personal note, my oldest son is an avid reader and has been since 2nd grade. He loves competition so he loves earning his points to prove that he can meet his goal. At the same time, this year I saw him abandon books that he wanted to read for two reasons: there was no AR quiz and books he received as a present (that he really wanted!) were only worth one point and he didn't want to waste his time. It was a sad moment for me when I saw that because of the guidelines around AR, he was giving up on books he really wanted to read.

Enjoying reading with a friend 

BB: I love competition.  It is part of the reason I love sports.  But if we are creating competition where students are losing when it comes to reading, it is wrong.  Have we had students miss their AR goal and feel like a total failure?  Yes we have.  And any system where students feel like they are not a reader because they missed a goal is wrong, especially when they might have read plenty.

My daughter loved reading The One and Only Ivan.  She had to tell me all about it everyday until she was finished.  She told me it was her favorite book she had ever read.  When she went to school to take the AR test she scored a 60%, she didn’t pass yet I know she could tell you everything about that book.  A little while later she was talking to a friend at our house about books they liked.  I didn’t hear her recommend The One and Only Ivan.  I asked her why and her response was that it was just ok.  I know she felt that way because she didn’t pass the AR test.

We had an author come and visit our school.  His book was mainly for 3rd, 4th and 5th graders.  The author did a great job talking about the writing process and then went into his newest book.  Students were so excited about the book because of the way he described it.  After he was done giving his presentation, he asked if there were any questions.  The very first question that came up, “How many AR points is your book worth”.  Depending on what answer he gave students would either still want to read it or for some the book wouldn’t be worth enough points and therefore not worth reading.  

Wrapping it All Up

We know we stated it earlier but our main goal is for our students to love to read.  We want students that are lifelong readers and you don’t do that by worrying about how many points a book is worth or having to answer low level multiple choice questions.  Students become lifelong readers when they have choice in what they get to read, when they have adults that model a love of reading, when they get to have authentic conversations about the books they read and when they read to read and not because of rewards.  When we look at cost, rewards, limiting book selection, having students take tests that no adult would ever do after they read a book, AR doesn’t make sense to us.  And for all those reasons, that is why we are moving on from AR.

Articles or resources to share:

A Closer Look at Reading Incentives Programs- Alfie Kohn

How to Accelerate a Reader- EdWeek Blog Post by Donalyn Miller

How We Can Help Our Book Abandoners- Blog Post by Pernille Ripp

The 18 Reasons Not to Use AR- Pennington Publishing

I've Got Research. Yes, I Do.  I've Got Research. How About You?- Blog post by Donalyn Miller

A Defense of AR- Blog Post by Rita Platt

If They Don't Read Much, How They Ever Gonna Get Good?- Richard L. Allington

We Need to Take Care of Our Teachers #kidsdeserveit Guest Post

At NAESP in Long Beach in 2015 I was lucky enough to get to know Adam Welcome and Todd Nesloney.  Adam was part of my PLN and I met Todd at the Bean Bag Tournament that was held.  We ended up all hanging out down there quite a bit.  While down there they came up with the idea for #kidsdeserve it.  They have a book coming out this spring and they are two leaders who truly care about doing what is right for our students.  In September they asked me to write a guest post for their blog.  Below is the link:


We Need to Take Care of Our Teachers- #kidsdesrveit Guest Blog Post September 2015

Do You Play Music at Your School?

Do you like music?  

Duh, of course you do. Who doesn't? In fact, we (@brandonkblom and @jessecwoodward) would argue that music is one of those pieces of culture that is the easiest to connect to. We have both taught at very different schools and we are principals of schools that could not be more different when it comes to demographic or socioeconomic status. But that is what makes music great. It crosses all cultural lines, not just racial culture, but age culture. It makes it easy for people to create shared cultural experiences, using music to bring us together. You can learn so much about a person with a simple question, "What kind of music do you like to listen to?"  

So why do so many schools leave music off the table? We sent out a Twitter poll to find out how often schools play music for their kids during recess or break. Here are the results from 59 educators from across the country..

• 29% play music everyday
• 14% play music a couple of times per week
• 19% play music a couple of times per year
• 38% NEVER play music

We figured this would be the result. But it makes us sad. There are plenty of articles on why we need music in our schools. Just taking two seconds to look up some research there are articles such as benefits of dancing to your brain from Psychology Today or another article about why your classroom needs more dance parties.  

See? It’s science and research backed, we need to have more music! As educators, isn't it sort of an aha moment that we should be playing music for our students during recess or when we welcome them to school? And isn't it a shame that almost 60% of schools never or almost never play music during these times?

The benefits of music that we see at our schools include: 

• Community building - watch the hugs get passed around when a song comes on that everyone loves! Anytime you get that many kids making eye contact, smiling and laughing - it has GOT to be good for your community.
• Exercise - tell me you aren't sweaty after 20 minutes of dancing!
• Developing body awareness - if you can do all that jumping and hopping and arm swinging without hitting your friends...
• Building student leadership - give kids the OK to set the music up for you. You don't even have to be out there for the music to rock!
• Creating opportunities for struggling students to shine - it won't take long for the least successful student in the classroom to find the groove when the music starts. Anytime you can find an #eduwin, you need to take it!

At Jesse’s school @MarshallElement in Castro Valley, California, they only recently started playing music at recess. They got their PTA to buy a new portable speaker system that he can take anywhere and literally set up in seconds. It has bluetooth connectivity, wireless power and BANGS! The old system he had would take about 20 minutes to set up and take down, and could only play CDs. As such, they never set it up at recess, it just took too long to get going. Now they play music before school, during recess and even in the cafeteria if they are eating inside.  

Here are other, cheaper options that you can go out and buy tomorrow - The Party Rocker (with Disco Ball!) or from Costco - The Block Rocker, or Brandon’s favorite The disco ball speaker from Sharper Image (thanks @jkloczko).  

Check out how this guy uses music to brighten the morning. Would you love coming to his school every morning? Heck yeah!

One of our favorite things to do is set up speakers to play on the playground before school starts. We both play this song and love it!  

Tell me that wouldn't set you off on a great day? Brandon loves to roll his speaker all around his school (@rcsdstoneridge). Actually, he brings his speaker everywhere he goes! Thanks for catching it @TechNinjaTodd!

Here is a list of the other songs you can add to your playlist. It is a public document, so go ahead and add any that we missed. Go to iTunes or Amazon or Google Play Store, buy the songs and download them to any device. Get your rolling, portable powered speaker system out to the playground, and crank it up! You will be thrilled with the results, and better yet, so will your kids!

So our question to everyone is how are you adding music to your school? If we know it improves moods, kids love it and sets a positive culture... it begs the question, why are we not doing it more? If you are a teacher, we challenge you to have a dance party as a brain break. If you are a principal we challenge you to play music before school starts, at lunch or recess. Sometimes students will just listen to the music and smile. But sometimes it can become a full on dance party. And if a dance party breaks out, don’t be afraid to join in.  This is where you build your relationships with kids. After all, don't your #KidsDeserveIt? We guarantee you will be smiling and you will make your students’ day that much brighter.

List of music to go out and buy TODAY to put on your playlist!

My #oneword for 2016: Passion

After being inspired by many educators' #oneword for 2016, I decided I also wanted to join in.  I think the concept of having just one word to lead you through the year is so powerful and something that I want to do with my teachers and our students.  You can check out some other great posts from principals Todd Nesloney,  Jay Posick, and Todd Schmidt.  I wanted a word that would be my focus for this year but also a word that might resonate with our teachers and students as well.

My #oneword for 2016...passion.

When I think of the word passion and how it relates to my job and our school here are a few things that come to mind:

-Passion for wanting to learn:  This one applies to myself, our teachers and our students.  Am I attacking my own learning with enthusiasm?  Are our teachers taking learning into their own hands?  This is our first year of focusing more on personalized PD.  I want our teachers to find what they are passionate about learning and go out there and learn more about that area.  I want our students to realize that they can own their learning, and I want to give them ways to be creative so they can show what they are passionate about.

-Passion for making PD better:  This year I decided to choose one area that I wanted to learn more about.  The one area I decided to focus on was how to make professional development better.  I have become very passionate about trying to think of new ways we can increase teacher excitement and learning during staff meetings and PD days.  I still have a long way to go as some of my staff meetings are not what I want them to be.  But I have also made some changes.  When we had a site PD day we teamed up with other schools and offered choice in what teachers wanted to learn.  We had rotations so teachers weren't sitting in one room the entire day hearing the same person speak.  I have tried to play music at all PD this year just to help set a positive culture.  The sit and get model is dead, we can't keep giving that type of PD.

Image Credit

-Passion for making schools a place students WANT to go, not a place they have to go:  How do we make schools a place where students want to be?  Make them places where they can't wait to come back to day after day?  It starts with us in the building being passionate about being there and that transfers to our students.  School has to be fun.  Whether its rolling the disco ball speaker before school, having students creating and collaborating more, students building and do more hands-on work, we want students to want be on our campuses.

-Passion for being great: I get the feeling that sometimes we are afraid to say we want to be great.  If you said in front of your staff tomorrow you want to build the greatest elementary school what would their reaction be?  Our children do not deserve ok schools or mediocre schools or even kinda good schools; they deserve great schools and we should be passionate about making our schools great every single day.

-Passion for what is right for kids: I want to be passionate about looking at what is right for kids and always making our decisions based on that, not what we have always done or just going along with the status quo.  That means getting rid of phrases like "that's how we have always done it" or "no other school is doing that."

Beautiful Soka University in Southern California

I just finished 3 days at CUE Rockstar Admin camp at Soka University.  What is apparent when you go to a CUE Rockstar camp is the energy, the excitement, the passion.  Sure the speakers know what they are talking about, sure they have experience, but to me the thing that sets the administrators (both those attending and presenting)  here apart from some of our colleagues is their passion.  They care so deeply about making schools better and they are willing to challenge any idea that gets in the way of being amazing for students.


So in 2016 I want to make sure we are all passionate about doing great things for our students.  It is our enthusiasm and passion that will lead our students to love learning, love school and do great things.