The Best of Us

KickUp
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  • EDUCATION
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

On The Best of Us podcast, we highlight the stories, practices, and tactics of K-12 professional learning leaders working to enhance the educator experience. We speak with educators, researchers, and policy makers about what’s working to drive teacher engagement, practice, and retention and how we can all bring out the best of us.

  1. FEB 3

    S4/E5: When Students Lead the Change—How Voice and Goals Drive Teacher Retention with Katie Meyers

    When Katie Meyers' first-year teacher announced she was leaving education, Katie flipped the question: instead of asking why teachers quit, she researched what makes them stay. The answer—being heard matters more than being fixed—transformed how she leads, and it applies to students too.

    44 min

  2. JAN 6

    S4/E4: Leading with Vulnerability—Why Self-Doubt Makes Better Leaders with Elizabeth Dampf

    What if admitting "I'm not sure I'm good enough for this" is actually the most powerful thing a leader can say? Elizabeth Dampf believes that self-doubt isn't a weakness to hide—it's a doorway to better leadership. In this episode, she challenges the myth of the "strong leader" and shares why vulnerability, curiosity, and honest reflection create more effective leaders than projecting certainty ever could.

    39 min

  3. 12/08/2025

    S4/E3: The Success Triangle — 40 Years of Urban District Leadership with Dr. Michael Hinojosa

    Why do most new superintendents feel overwhelmed by board relations, politics, and finance rather than instruction? In this episode of The Best of Us, Dr. Michael Hinojosa shares his Success Triangle framework for balancing stakeholder relationships, how he developed 50 future superintendents while leading six districts over 40 years, and why incrementalism is innovation's worst enemy in urban education.

    52 min

  4. 11/02/2025

    S4/E2: Teresa Morales-Young on How Fresno Unified Built a Teacher Pipeline That Actually Works

    Over 15 years, Teresa Morales Young has built something rare in education: a teacher pipeline that actually works. As leader of the Department of Teacher Development at Fresno Unified—California's third-largest district—Teresa has created 12 interconnected pathways that guide educators from high school through their entire career, achieving retention rates that far exceed state averages.

    38 min

  5. 09/30/2025

    S4/E1: Michael McDowell on How Leaders Can Build Collective Instructional Excellence

    Why does a student's educational experience depend more on which classroom door they walk through than which school they attend? Educational leader and author Michael McDowell explores how schools can move from tolerating isolated brilliance in individual classrooms to building collective instructional excellence through systematic implementation of high-impact practices.

    49 min

  6. 08/20/2025

    S3/E12: Learning Labs — How Job-Embedded Professional Learning Transforms Teaching and Learning

    What happens when professional learning moves from conference rooms into classrooms, with teachers, coaches, and principals learning together in real-time with actual students? In this episode, Elham Kazemi from the University of Washington and Jessica Calabrese, a former principal and district leader, share how Learning Labs revolutionize professional development by embedding it directly into classroom practice. Unlike traditional PD that separates learning from teaching, their approach brings teams of educators into classrooms together to collaboratively plan, teach, observe, and reflect—all while working with real students on authentic problems of practice. Drawing from their partnership that began in a federally-designated "persistently low-performing" school in South Seattle, Elham and Jessica reveal how this model shifts principals from evaluators to lead learners, transforms isolated teaching into collaborative inquiry, and positions students as the most important teachers of all. They discuss how focusing on student thinking rather than test scores creates the conditions for both academic growth and teacher retention.

    52 min

  7. 08/18/2025

    S3/E11: Taking Things Off Teachers' Plates — How School Leaders Can Combat Burnout Before It Starts

    What if the solution to teacher burnout isn't asking teachers to fix themselves, but building systems that lighten their load? In this episode, Laura Donnelly and Jill Hanley, co-authors of "What Can I Take Off Your Plate?", challenge the conventional approach to teacher burnout that places the burden on individual educators. Instead of telling overwhelmed teachers to practice more self-care, they argue that school leaders must create intentional systems that remove unnecessary weight from what's already on teachers' plates. Drawing from their experience transforming a high-need elementary school with 82% free and reduced lunch and 44% English language learners, Laura and Jill share practical strategies for building sustainable systems. From crafting master schedules that prioritize collaboration to establishing consistent behavior support protocols, they reveal how thoughtful operational decisions become powerful cultural statements about what a school truly values. Through the story of "Mrs. Wilson" and other composite teacher experiences, they demonstrate how common pain points—unclear communication, inconsistent feedback, and lack of behavior support—can be systematically addressed through better leadership practices, not individual teacher resilience.

    59 min

  8. 08/10/2025

    S3/E10: Teacher Agency at Scale — How M3T is Revolutionizing Professional Learning in West Virginia

    What happens when you give teachers the power to identify their own problems and work together to solve them? In this episode, Joanna Burt-Kinderman and Adam Riazi from the Mountaineer Mathematics Master Teacher (M3T) network share how they've built a statewide system that puts teacher agency at the center of professional learning. Unlike traditional top-down professional development, M3T empowers 32 teacher leaders across 27 West Virginia districts to form local improvement teams, identify classroom "bugs" that frustrate them, and test solutions collaboratively. From addressing students' "first step questions" to building productive struggle, Joanna and Adam reveal how small, teacher-driven changes can have outsized impact when supported by a network of peers. They discuss the challenges of scaling teacher leadership, the importance of compensating educators for their expertise, and why this approach is fundamentally about retention—keeping brilliant teachers in the classroom where they belong.

    44 min
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About

On The Best of Us podcast, we highlight the stories, practices, and tactics of K-12 professional learning leaders working to enhance the educator experience. We speak with educators, researchers, and policy makers about what’s working to drive teacher engagement, practice, and retention and how we can all bring out the best of us.

Information

  • Creator
    KickUp
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    42
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © KickUp
  • Show Website
    The Best of Us