The Assistant Principal Podcast Frederick Buskey

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of June 4-9, 2023.

I’ve been hearing from a number of people who are getting ready to be brand new assistant principals in the fall and I have been thinking about the most critical things for them to do during the summer and the first few weeks of school. Of course, you need to build relationships and learn how your school does all the paperwork, and you need to get familiar with your policies. Your new principals and district leaders will help you with all of that.For my suggestions, I wanted to get away from the obvious, so I have 3 suggestions for you to get ready for the wildest ride of your life. And if you aren’t a new AP, I hope you will stay with me because all of these tips will be helpful for experienced leaders too!

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of May 29 – June 2, 2023. 

I’m going to go completely out of order today and just work through the overall theme which was about solving problems. In today’s episode we will touch on the six dimensions of organizations, the role of leadership, change processes, and an example of identifying root problems. This episode will tie together several of my key conceptual frameworks in more detail than the emails did, so be ready for a meaty episode that begins at 40,000 feet but takes us right down to ground level. The whole week was inspired by a training I did last week with a group of non-profit leaders. We worked through an example of the process of identifying problems and landed in a slightly unexpected space. I’ll share what happened at the end of this episode, so please stay with me.

Last fall I offered a five-page guide on ten activities to support new teachers during the first two-weeks of school. The activities were designed to achieve three goals:
● Create a trusting relationship with the teacher● Lay the foundations for a well-managed classroom● Provide curricular guidance
Today’s guest has been doing some remarkable work using a high-quality teacher satisfactionsurvey to identify keys to teacher retention. What really stands out to me is that he can providedistricts with data that is most applicable to them, not to every other district in the state orcountry. That said, there are some common things that assistant principals and other schoolleaders can do to help increase teacher retention. So how do these rigorously researched factorscompare to my goals for APs of building the relationship, laying foundations for classroommanagement, and providing curricular guidance? We are about to find out, but I want to offeryou a challenge before we get any further – if you hear one or more simple actionable strategiesto increase teacher retention, will you actually implement them? I wonder...

Last Friday I began with a shoutout to Soupman2545 for leaving a review and helping me improve the show. It felt good to begin the show with a thank you so I’m going to begin doing this regularly on Fridays.

Today I want to acknowledge the daily email readers and podcast listeners who responded to last week’s challenge to identify the band associated with the titles of each daily email’s subject line.

I know… you don’t have time to pause, you barely have time to breathe, and you are saving flourishing for summer. You are too busy with all the tasks, and taking care of everyone else. Except for being in this moment, and, right now, this is the only moment that matters because it is the only moment you have. And I am so glad you are here, and today’s very special guest is going to help both you and I make the time to pause, to breathe, and to flourish.