get ready for a Powerhouse of inspiration principal barudi cell a highly regarded educator and a transformational leader principal Cale has spent over 20 years in New Jersey Urban schools making a lasting impact as both a master teacher and a turnaround principal under his leadership the mighty Newark Tech transformed from a low performing school to one of America's best as recognized by US News and World Report three times a recipient of the prestigious milin educator award principal caele is one of the most sought after voices in school leadership and Equity he's delivered over 3,000 Keynotes workshops and seminars Across the Nation authored 13 books including seven ascd bestsellers and continues to empower leaders through his live stream AP and new principal Academy please join us in welcoming the extraordinary principal barudi cell and we are live good morning good morning good morning good morning welcome to week 243 of the AP and new principal Academy let me go on over here and see who we got checking in this morning starting us off we got constant sherad down there in Pearl Mississippi checking in we got Mona obam molac in Orlando Florida Nadira Coy right here in in Jersey Maplewood extending warm greetings to the leadership family from Maplewood I hear that and you said nor native and I'm rocking a nor Bears Jersey this is not a not a negro leagues Jersey it's the nor Bears uh monor League team but uh we rocking Nor today we got Michael Benton Cincinnati Ohio Grace Caston she's in Houston today uh Rodney Richardson Richardson's in Hampton Virginia Teisha high is in Virginia Yolanda mckenny is in Texas Robin Snowden she said hotep and I I give you that hotep right back she's out in Fresno California um where we at Mara po Mara I gotta respond to you I'm G do that today I promise you check your email uh Mara PO is in San Diego AP Patrick Lawrence is in the building uh landre bra where is AP Patrick Lawrence down in I should say in Connecticut uh LeAndre brains North Carolina principal Otis kitchen I second in uh Tampa Florida toika trds in Atlanta GA John herck Denton Texas gar w T is uh in Atlanta the queen Kimberly Bron CA the queen of the castle baby is here in Jersey City New Jersey we got Velma Moss she said she said good morning Tracy Farris uh is in it says uh La so I think that's Louisiana but it could be Los Angeles right uh but she's in the building Rod laws hotep and had you know we got Quanza coming up this week uh I got to get with my black Educators Rock Peeps and see what we going to do last year we were on all seven days so we'll see how that's going I'm GNA be speaking one of the days in East STS New Jersey my hometown City on the 30th um doing a k Quanza presentation but um other than that let me reach out to the to the um black Educators Rock fam and see what we gonna be doing with Quanza uh Vanessa zesen is in the building Connecticut uh jacqulyn Harriet snowy Nova Scotia guess what jacn snowy Jersey City yeah I woke up this morning to see snow outside I can't shovel it no more though I really want to but the heart attack you know they said you can't shovel no more snow oh well Netty uh Netty MC um McMahon is is is in the building and I think I might have messed up M McMahan is in the building Aurora Illinois um book arrives tonight man I hope that book is going to arrive I'm going talk a little bit about that I've been a little stressed y'all Ray Lind uh Indiana is in the building Stacy Joy is in the building as Los Angeles she said it's foggy yeah I appreciate you getting up early too J JS peace New Jersey is in here that's right um Kenia Henderson Fairburn Georgia I never heard of fair good to be good to have you here uh phenicia uh just says phenicia she said good morning um and I'm getting ready to wrap it up y'all so I can get started uh Kenia Henderson uh arel austri is in the building good to see you good to see you Tony mclin is in the building Battle Creek Michigan Jessica moreles I think it is Fredricksburg Virginia and I think I'mma close it there I'mma CL I'mma close it I see the homie right here at Jersey City in the building David Supreme Adams uh Supreme the barber in the building Grand Rising back to you um I'mma close it there you not like to try to close it with Jersey so so the rest of y'all I got you next week but let me say to everybody good morning greetings welcome to week 243 of the AP and new principles Academy and you know um my my my question every week might ask you again how you doing how you feeling how's everything you know the question is so relevant and here we are we're at the end of the school the the calendar year for the uh school year um some of y'all the middle of the middle of the Year others the middle is the end of January depending on when you started September or August but um it's I guess it's a time of exhale right got through the first part right but but I'm just asking you the question like okay so now we're here how you feeling right wa what you feeling mentally emotionally what you feel what are you feeling physically right so uh I'm going tell you a little bit about what I'm feeling in a minute but uh but in addition to how I'm feeling online you know for me I'm on fire I really am I I should be I mean I got a brand new book out book number 14 right so you know I'm on fire I'm just not yelling at those of you who the regulars you know I can't be doing all that yelling like that man that stuff ain't healthy right so but I'm I'm I'm blazing I'm on fire and um and I'm hoping that anybody that's not feeling on fire at this time is probably Justified however I do want to encourage you to get yourself back to where you need to be where you need to be just as a human being perhaps as a family person um a spouse a parent a a friend a cousin a aunt a uncle whatever it is right whatever you got to do to get yourself back to where you need to be because I know you know in school leadership you know I'll debate this with anybody on the planet School leadership can bring you down and not just because of the challenges that are associated with the work I don't mean just that I mean just your love of children and all children not having the same advantages say as other children right that just that in and of itself can bring you down right knowing that there's a child that you love was going home to a situation where Christmas will be non-existent right that that that can bring you down so that has nothing to do with you per se personally but it can still bring you down so I'm saying whatever it is that may be bringing you down I'm hoping that during this season that you can get yourself back to where you need to be and maybe even not maybe and and certainly even thinking about the adjustments that you may need to make going into a new calendar year 2025 I personally I'm excited about the prospects for 2025 I'll be 65 years old in 2025 I'm making some shifts some adjustments in my work I ain't going nowhere though right I'm still here I'm here strong but I wanna I wanna I want to I want to tweak some things right so you you know you you just stay on the lookout for that but enough said let me let me keep going uh shout out to Capitol Hill High School in Oklahoma City I only traveled once this week to close out the year but shout out to them under the leadership of Dr Sherry gatley man had a great time I'm there in a consultation mode um I'll be back there a few times going into 2025 as well School old building just about a hundred years old but got a brand new one under construction right outside next to it but uh had a great time great staff there great students there great leadership um shout out to them again capital Hill High School if any of you are on shout out to you grateful for you being here um welcome to the first timers but if this is your first time that means you've missed 242 sessions right and there's no session that I could say this was a bad one there's no session that I could say this was the superior one it's just 242 solid sessions right so if you if if you're new to this go to the YouTube channel AP and new principal Academy once again AP and new principles Academy hit the Subscribe button that's important we got 22,995 subscribers right now maybe five people could take us to 23,000 like right now right I I really want to get there 23,000 so we at 22,995 subscribers that's a blessing you know if I was a celebrity i' probably be sad but I'm just a regular guy right so they have 22,995 people seeing it not robbery to subscribe to this channel that's a blessing I thank God for that right so but give me them five more somebody if you're not if you if you haven't subscribed to the channel just go to the channel now hit the Subscribe button and then while you're there hit the notification button like once you hit subscribe a notification button will come up and that means that when I go live you'll always be notified via social media right uh YouTube so make sure you take care of that for me and I thank you in advance uh surprise me when I go off at 1:00 and and I see that I got like 23,000 somebody right surprised me that's my Christmas gift right um but again make sure you hit the notification Bell as well um and I also should add that on that channel AP and new principles Academy I do my shorts again you know I took the whole summer off those YouTube shorts they expanded those to three minutes I hate it I I you know I it was tough to do a message in 60 seconds but now that they took it away I wish they would have kept it there so I'm trying to discipline myself to just do the 60 seconds anyway but this week I did a 25 minute video which I'm going to tell you about in a few minutes I I didn't do a short I I had a need to do a 25 minute joint and I'll tell you about that in a little while uh next um my school Leadership Institute my instructional Leadership Institute this summer in Raleigh North Carolina July 15 and 16 go on my my website principal book aal.com scroll down and you'll see it the instructional Leadership Institute uh hit the uh the link the button it says here um where it says register here just click that and you can go ahead and register it give you more detailed information I mean I really broke this down telling you everything that we G to teach right it's going to be all instructional leadership I ain't doing nothing else unless you ask me questions on other aspects of leadership but outside of that it's just going to be instructional leadership for two days right 9 to four each day you join me for lunch we going to talk instructional leadership you join me for breakfast we going to talk instructional leadership you join me after afterwards if I eat in the hotel we gonna talk instructional leadership we just gonna bombard you with instructional leadership because in my estimation after school safety instructional leadership is the most important aspect of your work given that the children are walking in the school for the purpose of learning so if they're walking in the school for the purpose of learning then instruction has to be superior but I've never seen if I could switch to the coaching to the athletic world I've never seen athletes on a field a court a diamond or an ice or or the ice and go through the game and not be coached simultaneously but we'll throw teachers into the game meaning the classroom and teachers can go an entire school year with zero coaching with the exception of an evaluation in the fall and the winter right so in my mind and and my guest could can my guest could either support that or or dispute it when I bring them up in my mind instructional leadership is number one Numero Uno so that's all we're gonna talk about July 15 and 16 go register now because everyone that registers get a gets a free copy of the new one what is my value instructionally to the teachers I supervise but the first 50 people that register get this book the principal 50 right so the first 50 you get this and everybody gets the new one right so so be a part of that first 50 so you can get the principal 50 as well all right uh let me go to my monologue y'all and then I'm I'm G be done um let me change my screen here for a second my monologue my monologue is simply called why my new book is a mustre for school leaders now I made a video that's the video I said 25 minutes long about on Wednesday um as as of the same title why my new book is a mustre for school leaders but I'm not going to do a 25 minute monologue I'mma do this just in a in a couple of minutes I just want to once again stress why this book is so important I've written 14 books but but nothing that I've written measures up to this one and we'll put that on the screen and get rid of that logo for a second nothing measures up to to this nothing right and I love the books I've written particularly that Equity book particularly that motivating black males Book closing the attitude Gap and and is my school a better school because I lead it so it's so many of them but this here gota go go keep remember to go on this side because we got the the picture up on the screen this here when folks read it because I I'm already getting feedback from people and they're telling me like man I gotta read this a second time man it's it's you got so much in here right people telling me gu told me he said I'mma put I'm I'mma promote this is a author he said I'mma promote your book ahead of my book right and it's just so much in there so I want you all to get that book but but I'm doing two things at once I'm giving you this monologue but I told you that the week you know the book was supposed to be released December 16 which it was but the first batch sold out the same day as I told you it would so there's this second batch of like a thousand on a on an Amazon truck somewhere but it ain't at Amazon so if you on the Amazon site it says the book won't be available again until January 6 so so so I got my I was I don't want to use that p word on here I'm G use the t word I was ticked off on the 16th and the 17th but then I got a grip I said I got to practice what I preach I say to people you cannot dwell on things you can't control nor influence but but here I was ticked off noticeably by the people that know my family and and and and I got a grip I got a grip I said look I can't control that now it is available at ASC that's the publisher and that's who I probably should be pushing anyway ascd.org just go there they'll send it to you right away Amazon those of you who are kind of like Amazon heads that you're Prime members and that's what you do then January 6 is what it's saying maybe that I don't like that date I just thought of that but maybe it'll move to like January 1 or or December something maybe that truck will get there today maybe guy gonna swoop in and say look the truck has arrived today right January 6 man all right let's stop let me let me stop let me stop so real quick y'all real quick real quick let me let me let me just show this to you let me show this to you so so so so the overarching question to the book I'm gonna go quick we ain't doing a 25 minute joint can I in good conscience refer to myself as an instructional leader just with these These are the questions that drive the book just get your mirror and look at yourself while I read these questions real quick so chapter one says and I'm not going to give you no commentary to because then then I'll be doing a 25 minute video what is instructional leadership and what does it mean to my practice as a school leader man I want to preach that sermon but let me go to number two chapter two do I understand that my main priority is student achievement and the continued Improvement of instruction now these are not the chapter titles these are the questions that drive the chapter right chapter title they can't be that long right number chapter three would I consider the instructional aspect of my leadership to be my primary focus as a leader what is the evidence chapter four what does instructional leadership look like for me during the normal course of a day chapter five and all of these like there's something in me saying go ahead and teach with these N I ain't gonna do that do I have a philosophy beliefs opinions and ideas about how children learn based upon my own research my own reading my own experiences man I want to start teaching on that one we ain't gonna do that chapter six says what is the sign this big right here what is the significance of the pre and postobservation Conference to my leadership instructionally inclusive of the analysis of data now chapter number seven what do I know about excellent pedagogy Beyond who I was as a classroom teacher oh my God I want to start I just want to do a whole session on that one but I'm going solo in May and from May until December first Saturdays I'm solo right Marcus J Mar Dr Marcus Jackson joins me every last Saturday starting in April right so I'll have ample opportunity to break this down wrong side break this down starting in May that's all I'm gonna be doing solo first Saturdays every month uh chapter eight this is the big chapter this is a long chapters longer than any chapter in the book what is the role of my administrative leadership team toward establishing a culture of instructional leadership again what is the role of my administrative leadership team toward establishing a culture of instructional leadership longest chapter in the book I mean yeah longest chapter in the book I had a lot to say on that chapter nine how am I utilizing my instructional coaches and what measures have I put in place for them to be optimally successful am man something in me saying Teach I can't y'all number last one chapter 10 how do the teachers that I supervise perceive me as an instructional leader and then my concluding question to close it out is there a correlation between my supervision of teachers and their continued Improvement of instruction order your copy from Amazon or ascd.org right order it today like if you got like if you on Chrome just hit another Tab and go right to ascd.org or go to Amazon if you got a few days to wait then go to Amazon it'll be here on January [Music] 6th right so so if you gotta if you got I need to call Amazon could you slide that to the fifth right or the seventh I don't want to go later so anyway um again just um either one y'all either one right get that book get that book get that book let me get that off the screen y'all because I got guests here man I got matter of fact I don't just have guests I got I got I got superstars in the wings man I got every these three guests they all Award winners right they all they they these you know like I bring on people of different experiential backgrounds different years of experience and all that these These are people uh that I brought that I got coming on who have done this work at the highest level right at the highest level that's what I brought on today I should have probably put that in the um in in in the promo I did but you know but I got it now and by the way y'all uh Dr Tammy Taylor is in the building and um I gotta shout her out man it's her birthday Dr Tammy Taylor She's uh she's she's she's one half of create and educate um that comes on at 10:30 Sean hurt 10:00 create and educate 10:30 myself 1055 PD podcast with uh Sean Sean Josh Tovar and Dr Marty Mareno um on Sundays at seven but I want to go back to and that's all Facebook live but let me go back to um Dr Tammy Taylor today's her birthday that's another Superstar who's done this at a very high level right her her and Dr shica Houston so wish uh wish Tammy Taylor Dr Tammy Taylor a happy birthday if you will she's fam she's not just one of the post to create and educate she's fam right like like big time fam of this platform so make sure you hit her up I see y'all doing that she's on here right now so while you're doing that let me get rid of that um that cover there and um and let's let's get it rocking here let's get it going let's get it going I'm G bring up my guests now one of them I hope that mic is working man let's see what happens Let's see we got so you want you want a different one I think okay all right so maybe that's the one I when I get you up here you tell you tell me you tell me let's see what we got should um principal Parker should I bring that other one up too can you hear me now yeah you good yeah you good you good so so we keep that as a spare hey y'all I got my guest in the building uh say hello to Dr Maria Lewis principal uh principal cesal Parker and Dr David let me see if I cannot mess this up shed nider shed neider that I got it okay there we go there we go um let me read their bios y'all um I don't have the super long one so we we good but let me let me let you know who's in the building here y'all uh and while I'm doing this to the fam out there do me a favor y'all share this video right now this uh share this live stream tag somebody uh text somebody retweet repost all that good stuff but here's another thing algorithms hit that like button even if you hate it hit that like anywhere if you he you must like it so hit the like button give me some comments right got you know we in know we're in an algorithm world now so you gota we got to know how to manipulate these things right and algorithms are not confined to the computer algorithms are life right so you got to know how to work these algorithms I think I've had some success with it but you know hit the like button hit the comment y'all in YouTube in particular comment comment comment like like like that's the world we live in now right you got the trash it gets all these views and yeah I use that word all the trash that's out there in social media it's it's prevalent but the stuff that'll save the world we don't get it the same way and that's why we got to manipulate these algorithms so uh so so principal CES uh Parker is a recognized turnaround principal I'm G read these fast y'all because we got a lot to talk about is a recognized turnaround princip leader in the spring ISD spring Independent School District which is in uh Houston Texas as principal of Jenkins Elementary School since 2022 she has led the campus to significant growth with Jenkins projected to achieve a B rating for the 2324 school year within just two years she was successfully elevated she has successfully elevated the school's performance from underperforming to a B rating CES Le's Innovative approaches have made Jenkins Elementary a model campus frequently visited by Sister districts to observe how long-term substitutes District of innovation aspiring teachers and certified teachers are transforming instruction to improve student outcomes her vision achieve academic Excellence by cultivating Excellence drives all aspects of her leadership cesal is recognized as the 2324 principal of the Year let me say that again CES is recognized as the 2324 principal of the year and serves as one of the spring isd's principal leads coaching and supporting fellow principles alongside the area superintendent with 24 years of experience in education she joined spring ISD in 2008 and has since held several key leadership and instructional roles she previously served as the lead principal for Westfield n9th Grade Center associate principal for atris students at Westfield High School and High School Workforce Development specialist team leader within the school leadership office earlier in her career she excelled as a math teacher across various campuses under C's leadership Jenkins Elementary has become a beacon of academic Innovation and Excellence her commitment to fostering collaboration empowering Educators and prioritizing Student Success has not only transformed her campus but has also influenced practices districtwide Big Stuff let me go to Dr Maria Lewis is an award-winning educator and nationally known leadership coach with over 20 years of experience in K through postsecondary educ tion beginning her career as a teacher for students with special needs Dr Lewis has since served as an assistant principal principal and currently holds the following positions director of teaching and learning adjunct instructor teaching curriculum and instruction and is a leadership coach for school administrators across the US Dr Lewis believes in building the capacity of leaders throughout a strength based approach the mark of a su uh quote The Mark of a successful leader is evident in the leaders that he or she grw leaders grow leaders and create sustainable systems of change end quote her dedication to equity and Student Success earned her various certifications and awards including Virginia for supervision and curriculum development educator impact award Prince William County Public Schools Healthy Communities uh healthy youth council local hero award Prince William County Human Rights award and Prince William County Public Schools Business Partnership of the year uh she's completed prestige leadership programs including the University of Virginia's Leadership Academy coaching for change University of Virginia Statewide communities for practice for excellence leadership coaching certification program through the University of Rochester and the uh ramerman group and the educational Development Group for at uh truest Leadership Institute in Greensboro North Carolina Dr Lewis is the region 3 Ambassador for women education leaders in Virginia as a leadership coach she's passionate about coaching and mentoring new and aspiring administrators her signature program is coach the lead a year-long coaching experience it Fosters personal and professional growth through coaching administrators engag in reflective practices that help them identify strengths navigate the challenges and develop strategies to lead with Clarity and confidence finally Dr Lewis earned her doctorate in educational leadership and organizational Innovation from marry mountain university where she serves as a lead doctoral faculty member her research focuses on Collective efficacy and Leadership development woo that's a lot there y'all told y'all man we uh we got folks that did this at a very high level I got one more I got all week long I had his last name in my head pronounced wrong so now I gotta I gotta I gotta train my brain in real time Dr David schek Snider is currently the executive director of secondary schools for St Charles Parish Public Schools that's in um Louisiana prior to becoming executive director sh was the 2023 Louisiana state principal of the year once again the um the 2023 Louisiana state principal the year so you'll recall about a month ago we had Amanda Austin the 2024 Louisiana state principle of the year so now we got the 23 in the building um as the proud principal of Harry Hurst Middle School 6 through eight in uh destan I hope Louisiana um an award-winning teacher administrator and educational researcher Shea Snider obtained his Bachelor of Science from Louisiana state university' 05 and his master education 2010 in drct philosophy 16 from the University of New Orleans his career as an educator began as a teacher and coach and he was named the The RK middle uh RK Smith Middle School teacher of the year in ' 09 Louisiana Middle School Association outstanding teacher of the year 2011 named principal at Hurst in 2018 Che Snider worked tirelessly to build relationships with all uh stakeholders and drive positive change in curriculum instruction growth mindset and mindfulness his vision and leadership in these areas transformed the school according to metrics in student achievement student wellness Employee Engagement and Community involvement outside his accomplishments as principal his doctoral dissertation won um let me do that again his doctoral dissertation won the Louisiana educational research Association 2016 outstanding graduate paper and he was selected by the American education research Association to present his research at their conference Shea Snider in in his work as principal has been featured by the National Association of Secondary School principles Ed week The Washington Post the 74 and Discovery Education a published author and dynamic speaker Shea Snider has presented at conferences across the country and worked as an educational consultant for different organizations and he has generated millions of views via his social media presence on Tik Tok YouTube Instagram and X Dr schik Snider is a lifelong learner and and an advocate and Champion for Louisiana's Educators and students man I got some Powerhouse F two slices of bread we got some Powerhouse folks my wife said did you eat I said yeah two slices of bread that'll carry me for the next two hours right yeah man it was snow outside this morning y'all I said I ain't messing with that so so anyway um hey folks um we I'm ready to go hit hit the hit the um hit the share buttons the repost the retweet tag somebody make sure you hit up them uh Facebook uh leadership uh Pages as well let them know we live uh call somebody if they out shoveling if they around the Northeast tell them to hurry up so they can get inside or or turn the phone on and put the Bluetooth in the ears and listen to what we're talking about um here we go uh principal Parker principal Parker let me start with you um of everything that I read in your bio um a lot of it stood out for me but there was something that really grabbed my attention and I want to I just want to read that brief part for you um it says your Innova your Innovative approaches made Jenkins Elementary a model campus frequently visited by Sister districts to observe how long-term substitutes let me put emphasis on that long-term substitutes District ation aspiring teachers and certified teachers are transforming instruction to approve improve student outcomes here here's here's what I want to ask you what I want you to talk about talk to us about your role in in in cult in your in the oh got that feedback in the cultivation of your long-term subs and aspiring teachers I'm I'm I'mma leave the the the certified teachers to the side but I was intrigued by what I read when it talked about your long-term subs and aspiring teachers that is not something I would normally see in a bio or even discussed here talk to us about that principal caelli I just sent you a text I logged on my phone if you can let me in through backstage I will be happy to answer oh okay yeah I didn't even look at my phone all you up here so get so get rid of get rid of this one yes you can cuz you know you coming through clear yes I'm on my phone that's I'm coming through clear on my phone you come okay yes yes yes yes I end up loog I switched it and I sent you a message but it didn't go through yes so one of the things is that we um we started last year we are a district of innovation and so we're we're um in the business of cultivating our own and building our own because right now we know that there's a shortage in teachers and and just being in the profession and trying to make sure that we build our own teachers through par professionals as well as just you know going to the um universities and finding those te those students who are inspired to be teachers but are not yet there and so just being in the business of just cultivating our own and making sure that they're ready to go into the um the workforce as a teacher and as an educator and prepare them to be there and so we provide them training on our campus as well as you know they have a coach that works side by side with them to making sure that they are able to navigate daytoday and instruction our students as if they are the primary teacher and the teacher of record and they're doing extremely well right now I have about nine and if you was to come visit my campus you wouldn't know a difference you would think they've been teaching for a long time so I want to reiterate that because I want I definitely want people to kind of internalize that as best you can so you have you have longterm yeah long-term Subs in the building and these Subs are being literally trained to become teacher as opposed and this is key as opposed to just being the long-term sub because we know that a sub a substitute teacher can come in this a floater or a substitute teacher that's a longterm who's assigned to a particular building and that person could be very good and but they're just the long-term sub when someone's out we know we got this reliable person to to go to fill fill the place of the teacher to and and do an effective job but what I'm hearing from you you said no let's go a a step further and let's train this person to become ultimately one day if the if if the opportunity arises to be a part of our staff as a certified teacher one day absolutely absolutely and we also we have a program within our district also that helps and provide them those those coaching as well and we partner with universities to get them into a teaching program so we can continue to keep them and cultivate them so they can stay in our district and so we provide them with that support and I can tell you out of the nine probably seven of them are ready um they'll be graduating this year as a teacher wow so so see you know let's let's let's stay here for a second this happens to me every week I think I'm g rush through a certain part of the agenda and then the guest says something that blows my mind so so so here here's the thing we talk about teacher shortages all the time but here's a solution right so instead of bringing on a sub to you fill in while the teacher is is out for whatever the reason let's train you up at the same time and with with encouragement that you gonna stay with us because we're the ones that train you absolutely all right so y'all and I've had 98% retention wow that's why you te that's why you principal of the Year see so yeah so you you hear that fam out there let me put that mirror up ask yourself what am I doing with the substitutes that come through my building particularly the ones who are building based right that's that's that's good let me let me keep going I'm G stay with you principal Parker um to gain a better sense of who you are beyond what I read in the bio who is principal cesal Parker and tell us along with that what is it that drives you to continue to be Prin principal CES Parker I came from a a long line of either Educators or or they went either education or medical my mom was a um teacher um she took me to college with her when she was young I was in class at five as an educator and I can remember telling her at my senior I'm not going into education I'm going into Pharmacy CU I was a math science major but um something drove me to teaching one of my old teachers called me up and said can you come teach with for me he became a principal and so it was always within me I can remember teaching the class when I was in Middle School so it was always instilled in me to be a leader and to educate others who was less fortunate than myself I mean we had summer school I think my mom made us have summer school every day with reading and writing and doing math and so that kind of instilled in me that you know everyone can learn and everyone will learn I had a brother who was um disabled and he was probably one at the top of his class too because my mom didn't didn't let us think that an challenge is a challenge it was an opportunity for us to do better and so I came into this career and I love to teach math and so I started teaching math in middle school and HISD at Ryan middle school and then I later went to aling and then I found myself in Spring and I stayed because it's a small family environment and I like that it was a small family environment and one day I just said one of my my students said Miss Parker you need to go in leadership because we need more principles like you and we need more people like you and so before I went into leadership I decided to do counseling first because I wanted to understand the person I wanted to know who I will be servicing and how I can service them best and so I went into counsel I got my masters and counseling and I kept on going until I did um my principal ship and it has brought me to where I am so I can understand how I can support my staff because they are my customers and I think a lot of times as Leaders we don't realize we service them we're here to service them and service them with the best quality service we can give them and so not only are our students our customers but we need them and when you lead like you need the people that you serve and that you value and appreciate them they will perform for you and so I think that's where that's who I am I I use my counseling background and as well as my leadership skill and I'm able to connect with people on a different level and make them be their best selves I'm able to motivate them to be their best selves so they can effectively teach they can set high standards for their students and I believe in what they can do and I'm not afraid to get into the work with them love it you know you two things you said a lot there but two things real quick that was short you said we you serve them the uh staff you serve them and that that res that resonates as well but you also said and you get down with them right you you know you clearly you're somebody that's hands on somebody that's visible and and and and that matters right and I know the other two guests they they will attest to that as well I appreciate that I'm G keep it going because I got so much on this agenda Dr Lewis um outside of all those accomplishments that I read there was there was something in your bio that really resonated with me as well and I want to I want to read it again it says uh Dr Lewis believes in building the capacity of leaders through a strength based approach and then quote The Mark of a successful leader is evident in the leaders that he or she grows leaders grow leaders and create sustainable systems of change I want you to elaborate on that like like go deeper with it when you say leaders grow grow leaders right and create sustainable systems of change and if you could give us a personal example from your principal days now for cl just just for the for for this for the U for the fam out there Dr Lewis is no longer a principal as I read in the uh bio and neither is uh Dr Shea Snider but they served as principles at a high level for a long time so put your principles hat back on Dr Lewis and and and talk to us about that well first of all thank you uh principal C for this opportunity the way the reason I say that is because leadership by definition is the ability to inspire Inspire and grow other individuals through influence and reflection so I say that because leadership is never about us right it's never about it's not about me it's about the people that I can influence and help move to a higher level and that's my passion I operate from my core my core is growth optimism that's my core and I can I can give you a great example actually I can give you a couple great examples from my principal ship because I believe in the same things you believe in the assistant principal is is in that role to become the principal yeah that's number one they're in that role to become the principal and as a instructional leader in my building my goal was to give my assistant principl every single opportunity and I still stay in very close contact with with both of the well several of the individuals that I worked with but two in particular so my assistant principal became the principal of the school that she was there with me uh Dr isika Walker I'll give her a shout out if she might be listening uh she became the principal she's outstanding she's an outstanding principal so she stepped right into that position and and moved things even higher so that's just one example you you build that system so when you exit whoever walks into that next space is there to carry the torch and to move to the next level and and I feel that's what leaders do now admin in turn we communicate frequently I'll give him a shout out too Dr Tom Alexander we communicate frequently and uh he's getting ready to move in that principal role as well so those are two tangible examples there's others I could share but but those two are the closest to me um in building the capacity I work with principles or assistant principles right now that will be moving into principal roles I'm certain within the next couple of years I say this when you make anything about you as one person it's not sustainable because you're not going to always be in that place so your goal is to build the capacity and that's why I say leaders grow leaders leaders grow leaders I I love it let me stay with you um I want the the fam before we get into our our our topic I want the fam to gain a greater sense of who you are um who is who in this case you got your principal hat on who who were you as dror Maria Lewis and what drove Dr M uh Maria Lewis to be who you were in that capacity uh what drove me I'm a first year I'm a first generation college student with my doctorate degree and I'm proud of that and I would wanted to accomplish that so my mother could see it my mother was a par educ Ator well she was a par educator she's retired she's still with us 87 years old grateful for her biggest cheerleader um for me um but as a principal I got into this role a little different than some I started out in Communications I was a broadcast journalism major I worked for Public Broadcasting I was in that Arena when my youngest son entered school um I got more involved with him love school decided to go back get my Master's Degree in special education because my heart and my passion is for students with special needs that's my heart that's my passion that's why I got into education and I can recall back when I was a teacher you know individual saying well if you can get one or two of those students to pass a test you'll be doing well and I'm like no that's not good enough I want to get all of my students to move I want all of them to grow because that's who I am as a person that's that's what we do we grow we help people become the best versions of themselves U so I did that and I was successful as a special education teacher and um our other guests May got this as well may have heard this as well you know you get that well you should consider leadership you should kind of move into leadership and I took that path becoming an assistant principal and a principal and instructional leadership as you say principal C that's the role of the principal you have to be the instructional lead in your building and I had strong mentors that focused on that my supervisor focused on that we are in school to build culture yes culture relationship have to be primary safety has to be primary but at the end of the day our students have to learn they have to learn so as a principal we and my instructional team not just me our whole team focused on that instructional supervision or clinical supervision process getting in with the teachers doing the pre-observation conferences to talk about what instructions going to look like when I walk into the classroom holding the observations having the postobservation conferences really focusing on how are we going to ensure that when our students leave that they have opportunities that doors are open and we have fully prepared them in the best way that we can so again as a principal safety culture relationships all critical all front front front line instructional leadership is crucial because that's what our students walk in that building for powerful stuff powerful stuff I appreciate it let me let me move to Dr uh Sheek Snider but before I do I wanna I want to share doc I want to share with the fam how we met um Dr sha Snider and I were at the um United Conference in Nashville in July and I was blessed to have a room with about approximately a thousand seats it was standing room only people were sitting on the floor but when I arrived to the room I got there an hour early there were about six people in the room Dr Sheek Snider was uh was one of them and you know that expression they say you may not remember what a person says but you'll always remember how they made you feel well Dr she neider I walked in there I didn't know him but this man gave me love man you know he just and and and and and I didn't forget that see when someone when someone you know it's like you're not ego tripping but when someone sees fit just to let you know that you matter right you don't you don't forget that so that's how we met so I didn't know about all his accolades until I knew about the Louisiana state principal of the year but I didn't know all the other things he didn't talk about that um but here he is you know as a result we we we have a we have a friendship and now here he is on the platform so I'm not trying to say to somebody out there pump me up and that's not what he did but don't don't yo like don't don't roll up on me because you want to get on the platform that's what I'm saying right it's just it's just one of those I think it was one of those organic things and um I appreciate him for that you know those are things that see when you when you live the way I live you know like garment living out of a garment bag on all these flights all these delays getting to hotels at 1:00 am and you got to get up at 5: right and all that kind of stuff when there's someone out there that lets you know I see you that makes it all worth it right so we'll leave that right there and and I see you Mariner so you you understand exactly what I'm talking about and I know y'all know each other as well right uh Hey Dr um Shea Snider um you were selected as RK Smith Middle School teacher of the year in 2009 Louisiana Middle School Association outstanding teacher of the year in 2011 Louisiana state principal of the year in 2023 doctoral dissertation W by the Louisiana uh educational uh research association's 2016 outstanding graduate paper and you were selected by the American educational research Association to present uh your research at the at their annual conference that's a lot that's that's that's that's a lot of things that that have been bestowed upon you that you couldn't apply for these these these were things that came your way as a result of the work so it speaks to who you are relative to your work so I want to ask you this question what is that thing like like I could do a whole session on just this question I really could because it because there's so much here probably when I do my solos I will what's that thing inside of you that drives you to perform at such high levels as a as a as an elementary teacher I mean as a middle school teacher in in in in in in two different years as um as as a principal as a writer as a researcher what's that thing because see everybody can't do that it there's a certain it that people have that allows them to perform at high levels and my curiosity in this question is what is that thing that you have man I'm having a little bit of a of a moment here I appreciate the kind words and uh you know I saw you for the first time I was a first year principal this was seven or eight years ago at Nashville uh at amle I think I was in the audience that day and I just remember feeling inspired by you and if somebody would have told me on that day knowing the things I was going through as a first year principal that you know seven or eight years later I'd be able to share the stage with you for a minute I wouldn't have believed them so thank you for the opportunity today I really do appreciate it I appreciate I was thinking about how I was gonna answer the the same question you asked the other two guests about who they are uh and I think that's my answer to what you were you just asked me you know I identify as like an athlete you know I grew up playing sports in high school I played football basketball ran track um and I remember in basketball like my freshman year like not starting and I just thought that I should have started I thought I was good enough and so instead of getting aggravated about it I'm like what can I do and I'm like I'm just gonna outwork everybody else so I wanted to be the first guy to practice I wanted to win every Sprint I was gonna be the last guy to leave practice and I grew up idolizing guys like Michael Jordan and other athletes like that who just had this drive inside of them like I'm just going to show you what I'm capable of doing and if I got to wake up early I'm G wake up early and if I got to stay up late I'm gonna stay up late and that just kind of uh I think just became like my approach to doing everything in life you know and I had a a great mom and dad who worked really hard and they set that example for me and so once I kind of found my Niche it wound up not being Sports you're not gonna believe this but I did not make any professional leagues uh but once I realized that I was on that path as an educator which I kind of came to that realization my first year in college when I was thinking about what do I want to do with the rest of my life you know and I just had such a great experience at dran high school I said man I want to go back and teach there I want to go back and teach and coach there and have the impact for some kids the same way the coaches and teachers there had for me once I found my Lane as an educator I just saw always the need you know and I wanted to be the best that I could be and I wanted to inspire my kids and I wanted my kids to learn better than other people's kids and I wanted kids to like my class the most and one of the highest scores and that stuff's just not going to happen you know you have to make it happen and you have to do things other people aren't willing to do you have to have a uncommon level of commitment and I think it would it transitioned perfectly for me because that's what I've been used to doing through Athletics because if you want those things no one's going to give it to you you know coaches are playing the best players and the best players are not just giving up their spots everybody is competing for things you know and so I I think it's just that whole mindset of if I want these things for myself and for others I have to go out and just make it happen you know it's not going to happen on its own there's a lot of people out there hoping that their school gets good results you know wishing that this thing would be better but ultimately it comes down to are you willing to critically self-reflect and figure out what you have to do and then make the the commitment and a dedication day after day after day after day to making those things happen you know everybody is excited in August everybody's showing up early in August but man when we get to early December late February you know late April when the times get tough who's still coming in early who still has that same attitude from August and so I think I saw those things early on and just tried to always realize that I wanted to be different and didn't want to have Garden variety leadership where I was like interchangeable you know um I I remember reading your book about my school different because I lead it and I remember thinking about that as a teacher you know with these kids if you P pluck me out of this class room and drop a average teacher in are my kids going to do better or worse and I thought about that as an assistant principal and I thought about it as a principal and I think about it now as an executive director so as a as a long way to answer your question that's who I am and I think that's where the drive and that competitiveness came from and the want to just continue to try to be my best so that those around me that have what I felt like they deserve so so as a followup then when you when I when you think about you back in you put that principles hat on for a minute and um and here you were in the building with your staff and with your students give us a sense of what that looked like like like like like who is who was Dr she Sheek Snider give us a picture of what it looks like as you're going through your day in your building so signing for my teachers was 710 and so I would get to school around 5 wow and from 5 to 610 I would go through email get everything ready handle all that early stuff and then at 6:10 I would go stand at the sign in and from 610 to 710 I stood at the teacher sign in and I talk to every single person every day as they signed in hey good morning how you doing this morning hey how's that fifth period going how the kids doing that quiz last week did your mom have that procedure just making a connection with everybody every morning um and then at 7:10 we were Off to the Races man but but I put that hour in every day because no one on my campus ever had the excuse to go well I couldn't find a principal or I don't know what's going on today or what schedule are we running you know that I made that commitment to them because I told them when I met with them when I was coming in as a principal you know I want to be the best principal you've ever had what do you need from me and the things that they told me they needed that's what I did and I held myself to that standard because if you don't hold yourself up here you can't expect anybody else to come up yeah so that was the beginning of the day then throughout the course of the day we were in classrooms I went to every lunch period you know I was I used to joke I was the highest paid uh lunch monitor in the district but I was at every lunch man talking to the kids I atat my lunch in the cafeteria with the kids just you know holding a piece of pizza popping around to the different tables but I knew every kid in that building we had about 750 kids and I knew every kid in that building and they knew me and they were comfortable with me and they were talking to me and every day at lunch it was hey how's your math class going hey your teachers treating you right man hey anybody messing with you you know and and when you when you operate like that every single day you're able to build these connections and relationships and leverage out things that you normally wouldn't be able to do and I had insight into every single kid every single teacher every single grade level every single building but I was everywhere you know but it took the commitment for me to make sure during the day I was doing that because it's real easy to get sucked into that office yeah to get pulled into the Vortex by all these other things going on but I was really purposeful on how I planned my day so that I wasn't just a figurehead or I wasn't just a closed office door or rather I was somebody that by the way that I was with them and the effort I put into them and the time I spent with them I felt like I could personally impact every teacher and every kid every day and I stacked those days over the course of years and then over time that's where you build self-efficacy and you build the confidence of your people and you build the trust of those people and um you know it was really just an awesome period in my life that five years and I really miss it but I'm just glad that during that time I was able to positively impact those kids and those teachers powerful stuff powerful stuff for from all three of you I appreciate you let's jump into uh our topic um when I when I was trying to come up with a topic this for the fam out here um you know usually what I do is I I look at everything that I get from my my guest and then I come up with something and there was there was something in um principal Parker's bio about cultivating excellence and I said there it is I'm that's GNA be my topic cultivating schoolwide Excellence right so that's that's where we are so for the fam I always ask ask my my uh for those that don't know maybe for the newer people the fam knows and fam meaning the veterans I asked my guest to send me about three talking points on something that they're passionate about within leadership and then we can go from there as opposed to me just asking questions that I like you know so um with that being said I wna I want to start with with uh principal Parker and I'm what I'mma do is principal Parker I'mma read your heading what's on the screen but then I want to I'm going to read the description you gave me and then I want you to just tell us what you're telling us um you said an area Focus for you is campus shared vision of academic excellence and you went on and and and said to me unifying the staff students and Community around prioritizing student achievement that inspires high expectations and Collective accountability by implementing the aligned curriculum and resources professional development and instructional strategies to drive consistent improvements in teaching quality close uh learning gaps through datadriven interventions and increase overall student performance now that you know you take all of that collectively and it's it's probably a master class right it's it's whole summer Institute right so so so I'm G ask you if you could you know encapsulate what you're saying what what are you saying to us with all that I just read under that Banner of Campus shared vision of academic Excellence well one thing I I can say it starts with my family in my community um I constantly communicate with my families to let them know what academic things are coming up next you know we not only celebrate the fun things in school but I want them to know you know this is what your child is learning and this is how you can support us you know one of the big things that we're struggling with right now is writing so I talk to them and I provide them those strategies so they can be a part of how they are talking is how they will write and so you know just cultivating that academic Excellence everywhere in every opportunity that we get so that they can improve academically for those that I have not shared I have a high Campus of special populations um right now I'm about 25% special education I have 35% emerging by linguals so my campus is very very it's very important that we talk what we're doing you know you cannot just say it without doing it and so leading with Excellence is about allowing everybody not just inside the school but also outside the school to be a partnership with the students achievement and so when I talk about having that vision of excellence and having that vision of talking academics we take every opportunity to make sure we can stamp the learning whether it's in the cafeteria and we talking to them about you know what are they doing in the classroom and they're being able to articulate I charge with my teachers with making sure when they go outside and they can talk to their parents they can tell them what they're learning today you know if they can't tell them what they're learning today we failed you know and and and that's a big struggle and I didn't share in the beginning but I did come from high school and so I think moving to Elementary made me a better leader because I saw the struggles that I saw in high school that they're having in elementary when you go do third grade math you're doing algebra one so allowing them to go from thinking procedurally to conceptually so they can understand what they truly truly need to learn so when they get to high school they know algebra one when they get to English one from fourth grade they know those same skills that they're taking from there to to apply it in ninth grade and so I think just being intentional with what we're doing to focus on academics yeah yeah let me ask you this question um and this this is this is to you what is what is and this is for it's really for the fam what is the evidence that a school is actually being led by a by a leadership that prioritizes student academic outcomes student achievement what I can say and I mean I'm pretty sure most of the principles on here will agree we don't get a lot of less talks or get emails to the superintendent that we're not doing what we're doing we get those great emails from parents I know we can say oh we want this leadership to recognize me but I think when a parent can recognize the hard work that you're doing and they're shouting it out I think that's the biggest evidence and accomplishment that you can't have because we're doing it for their kids you know a lot of leaders want to get those accolades from everywhere and around but I think my biggest accolades to say that I am leading with excellence and that is I am promoting academic achievement is through my parents and my students and they're performing and so I think that is one of the biggest shout outs and evidence that you can see that I'm doing the work that I'm supposed to be doing also you know the teachers the teachers also coming to you and saying hey my kids achieve today and they're sending those pictures home to their parents and showing those kids are doing the work you know a lot of times we want to be led by the teachers leading no I want my students to lead I want my students to be the teachers and the facilitators in those classrooms and so that's what we're doing we're leading every day with and taking every opportunity for students to learn love it I wanna I want to throw one more at you before I go to uh before I open up the floor to see if anybody wants to weigh in and then go to the next one um there's a lot of assistant principles that watch this Saturday Academy and sometime I I I forget to zero in on the assistant principal I tend to be talking leadership as opposed to assistant principal leadership which is part of the title of the platform AP in new principles Academy so let me let me ask you this question how does an assistant principal prioritize student achievement via instructional leadership when there are so many other competing priorities to attend to that's a great question to the assistant principal yes so my assistant principal um we have a great relationship when it comes to academic achievement and instruction I can definitely tell you he's still learning in progress um I was probably one of his first uh leaders that have pushed him to be instructional so um when I originally got to Jenkins he was very operational um he only focused on those things that was operational and so since we are a high population of special education students I have charged him over the special education department within those grade levels to making sure that we push them to succeed you know and he's doing a great job of meeting with those teachers and making sure we are providing them those accommodations and the things they need to achieve because I can tell you in third fourth and fifth grade I have a total out of onethird of my students of special education and we cannot forget about them and they can achieve at a high level of expectation and I can tell you now most of them I think they're on the same level or even higher than my general education students because we put that component in I think a lot of times we're afraid to figure out what a person's strength is and and navigate and improve them as instructional Leaders with the tools that they have and one of the things I started with is okay you're passionate about special education how are you going to move them instructionally not behavioral but instructionally because I think behavior and instruction goes together and if we separate the two then we we're we're the reason is a gap but if we're putting them together then we can achieve and they can achieve academically love it now now somebody out there might be thinking you said your special needs students are achieving at higher levels than your regular population give us a little more like how how is that so well this year we um we've been piling in a curriculum amplifying Eureka for three years and so with that curriculum we found that our teachers needed um a curriculum that is a high Lev rigor and with that high level rigor it also buil in you know those different components of accommodations for our students and so all students can benefit from having those accommodations and and providing them with those resourc that they need to achieve and so they are performing what we found was our African-American males the Gap wasn't them being academically challenged but the Gap was them being Behavior challenged and so their behavior was keeping them out of the classroom we're not going to keep them out of the classroom we're going to put them in the classroom and we're going to provide them what they need inside the classroom so they can achieve and they are scoring I mean at meets and Master's levels wow good stuff anybody want to weigh in on that topic I would love to weigh in on that topic because I was over here taking notes as principal Parker was speaking because it speaks so much to my my core and what she said about our students with special needs being able to achieve at the same level or higher levels than some of their some of our students in our general education program it's 100% true I saw it I'm just I'm cosigning you I'm just Co 100% true I saw it as a teacher I've seen it in the principal roles one of the things that we are passionate about is making sure and the word she said and the word I support is the rigor is there when we look at our gaps from our different student populations we have to be certain that the rigor is there and the expectation is there and that we are not stuck in that remediation Loop because remediation Loop keeps our students further and further behind so you can't remediate out of you can't remediate students if your tier one instruction isn't there so you got to get that tier one for everybody specialized instruction for our students with special needs so I just wanted to jump in and and say that alongside you principal Parker and wrote down some notes myself so so thank you for that and and if I could jump in really briefly on uh your question about how can APS do that you know one thing I did as a principal my APS we would plan our week out the week before because if you're not intentionally planning out how you're going to spend your time then you're going to get pulled in whatever Direction whatever new emergency there is each day and guess where the first place we sacrifice is going into the classrooms right so we would plan our weeks out and tell teachers where we were going to be at what time each day and we would post that on a board a big white board and write our schedules out so teachers always knew how to find find somebody APS had to plan out when they were going to be in classrooms and when they were going to be in plc's and if they didn't show up everybody knew because it was on the Whiteboard just like we hold our teachers accountable for hey you need to plan your lesson out you should know exactly how many minutes this last and how many minutes this last we had the same expectations for ourselves and when you're purposeful about planning things out there are certain things you can do during the school day only during the school day but you can't observe classes at 7 o'clock at night but after dismissal you can write up that evaluation so you shouldn't be doing that during the day during the day we do things that can only be done when kids are in the building so I think just being intentional about planning out your time and making a commitment to be where you want to be and where you say you're going to be when you're supposed to be there love it love it let me keep moving um here we are so Dr Lewis um you where we at hang hang on a second y'all I got myself unorganized real quick all right um I think I'm on the wrong am I on the right one yeah why I'm not seeing what I want to see um what did I do what do I do I did something funny here um oh I see what I did I'm sorry I'm sorry I see what I did I made some organized notes and I was used to being disorganized all right that's what happened the principal is the instructional leader of the building and and you went on and said continuous School Improvement begins with the culture and is sustained through sound instructional practices what are you telling us here I'm telling you uh behind the classroom teacher we know that the principal is the most influential person in that building in regards to students learning and students success and I I just finished my dissertation in May and I really looked at the changeing role in the principalship uh principles moving from managers to instructional leaders in the building and what that looks like is the principal is the lead learner uh the principal is in the classroom uh the principal has a a solid understanding of what instructional best practices look like and is willing to to get in there alongside the teacher and provide feedback that's going to impact practice and then look at the data and see if it did impact practice and respond accordingly um so that that's what I mean the principal has to be that lead learner that instructional leader and I I he in working with principles and having been a principle you know we sometimes get caught up in in in the fires that are happening in the building that that are keeping us away from that instructional piece um you know I have to be in this place and that place yes you do you do have to be in all of those places being in that classroom has to be a top priority and setting up that time with your administrative team to be in that classroom and seeing who else on your team can support instruction whether it's your instructional coaches that you are intentional in the use of um if it's lead teachers in your building if you have to pull someone from outside of your building to provide that support it's what is happening in the classroom that I can walk away and say that students are going to be in a place when they leave to walk through any door that's open for them because if we're not preparing students to walk through the doors that are open from them when they leave our buildings then you know we're we're not doing what we need to do to build a better generation behind us and it takes time it takes intentionality um it takes planning it takes collaboration and it takes Teamwork because it's it's no one person um so so that's why I say the principal is the instructional leader U there's so much research that supports the impact and influence of the principal and ensuring that the principal has high quality professional development opportunities sometimes we hand the key to the principal and say go do it you know nothing happens by accident it's not accidental that the two two panelists on here with me today are outstanding principles of the year in many capacities it's not an accident it's because they both were intentional about the work and and had the skills to implement the work um as the instructional leader in their building um so so that's what I would say to that so here we got this topic cultivating schoolwide excellence and we got this bullet point that says the principal is the instructional leader in the building which which goes a long way toward cultivating schoolwide Excellence so here's my question to you I got a I got a two-parter for you if the principal is the instructional leader in the building who is the assistant principal the assistant principal is an instructional leader in the building also I um as I mentioned my two assistant principles that I've worked with previously my assistant principles and admin interns were in plc's they were in the classroom providing feedback on teachers they were a part of all of the things I was a part of as the principal because the goal as I said earlier is to build leaders and build capacity so everybody has to have my second bullet which may come up is that Collective efficacy you know we have to believe that we collectively will make a difference that's all of us so principal is the instructional leader our assistant principles are instructional leaders as well our lead teachers are instructional leaders in our building because I believe in shared leadership you know never I it's never about one it's about shared because when we share that responsibility and we share the responsibility for all of our students everybody's moving everybody's moving we're growing the capacity of the adults in the building we're growing the capacity of the young people in the building we're growing the capacity of the custodial staff in the building because when one person moves up everybody moves up so that's what I would say so you know there there's a there's a Facebook group called um the assistant principal's desk right uh it's an offshoot of the principal's desk which came first and it's there thousands of people who are members so I I I read those comments I don't comment a lot on there unless it's something I just feel compelled to say something but I but I sit there scrolling reading what these APS are saying since I have such a a focus on assistant principal leadership so there there seems to be a lot of disgruntled APS out there and it seems that so many of them are disgruntled for the same reasons there there's some Common Thread cutting through the reasons that so many APS are disgruntled and and this is 2024 that I'm reading this but the reasons that they're disgruntled in 2024 is the same reason I was disgruntled in 1998 it hasn't changed so here here's where I'm going with this they're disgruntled because they feel like they're just managers in a building like like doing administrative stuff not doing the things that that comparable to what they did when they were classroom teachers which some of them would have been like last school year right if you're a rookie so my question to you how do I become that instructional leader number two as as as you just alluded to for the AP when I'm in an environment that literally and let me let me put emphasis on that word literally like capital letters bold font italicize underscored exclamation I literally under the current culture and and let me go back to what you wrote you um it says continuous Improvement begins with the culture so the culture is toxic where do I go I'm not the principal I'm the AP talk to me principal CF I coach assistant principles and that is word for word What I Hear for some of them and it's it's a challenge because that is what they will say I am not the principal I I have to follow the principal and I will say assistant principles you are under the guidance of your principal and I never encourage anyone to to deviate or you know but what I do encourage is to have those challenging conversations with your principal and be you know be clear and respectful and mindful of what you can bring to the table what I've discovered is most of the time we can't get to that instructional role because of all of the other things that are happening in the building when I was assistant principal I was a supervisor for special education so I had IEP eligibility and 504 and child study meetings all day um one day a week uh discipline referrals constantly um they got better though and then also trying to be the instructional leader that I could be in my role and what I would say to assistant principles and what I do say to assistant principles number one is look at what's the priorities on your list create um a schedule that is intentional on where you need to be and what you need to do talk to your principle about what it is that you are experiencing in that moment and what you want to move toward and accomplish and number one develop some systems and processes for you to work from as an assistant principal what are your systems and processes in that assistant principal role what do you need to do to get to the point where maybe you are handling some of your discipline referrals if that's the thing that's holding you up in the cafeteria one of my one of my um professors said he handled most of his discipline in the cafeteria in a private space with a conversation and you know that worked to change or get the behavior that he wanted to see changed um so look at that look at your day what is your day look like where are you spending the most time what fires are you constantly putting out what processes do you have in place and then another thing is who's on your team who else is on your team when your radio call comes in are you the only person that can get to that classroom and address that situation um we developed something called a reset team so if a student needed a quick reset there was a team of people that could reset that student that means you might step out in the hallway for a moment have a conversation we might take a lap around the building deescalate but you would return back into that space so who on your team can support you as the assistant principal do you have a some might have a secretary a program assistant or someone an administrative role that can support you as the assistant principal but be clear on what you want to accomplish in the role of assistant principal develop your system or process and build your team so you can be successful in doing so but it is possible to do I think you lead where you are you lead where you are if you're in that toxic environment you find your space to lead from that space and try to change the culture as you're doing it but we can't use it as an excuse we can't use it as an excuse I love it I love it anybody want to weigh in if not I'll move on go ahead I think she nailed it you know assistant principal part of the culture too right and so it might be our culture is toxic I observe these areas though and these areas are not toxic because of my invol good stuff good stuff and one of one of the things I definitely want to add our chief of academics always asks us are we the Genesis of change you know a lot of times as instructional leader we always talk about the we but how am I providing him that coaching so he can be an instructional leader as the AP so we all always have to look into ourselves as the eye what am I doing that is not allowing him to get into those classrooms and be that instructional leader and so and then you have to provide them coaching because it has shifted before it was more operational but now we are shifting into being more instructional and so if they came under that era of where they wasn't instructional we have to provide them those resources and tools so they can be instructional and start small so they can be successful I think it starts with us as the eye of the Genesis of change and not you know putting them in a a situation where they're not successful instructionally good stuff good stuff let me keep moving I appreciate it appreciate all all those responses um Dr she Snider you said deliberately building School culture and and before I read your description um the word that stood out for me was the word deliberately um as opposed to just putting building School culture you you put you you you're essentially saying building it with intentionality right so you said comprehensive entry plan transforming School culture deliberate principal actions for building and maintaining culture building purposeful and proactive relationships with faculty elevating employee voice creating a mindful culture and beautifying facilities um with all that being said talk to us what are you telling us so the school I became a principal at had had seven principles in the previous I think it was like 20 years or something and so when I was coming in as a new principal I'm thinking to myself me these people are used to having a new person in front of them every two or three years and I don't want what I'm saying for them to be thinking up here we go again just another new person we can just rate them out a little bit uh so I wanted to be different from the beginning and so you know when we talk on this on this uh session today about Excellence a lot of people just throw out words you know and I wanted to Define for them this is what Excellence looks like here's what I mean by it and here's how we're going to build it you have to sometimes show people what it is that you want them to do so when I became the principal I was named principal in April effective June 1 so I had April and May where they knew I was going to be the Principal but I wasn't the principal yet so what I did was I developed like a eight question questionnaire cleared it with the current principal sent it to all the faculty it's 107 people and told them I'm going to meet with each one of y'all individually before the school year starts and so I met with every single person on my campus from April May June and July with those eight questions what are the things the school does well what are the things the school can do better what are your expectations for me as a principal all those things and I got to meet with each person and just listen to them because I wasn't defending anything I just wanted to learn them and hear from and so I took everything those people told me and from there we cultivated what our plan was going to be for the first year you know but it was intentional they were part of it they were bought in already because it was their ideas it wasn't some outside guy coming telling you what we need to do and you've been at the school longer than me and then I tried to think about it from every angle so I dressed up as a student one day in May I rode the bus to school I got off the bus with the kids wearing a school uniform I sat in classes the whole day I ate in the cafeteria stood in line in the lunch line did the whole experience the whole student experience and the kids were looking at me kind of crazy they didn't know who I was by the end of the day word had gotten out that's the principal for next year he wants to know what it's like to be a student I did the same thing for the teachers I went as a substitute teacher to that school instead the whole day as a substitute teacher before anybody knew who I was I got the teachers's experience realizing I didn't have time to use the bathroom and I'd have time in between classes and all those things teachers go through I had kids who didn't know who I was so they were treating me the same way they would treat a teacher or a sub and so I tried to do everything that I could do to show teachers hey this is different we are GNA be deliberate and what we're saying that we're going to do we're not just going to talk about Excellence I'm G to show it to you we're not just going to talk about commitment I'm going to show it to you and the things that we say that we're going to do we're going to make a plan and we're going to do it together and so we were very very intentional in that first year about what we wanted to do we came up with a new school slogan it was be better than yesterday because I know you're not going to be perfect and I'm not going to be perfect you're a kid you're gonna make mistakes you're a teacher you're gonna be imperfect but we are working towards becoming better and continuous Improvement that was what that was what I valued continuous Improvement and I told the faculty year one don't judge me on who I am it's my first year as a principal I'm make mistakes judge me on who you think I can be as I continue to grow with us together and to this day the the slogan at that school is be better than yesterday still on the walls everybody wears a bracelet that says that it's on the back ball the shirts and it became our culture and so anything that ever happened during that campus they knew well look we got to be better than yesterday so let's figure out how to do this so when a kid came to me and go hey look we got a problem there's no Club after school club for me and I'm not an athlete or this I'm going well hey we got to be better than yesterday man what kind of club would you be interested in joining so we empowered kids to do that sort of thing so you know our kids started a Dungeons and Dragons Club on their own they found a sponsor and we had 70 kids show up on the first day 70 kids that weren't in any other after school activities so you're talking about belonging and someone feeling like they have power now and they have advocacy for themselves an agency you know but we did all that stuff on purpose same thing with my teachers you know I had teachers who were frustrated because they felt like they've been passed over for leadership positions and I said well look there's no shortage and stuff that needs to be done around here we're g to start our own committee and it was Hurst forward is what we called it the name of the school was Hurst and we were moving Hurst forward anybody who wanted to be a leader come be part of this we're going to identify issues and we're going to work together to get it fixed so we were basically will willing to listen to anybody who has something to say give that person a platform and let them do the work and when you do those things over time the culture becomes something that's a real thing it's not just lip service that we were paying to and and what I typed in my thing that I sent you it was it talks about cultivating right culture is like a noun and so some people say oh we have a good culture we have a bad culture I wasn't interested in that I was interested in cultivating which is the verb the action of making this thing what we want it to be yeah and so you know that that is really when I said deliberately talking about it that's what I meant and I told them I can't hold you accountable for something I'm not willing to do and once people see that they will get on board people want to be led you know they want to be part of something special and something bigger than themselves but they have to be to be shown sometimes how to do that and be empowered to do it because once the teachers saw that I was willing to be Innovative and to do things they started doing all this stuff on their own they would have never done before you know and so I can't even take credit for a lot of things that happened at that school it was the people that we had on that campus already who just started operating from a different mindset but that didn't happen on its own and it didn't happen from me telling them that happened from me showing them day after day after day after day what was possible it's powerful stuff you know when when you when you talk about and I I put it on the screen be better than the day before be better than yesterday it it it reminds me of of of everything I talk about with self-reflection self assessment toward self adjustment right with the Big Goal being just self-improvement that's better than I was the day before and um you know I I I live by those four steps um that's why you don't see me without a mirror pretty much anywhere that I go right always got that mirror handy so it it matters you know but I I wanted to ask you um within that description you gave me it it says elevating employee voice um I want you to expound on that you know we we talk about student voice all the time but here you said elevating employee voice what do you mean yeah absolutely so I always told our teachers we are always going to be student centered but we can be employee friendly while we're being student centered you know and I as much as we talk about student achievement I was not going toach te one kid right so I needed to make sure that my teachers had what they needed to be successful so that our kids could be successful so we surveyed our faculty two times per year we did a survey in a fall it's like 70 questions and then we took the results of that survey I made sure every person filled it out all 107 of them and then I got in front the entire faculty and showed them the results and that was an accountability measure for me right because I know that sometimes our teachers results are going to fall short so I had the model for them when you get results this is what we do with them we don't make excuses or we don't go I don't know why y'all put this on the survey no we go hey this is what you're telling me you're telling me you need me to do a better job of you know maintaining discipline or whatever it was what ideas do you have from me to help me get better at that and then I took what they told me and I implemented it and I did it but I modeled that process for them in the fall and in the spring each year and so they felt like they had a safe Avenue to tell me what our school needed to do and the funny thing about it is after a couple of years of us following that process when they would look at the results they started taking ownership of it right and it was our results as a school it wasn't just the principal's results on the survey about if he's doing a good job or not it's as a school are we doing a good job and so when I combined that process along with like I told you talking to every single person every day right when you think about your average relationship with a teacher if you're the principal if I'm only talking to somebody five 10 times a year and then three or four of those times I'm having to hold you accountable for something it's like man every time this dude talks to me he's correcting something yeah right but when I talk to you every day it's 180 times a year we're engaging those four or five times it's no big deal right and so that was a way for them to get comfortable enough and to trust me because of the consistency and their interactions with me to be able to have an Avenue to me directly plus we had the schoolwide survey um and then again I told you like we created those little pipelines like committees like on campus leadership committees where they felt like people maybe who had been passed over for department chair or team leader or assistant principal whatever felt like they had an Avenue to gain some traction to show somebody what they could do but that stuff took a lot of work you know the easy thing to go is yeah I don't I don't know why you know It's just tough to find leadership positions but keep working you that's easy to pay a lip service but then to go hey let's build a structure for y'all so that you have some voice so that you can advocate for those things so I think it was that comprehensive approach over time that then it just becomes part of the culture right it's how we do things here and more importantly it allowed the people on our campus to hold other people accountable when somebody would start complaining or being negative or whatever where our teachers had the had the mindset to go hey we don't do that here right we have Avenues to handle things when we don't agree with something this is how we do it love it love it let me take a quick commercial break um before we continue our conversation it's about 12:32 eastern time we good on time I hope y'all good on time man lot of lot of great information being shared here this afternoon um let's see Dr Lewis um you you do Consulting how how how can the folks get in touch with you um to to to follow you on social media to reach out for you to come in and provide your service of um education consulting or speaking talk to the folks well I um am available you can reach me on Gmail my email address is coach coach maral Lewis atgmailcom so that's coach coac Maria Lewis gmail.com um on LinkedIn coach Maria Lewis there as well I'm on Instagram my one life on purpose because I truly believe in purpose I'm per I'm a Purpose Driven person so Instagram is my one life on purpose then the process of developing a website I'll I'll get that going but best way is just to reach out through email Coach maral Lewis gmail.com you can uh get me on LinkedIn Facebook Maria Lewis as well so anything I can do to support uh I love love working with assistant principles and principls in any capacity that I can um can support So reach out to me I'll definitely reach back out to you as well good stuff and folks we're not done this is just we do you know we I want to get I like to get this in the middle I went kind of past the middle but uh I like to get this in for when we have uh Peak numbers on right now so uh Dr Sheek Snider how do they how do they reach you and how can they follow you on social media so it's Dr D she AC across all social medias uh Tik Tok Instagram x uh I can be reached through all of those Avenues I do have a website drd.com um I have done consultant work I've done Keynotes I've done breakout sessions at conferences I've worked with universities and their principal preparation program last spring I did some work with USC um so if you just go search me David shnider you can get in touch with me pretty easily uh my gmail address is the and then shider like my last name at gmail.com and always open to working with people whether it's in a paid role or not I just really love connecting with the people out there and helping anybody I can because all of our kids and all of our teachers need help man regardless of where you are and who good stuff good stuff Prince of Park I know you're not doing it professionally but maybe this will be this will be the launch so um whether it be however however you would want someone to contact you or um you or following you on social media absolutely I have a x account C Wily c w i l l i510 also you can contact me you type in my name and it's going to come up whether it's Linkin or Facebook it's under my name I don't use it Alias you can type in my name and you'll find me also if you want um you can email me at my personal email it's saysay Parker atgmailcom S ysy Parker gmail.com come cuz I love talking and speaking to people so I started it with say say because I want to say something and I would love to contribute to whatever you need and support I'm a open book and I love just talking to people good stuff good stuff and Rodney Richardson had um asked about blue sky I'm on Blue Sky he probably knows that at principal C that's um a new platform it's the answer to the folks the The Exodus from X um I'm still on x but I I've lost thousands uh from this Exodus and I opened up a blue sky account at principal CA so anybody want to follow me there then uh certainly go to Blue Sky at principal CA it it it's really blue sky at principal C.B sky. something else but you can just put it in as um at principal Cil and I'll I'll pop up and then and then the other thing before we jump back in it I I I'd be remiss here if I didn't mention this um the new one what is my value instructionally to the teachers I supervise uh you can get this at Amazon although the first batch of books sold out there's another batch on a tractor trailer somewhere they're telling me not to first it was January 3rd then it was fourth then it was fifth today is saying sixth so I don't know but but I'm kind of optimistic that the truck will get there you know there's a strike so I know that there's issues with that with Amazon but I'm kind of thinking it'll get there in December but uh if you can't wait if you want if you if you if you wanted to read it over the break go to ascd.org once again as the initials asd.org just um search for me on that website go to resources than books and then put my name in and it'll come right up ascd.org um I happen to know that the book has already sold over 2,000 copies and it came out this week December 16th on Monday so it is doing quite well right so uh continue that I want this in the hands of everybody that could benefit from it so whatever that number is that's my goal that's my focus for the year 2025 um a lot of my other work I'm I'mma do it but this is my focus this is this is my baby right now what is my value instructionally to the teachers I supervise go to ascd.org or go to Amazon get yourself a copy enough said we got a discussion to engage in so let me get back here you you all good on time all right all right let me get back here we were going back to principle Parker so let me get myself structured here and we are on here we are here we are number number four creating a culture of possibility we're talking uh bigger picture cultivating schoolwide excellence and we've got these subtopics and here creating a culture of possibility and and um principal Parker gave me a description and let me just read that to you real quick establishing a culture where challenges are seen as opportunities fostering Innovation resilience and Collective ownership of change to improve instructional delivery to increase students understanding of the curriculum and and expected outcomes so with that said my first question before I get into mine what are you what are you saying to us basically you know by us having being a district of innovation and having long-term subs and having um expiring teachers as well as our veteran teachers and implementing a curriculum that's fairly new I'm just creating that opportunity to let teachers know it's okay failure is how we learn not by just constantly failing but having those failures and turning into opportuni and not challenges I think a lot of times as instructional leaders we want everything to be perfect but we can learn from not being perfect and how to navigate those changes and support our staff support our students support our instruction leaders support our coaches as well as our APS and so having that and creating those possibilities versus looking at the negative oh education is tough right now kids are our behavior is bad um everybody's leaving the professional what can we do to create those opportunities where we're seeking the ones that want to be in this professional and they do not know what to do and how to do it and cultivating them so they can be their best sales and so I think when I thought about um creating a culture of possibility that's what I thought about you know we do inin our plc's and I know we'll probably talk about it later we do uh rehearsals where the teachers are teaching us as students and giving those teachers a sense that oh I didn't do bad I I want you to do less that you struggle with so before you get to the the kids we have cultivated you where you are ready to teach them with your best self and you can teach them and delivered instruction effectively and so just creating that culture of possibility around the whole campus when a student come to you that had a behavior problem figuring out how can I turn that around as an opportunity to promote them to be them their best selves so I when I think about creating a culture of possibility just turning around for opportunities and not thinking of the negative as a challenge cuz education right now everybody across the world is thinking of it as a challenge but it's not it's opportunities for us to pour into students so they can succeed so they can too be the next leader I love it you know and and when you say that I you know it makes me think about I always say to myself and in fact I say to people thank God for my setbacks my my temporary f failures because my setbacks my temporary failures are what allowed me to grow and you know I have a sports background and I remember either during the basketball season or even after the basketball season ended in like late February it's still snowing and I remember going down to the park and it would the the the basketball court would be snow covered and I would bring a shovel I would shovel the area of the of the lane with the fou with the foul line and I would do my regular foul shooting and and and my motto was always I'mma shoot 25 shots if I miss one between one and 25 I got to start over and I can't go home until I hit 25 consecutive right so and that's even in the winter when it was snowing and and my hands feel like bricks right so by by missing a shot it made me start over But ultimately it made me better so somehow not knowing I would ever become an educator but I brought that with me into education so I always welcome failure and and when I had people around me on staff who Mr C we have a problem Mr C we got no we don't have a problem we have an opportunity right and and and I had to train that kind of thinking and I think I did with a lot of people right but but they' never heard it before so so to them it's a problem and now it's something negative no this this is a win it just looks like a problem right so it's just about us getting into that kind of thinking that we can turn anything into a win if if if if if we've got the kind of thinking that will allow that to happen so that resonated with me and uh good stuff any any anybody want to weigh in on that if not I got a if not I got a question question I wanted to throw at you um let me throw the question at you and the question I'm I'm looking here at my notes what I just said to you was actually in my notes and I didn't know it right so so so let me go to my part B principal Parker how do we Inspire that kind of shift in thinking as opposed to a bunch of people walking around the school with this is a problem that's a problem oh my God this is a new Pro how do we shift that that thinking into no this is a possibility this is an opportunity I think it starts with us as Leaders admitting our own failures admitting when we're wrong to them it's okay for us to go to the staff and say you know what this didn't work I tried it but guess what it didn't work so let's let's let me hear your ideas you know I think it starts with us leading as an example and saying you know we're not perfect we're not perfect I'm your instructional leader but I'm leading aside with you we're on the same team and so that's where it begins we cannot lead this work alone and we don't know all the answers that's why we have the instructional cultes that's why we have the assistant principal that's why we have the teachers that's why we have the parents so it takes all of us as a community to know okay we're leading together and we can make the difference together and so when those opportunities arise seek to the ones that know the answer cuz you are the as the instruction leader you don't know everything and and you're not supposed to know everything but you do have someone on that staff whether it's a teacher a student a counselor assistant principal instructional coaches they may know the answer and it's okay for us to seek that guidance and say hey I don't know this one you got this you know especially with me knowing that I came from high school and I have a high school background and I always LED in high school when I shifted to Elementary it again it made me a better leader because I had to lean on the ones that knew the answer and I had to be comfortable enough and vulnerable enough to say I need your support in this because I'm learning it too I know best instructional practices I know how to coach you to be the best leader that you can be but I also know third grade curriculum is different from ninth grade curriculum so I'm going to need your support on this and tell me why you did this you know and being vulnerable enough to say when you need that help as an instructional leader I love that word vulnerable that's that's you know that's the word in this context you know I left that on the screen Tony mclin I appreciate that I forgot um if you're a premium ascd member your book is either already at your place your wherever your mail goes from ASC or it's on the way uh premium members and that's 5600 people receive a free copy of what is my value instructionally to the teachers I supervise so thank you for the reminder uh Tony mclen I I I literally forgot about that um what a blessing for the book to be a book of the month uh for ascd for December for premium membership enough said um because of time let me let me keep moving let me keep moving um okay next one next one next one next one because of time let me keep going we on number five here um Dr Lewis Collective efficacy and then you gave me a brief description you said a shared belief that we can achieve our goals through Collective action um I typically I've been saying talk to us but I actually have a question I wanted to give you to drive what you say to us walk us through the process of developing shared beliefs because I'm I'm I'm thinking about the school and we know that this this school exists somewhere the school where you've got so much diverse thought or or or one might say Divergent thought right where we we we we have high expectations over here well we kind of well nah not here you know and and then everything in between walk us through this process of shared beliefs where we we we we we all believe we can win the Super Bowl this year right we all believe we can win the NB a finals this year not a segment of the population all the way to the opposite extreme of it'll never happen here floor is yours well I think if you have the luxury of interviewing and hiring your team you know you can you can start there with the conversations and understanding what individuals core beliefs are core values are do you have a shared clear understanding that our role is to support students in their growth and velopment and open doors for them so if you have the luxury of hiring people and you can ask some of the right questions to get to their core you know you bring those folks on board with you that that's if you have that luxury um if you don't have that luxury I think it is in you modeling what your expectations are and Clarity in what that shared Excellence is going to look like across the board now that's really easy to to say right and it's nice to write um but the work is the challenge and I think the work comes along with conversations conversations and consistency I think the biggest way to to pull a team not I shouldn't say pull that's a that's not a good word to lift everybody up I'll go back to lifting everybody up to lift everybody up is to be consistent in your words and your actions that consistency builds integrity and your words your actions have to Max your words so what you say you're going to do you need to do what your school's mission and vision are it needs to be visible in the hallways on the walls in the building it needs to be alive and I think the best way to get people to believe and that shared belief is to help them experience successes efficacy is developed by small success so if you are successful in one thing and you feel good about that you're going to go another step higher you know we talk about efficacy all the time but we really don't talk about how do you develop ethicacy you develop it by success and I remember as a teacher I got my students or my students were able to be successful on one assessment and then what do I start to believe I believe oh I can do this I can be successful I can I can actually influence and impact children so I I can I can do this so I think as the leader in the building we have to help the adults around us experience and feel success because if they feel success they want more success I was an athlete as well I'm 61 I'm sitting down you can't can't tell it I was an athlete as well you become a strong athlete by one like you said principal C shooting shot as much as you possibly can and consistently yep I got it shooting that shot as consistently as you possibly can so you are successful at it and then what do you do you believe that in that clutch moment you can do it because you've been successful before so how do we build that Collective efficacy that belief that we can impact we coach people up so that they experience success so they believe they can experience success success breeds success and and you have a shared Vision across the board I think um 100% will you get most likely not I'm a realist as well and I know that we have our little thirds and thirds that we continue to pull up and our goal is to get everybody moving um but once everybody's moving it will happen you'll have your naysayers and sometimes naysayers may you know they may get tired of your messaging and your positive mindset and your all of the things that you believe in and they may choose to go a different path then that's okay as well you know because everybody's not going to be on your train everybody's not going to be moving forward with you and it is okay for them to exit you know that's okay also but if we're trying to be build Collective efficacy we have to build that with each and every person that is willing I'm going to I'm going to emphasize willing because some people aren't willing and that's okay but those who are willing to join in and be a part of something great I believe if you have that person you can move but you know they have to put in the work too and they have to have that willingness and that belief as well yeah I you know I love it I think about you know we we we we we know the expression setting people up for failure but there's a setting people up for success and when you talk about an environment whether it be a sports team whether it be a business an organization a school a school district whatever it is and the the the norm is failure the culture is failure then I can't you one can't go in there talking about championships you can't go in there talking about trophies because there's no culture of winning there so so if if if we can and and this is just the the piggyback on what you already said if if one can set one up for success with little victories right I don't I don't need Super Super Bowl right now like like give me just a win like you take my home team here in Jersey the New York Giants right they got three wins right so so so it it won't be realistic for whomever the head coach is next year to say this is a Super Bowl season but if but if we could say let's let's win at least seven six or seven games that's a success compared to three this year which I'm sure they gonna lose the rest because they're probably tanking at this point but let me I digress right so so it's it's it's setting folks and and and and and by the way Dr uh shik neider you I know you're not smiling over there with them New Orleans Saints right so hey man we got one Super Bowl we happy at least we got one so and Marlin's on here too that's another one so so yeah I'm I'm with you them little victories man them little victories because then I start feeling like oh okay yeah I we we we can do this because of them little victories they they matter hey somebody out there them little victories matter I see you Marana I see you anybody want to weigh in I think he said it best principal cell just the small goes um a lot of times as Leaders we want them to reach for a large goal like oh star is coming star is coming the end of year Tes is coming but if we can take small small wins with small this assessment let's just focus on this assessment let's focus on the next one and then those small go goals turns into big goals and then you eventually you do win so I think you did say best you and Dr um Lewis I appreciate that then I'm I'mma keep going then um I'mma go to David let me let me get my screen back and what number we on we on number we on number six here um School communication structures you you you at within the building outside the building leverage social media communicating with parents communicating with um student body communicating with local business organizations I actually had a question here too as opposed to me saying expound on that let me let me throw this question on you in terms of some specificity um I know that you um like myself you you're big on social media and social media has has has been a very important tool for me me as an entrepreneur it has gotten my message out pretty widely um what what I want you to do expound on the significance of social media as a Communications tool since you had mentioned that earlier yeah probably one of the most important things I did as a principal um was how I decided to communicate with our faculty staff and students from day one right uh I'm a big believer in like if you are the principal and you're the culture Builder you want people hearing it from you right because you can type up a nice little newsletter and tell the teachers to tell the kids this but no one is g to deliver that message the way you want it delivered right so what I started doing was uh and I did this from the beginning every Monday morning I had a YouTube video for the entire school to watch so Friday afternoon I would type it up I had a a technical assistant who would film it we would edit it up make it engaging put little jokes in it or whatever but the kids were hearing things like be better than yesterday and all that stuff they were hearing that from me every single week so Monday morning when our kids came to school in Home Room our teachers and students watched that video all together at the same time so all 750 kids hearing the same thing from me in the same way all the pr all the teachers are hearing the same thing from me in the same way and so that's really how I was able to build a lot of the culture there because they were hearing it from me and not just from like tight from somebody right or not just like some random voice on the intercom when the kids are not listening anywhere you know kids learn through like YouTube I have a son that a debate with me to the death about LeBron James Russ Michael Jordan I so you never even got to watch Jordan play he goes yeah but I was looking at this YouTube video you know it's how it's how they they learn about things in the world so our kids at school had a YouTube video from me every day talking about hey this what's going on at the school this is what the football team did last week look at what our band accomplished hey I was in some of your classrooms last week that's what this is what I saw this is what I'm looking for remember be better than yesterday and we would edit it up and put like you know celebrities in it like edit Taylor Swift in the middle of it and kids thought like do y'all really know Taylor Swift and I was like oh yeah she comes here all the time you know just little silly stuff like that but but that really was the basis for kids getting to know me me getting to know the school and people being like man this is a little different and then guess who else can watch those YouTube videos parents people in the community and so they felt like they knew me too um and so that was something we did it was a ton of work if you go on Ed week they actually did a ho write up on it and it'll give you some more specifics yeah um but but that's something that I harnessed and kids would come find me in a hallway and go man I like that video this morning and I was like oh man thanks what's your name hey how's your classes going and it just allowed me to organically build relationships with our kids and so what wind up happening from there is like the little funny clips that I would put in there and it might be me dancing in the hallway one time I gritted in the hallway as part of a little thing with the kids and so kids came up to me at lunch and go man you should start a Tik Tock and I was like look I'm 40 I don't have a Tik Tock I'm not getting Tik Tock and they're like no I'm telling you you got to take those parts from your morning video just clip them up real small post them on Tik Tok and eventually during Christmas break one year I said you know what let me do it that's where the kids are you know if you want to fish you got to go in a fish right so let me start a Tik Tok and so man I'll be dog on I uploaded some videos and within a week we had gone viral there's a video of me gy in the hallway I got like 1.2 million views or something and so we started uploading a bunch of stuff there but it's awesome because if you go look at those videos in the comments our kids are talking about how much they love their school right and oh I like my principal and oh my school is the best and when you can have 12 and 13 and 14 year olds coming to school on a Monday morning excited about coming because they're gonna get to watch a video this morning and I like my school and I like my principal man like the heavy lifting is done right they're already in a good mood they want to be there but I had to be vulnerable enough to do that and if you go look at like the very early videoos we did I kind of cringe at some of them sometimes but but I was willing to to go through that growth part because I knew it was an effective way to communicate with kids and get the message out the way we wanted it out so I just kind of stuck with it stack days stack days stack days and eventually by the time we got to year three and four and five the videos kids were coming to us going hey are you doing the videos this year I'm a new student like they knew and so it was just a really effective way to communicate with kids build culture because you can influence kids and and people they can be influenced but it has to be done in an influential way they're not GNA get influenced on your newsletter you know so you have to try to find innovative ways to do yeah you know I've taken down a lot of my videos um from over the years you know due to growth um I remember with with selfie videos I I can remember back in the day before we were doing it on phone it like I the laptop is in front of me going going different places Outdoors holding the laptop in my hand and doing these selfie videos and um and there's there's a whole channnel I have for young people it was called message to your son and then it became message to the youth and there's like 225 of those I I started doing those in like 2012 is the only reason I haven't taken that entire Channel down because because they're all from back in that era is because a lot of teachers are still using them because I was I was G I'm so embarrassed by them because they're so old of the the the computer's wobbling and all that kind of stuff I'm walking and it's shaking but they're saying we still show those in the in the auditorium in the classroom in the cafeteria and all like I'm like really so you know I keep them up but the stuff I made for Professionals for educators I deleted all that stuff man because because I've grown you know now you know you you can prop the phone up on something and it's no no more movement you know all that kind of stuff so I hear you hey to the fam out there we almost done we gonna go one more time around and then we'll do the rapid fire and we'll be done so hang on in there with me for a minute I I didn't cover everything because of time but uh um we got one more time around so let me go to let me go to number seven here which would be principal Parker um give me a second while I get it up here um here we are um and this is the one that you had alluded to building collaborative culture uh Implement a 90minut PLC session for teachers District impact to conduct rehearsals with authentic feedback plan and practice sharing best practices deeply explore the standards in curriculum and analyze student to enhance student outcomes and Foster a collaborative culture you you had made reference to that um to the to to the the um PLC rehearsals but um tackle that however you want to well you know and and building a collaborative culture not just even with academics we also have a cult a culture where POC is important across the campus so we have PLC committees where it's a culture committee and we have different subps in those committees that that promotes positive School culture where we don't not just talking about academics but we also connecting with their social emotionally needs for the students and staff as well as the parents and so we have a family engagement committee so we have those different committees on our campus to promote the culture for academic Excellence as well as social emotional needs of our students our staff and our community but inside of PLC that's our Sacred Space where teachers are able to vulnerably talk about things that they don't know inside of the curriculum and we tackle it and we go deep and we dive deep into the curriculum where they're able to go and teach the students and so as I said earlier you know with us having being a district of innovation campus and having all those different levels of teachers we we utilize our experts inside of PLC so our teachers that are not able to deliver the content where they need to be they're able to have that rehearsal that ATB where they can teach it in front of us and we can give them that authentic authentic feedback one thing that we do we do challenge them to bring in something that they don't know or that they're not able to teach because often times when you get inside in front of your peers because at that moment I'm in their I'm their peer I'm not their administrator we want to show our best selves I don't want you to present something that you're going to be great at I want you to present something to us and teach something to us that you're not going to be great at so we can help you get there and provide and ask those questions that you need to ask the students so they can be successful so that's one of the things that we do do um it was funny when I first got to Elementary because Elementary was different from high school where I had all this support and all these needs and I could be in every PLC well this last year was the first year that I decided to bring a little bit of high school down to Elementary and we do 90 minute plc's where they can truly go through that PLC cycle the whole cycle where you have that planning where you have those BS where you have those opportunities to analyze student work so we can increase the student outcome and so it became um great since I I'm I'm rated to be a b this year so now we're doing it districtwide in elementary because what I found I had so much support in middle and ele in high school then you get to elementary like where is everybody where is all your support something is missing and so you have to be able to take that risk and take those Alles so you can be successful as a leader in elementary yeah and that and I'll just say to the F out there that that PLC process uh professional learning communities that's important so make sure that that's an integral part of what you do right but then what what uh principal Parker is talking about in this case those those those rehearsals and role plays Etc that's that's uh that's that's powerful stuff so you know make that a part of what you do that's why we are that's why we're here every Saturday morning uh let me let me keep moving because of time um so I'm going go to Dr Lewis and you said everyone deserves a coach and you followed it up with leadership coaching has the ability to unlock the potential in principles so that principles can remove barriers for our most vulnerable students uh I want you to expound on that but let me th let me throw a question at you real quick um give us a sense of the the interpersonal qualities that are lead leadership coach should possess oh that's a great question I had an amazing leadership coach and I'm just going to throw his name out there Mr Jimmy kasus was my leadership coach and he embodied all of the things um so that question I would say the interpersonal skills or abilities that a coach must have is the ability one to listen deeply to listen to what the indiv idual is sharing to listen to what they are not sharing so that ability to to to to to listen to to truly listen and hear and then next I would say the ability to connect I think in leadership coaching you have to have that connection with the person that's coaching you so listening and connecting I did my research on this for my dissertation and and that was one of the things that I asked my participants what is it that you want to see in leadership coach they said number one they want to connect with that person they want that person to have to have experiences that they can bring to the table so it was important for the leadership coach to have served in a leadership role being a principal that was critical they wanted their leadership coach if if it's principal as you're coaching they wanted their leadership coach to have been a successful principal and I say that as a coach we are not telling people what to do we hold up that miror principal CFE that's what we do as coaches we hold up that mirror so you can look inter internally and say what is it about my behavior what is it that I need to change we don't go in and and and hit people over the head and say you need to do a b c and d there is a distinction between a coach a mentor and an evaluator the coach is is coaching you up to be the best person that you can by giving you the opportunity to fail sometimes because then you can come back around and you can talk about what did you learn from that failure what are you going to do differently because of this situation how are you going to help that person recognize their potential um so so those are the skills you have to be an excellent listener you have to listen more and talk less you have to not be the person that's going to fix everything you have to build help that person build the capacity to fix their own challenges and help them to experience successes another thing is helped them become effective communicators um one of the biggest things that we see or hear in leadership is uh communication is broken communication is not great communication is not clear I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing so we have conversations around how do we ensure that we are being clear in our communication we are being clear in our expectation and that we are providing the supports necessary when someone might not just have the skill yet it's that power of yet they don't have the skill yet so we are going to help them develop that skill and and that's what a coach does and it's not because someone's doing so poorly that they need a coach because as athletes every single person has a coach the greatest athletes in the world have a coach that's right because they're going to get better so I think we have to remove a stereotype too that coaches only work with those who are not meeting expectations coaches work with everyone to move them to that next level so that's why I believe everyone deserves a coach I truly do um in my research uh principles I've spoken to they're like we're handed the keys to the castle but no one's there right to walk alongside us no one's there to debrief with us no one's there to say hey do you want to try it this way so we aren't necessarily setting up all of our principles and assistant principles for Success because we're not giving them that person to walk alongside them it's different from your division level evaluator you know it's different from the mentor that's going to teach you the ins and outs it's a it's a clear distinction between my my role as a coach compared to a mentor or an evaluator so that's why I believe everyone deserves a coach because everyone deserves to be the best version of themselves and everyone deserves to develop skills and be intentional about what they want to accomplish so that we have more you know principles in that place where they can look in the mirror and say yes I did impact student learning yes I did provide a I'm going to steal the words a employee friendly environment yes I was able to do those things um and and that's why I think everyone deserves a coach love it before I go to um Dr David I wanna I wanna i w to ask you something you made a distinction between the um a mentor a coach and and and the leadership yeah I think I got that right um I want you to I want you to draw I I want you to speak to the the fine line between being the evaluator of record and a mentor that same meaning that that it's it's the same person who's the evaluator but I'm also trying to function as a mentor talk to us about that fine line and and and even if that's feasible if it's doable I'll say it this way because sometimes it crosses the it crosses lines like I am an evaluator because I have individuals that I supervise they're on my my list that I'm required to do observations for that I'm required to do those things but I take it very personal that before I'm getting to that evaluation piece I'm giving you the skills because I want you to win right I want you to win so as the mentor I may be coming and showing you some of the ropes so that you get the pro the logistics down you understand those capacity things that you um operational things that you have to have as a principle you have to have the operational components you have to know the the building inside and out you have to know your crisis management plan you have to know all of who to contact if something goes goes wrong in your building you have to know those things a mentor can tell you those type of things they can set you up for the operational success right now I'm I'm going to slide on over to the coach role so I've given you those operational things now I'm going to be giving you some feedback some specific feedback on what I may see and then I'm going to let you practice that feed like I give you feedback on your instructional practice you go in and you try it right are you going to be successful the first time probably not but if I've created a space where you can feel safe you can practice it without you thinking of me as evaluator coming in to Mark you down for something because right now I'm still coaching you I'm coaching you so I'm coaching you to have the skill okay so I've I've showed you the ropes I've given you feedback I've coached you to have the skill but in that coach role I'm not your evaluator right but sometimes the evaluator and the coach are the same person so after I've given you all the things I can and I've coached you up then maybe I'm going to move into that evaluation role because because you are someone I supervise and I have to go in and you know formally write the things that you're doing well um you know commendations recommendations I have to write all of those things up so I would say it this way it's a Continuum I can operate on the Continuum of being a mentor coach evaluator but when I come in and I do some of my work as an outside person I'm slow solely coming in as that coach role but then my nine to- five every single day job I have to do all three of those things um and principles have to do all three of those things and I think you should be clear on letting your assistant principles or teachers know what role you are playing in that moment right now I am solely coaching you so it is okay to mess up and make mistakes because I'm going to coach you before I come in and start to evalu you um because I don't think it's fair to come in straight at that evaluation role when you know you need to be that coach for a set period of time because you want again to set that person up to win we want to set everybody up to win so I would say it's a Continuum I you know I love it and and and see with this in the introduction I have a paragraph where I'm explaining why I chose to use the word supervise right um what is my value instructionally to the teachers I supervise because because yes we want to be that Mentor yes we want to be that coach but in terms of you the principal or the AP at the end of the day you're being held accountable for how well you supervise this person so I ask you that question because because for me and and the reason I would even have that paragraph in the book is because those lines can get blurred see if if if I have a relationship with a mentor with a coach I have no problem and I'm not speaking for me I'm speaking generically I have no problem being vulnerable and transparent with you but when when it comes down to now I'm I'm it's my relationship with my supervisor then then then there may be a different facade that I have versus the person who is literally genuinely mentoring in me where I can be vulnerable and I can talk about my shortcomings and I can talk about my fears and my challenges and so forth whereas if I know you got that red pen so to speak now now I may not present myself the same way so I know you you know you said a work in progress and I know that as a principal as a AP we have to wear all three hats but I wanted that person that reads this book to know that at the end of the day you're being held accountable for this teachers progress so and therefore in what way are you a value to this teacher in this case instructionally relative to that teacher's performance right so but but I'm I'm with you all the way but it's it's an interesting conversation and it may even be a topic of discussion and I bring you back so that you could be one of my guests to talk about it that fine line between being in within the same body supervisor or evaluator or slash evaluator coach and Mentor that's that's a tough one and and and I remember being in that role and I remember certain teachers it's just it just boiled down to the personality of the teacher so I'm being humble I'm being friendly but because I wear a hat that says principle that teach teacher is shaking in his or her boots regardless of how friendly I may be because they know they know the power that I have I would you know I tell when I'm doing a lot of workshops I'll say to people you know a lot of times when I when I when I would do any any value an observation conference which I like to call conversation I might take that out of my office and I might take my jacket off and I would sit in a student's chair it's particularly the middle and elementary level as opposed to the teachers CH because I wantan to I want to be lower so that I'm looking up and the teacher looking down at me because I want to strip as much of the power that I have from me as I can to put teacher at ease that this person genuinely is trying to help me to be great not just evaluate me and that connotation that comes with it you know so I'm not disagreeing with anything you said I'm just on here preaching my my my thoughts to support it you know so yeah good good stuff good stuff but that that line man I I think I feel like I'm like stuck now in because because I I hadn't thought about it that deep until you said what you said Mentor coach supervisor and that's why I say the role of the principal is not an easy role it's it's it's it's a challenging role yet as as as as as principal Parker would say but seeped with with with opportunity yeah any any you know I know we way over now y'all probably trying to watch the Chiefs and in the Texans but but but any thoughts on that I'm curious I always said the the best principles and best administrators they're like magic you know like they can do everything because when you're talking about the the hats that we were just talking about you have to be highly skilled to be able to shift gears between those hats maybe even in the same conversation right yeah um and so you know the people who are best at that man they're few and far between which is why I think it's important to have some diversity in those roles and different people to suit some of those roles for you she she said it well I think you got to be honest with you gotta let the person know who's sitting in front of them yes if I'm coaching someone I'm GNA say right now I am coaching you and I saw someone that I coach pop up on that screen a minute ago and he could he could contend to this I tell him right now I'm coaching you if you want me to tell you what to do that's a different role yeah that's a different role I I can do that role as well because I can operate that Contin but I'm going to tell you I'm coaching you right now so you need to be able to be vulnerable with me in this space or I can't do my job as the coach so when I'm in evaluation mode you need to also know that but it's not going to be I got you right it's not gonna be in I got you I love it I love and I think you need all of them you may have that one teacher or instru uh AP you just have to Mentor them so you can supervise them so you it it's it's intertwined um you may have one that you have to just coach you can't Mentor them you GNA have to coach them then you may have one you just have to be strictly supervisor mode because they you holding them accountable so it's just that different level of accountability it's not I got you it's I got you right yes yes yes yes that's right that's right good stuff y'all that's that's I think I'm gonna make that a topic at some point that's uh that's good stuff let's let's let's let's close it out yeah had one more doc um he said empowering students and employees employee retention employee recruitment student advocacy mindfulness uh Student Activities and involvement employee and student feedback cycle that's a lot there one minute meetings with every student individually a belonging task force purposeful relationship mapping there's a lot we what you want to close us out with on that just a couple things that I did um that I thought were really beneficial they're on there uh one minute meetings so myself and a counselor I had two counselors it took us about six days uh but we would let a teacher know up front hey next week I'm gonna come to your class on Wednesday I'm G have a desk in a hallway I'm gon meet with every kid that you see that day we Paul kids out of class one at a time hey what's your name how's your year going just a couple questions or whatever but we met with every student face to face individually each year so you think about a kid being able to go home and like Mom I talked to the principle in the counselor today oneon-one you know and so it really kind of helped us build those relationships it took a lot of time on our part but it allowed us to get a lot of great data from our students it allowed us to build relationships uh it was something we had to plan in advance and it was a commitment but it it made a difference you know that type of one-on-one personalization made a difference uh we also started a belonging t Force we read man the name of the book Escapes Me Now I think Crown Apple was the author but it was about um equity and belonging and we made a task force on our campus to make sure that we were Equitable we used the rubrics in the back of the book and did Equity walks just to make sure that we were treating kids the same way we did discipline audence just all those sort of things that you want to do to make sure that you're cultivating a school culture where everybody belongs regardless of what you look like where you come from all that because every kid was important to us and then we started relationship mapping the last two years there where basically we had every kid take a survey and it said do you feel like there's an adult on campus you can trust that you have a positive relationship with then we as the teachers hey take your roster and Mark a x next to every kid you feel you have a overwhelmingly positive and strong relationship with we cross referenced those two data sections and we came up with a list of kids that one didn't feel like they had a positive relationship with a teacher and two that no teacher listed and so we took that list and we sent it out to teachers and so I knew you know if I taught eighth grade science hey in my first period I have David and Mariah in class and those are two kids on the list I gotta make sure I talk to them every single day even if it's not school related just to try to build a relationship with those kids and make them feel welcome in the building so we really tried to be intentional about all the those things because we wanted every person whether you're adult or a kid to feel like you belong there and like you were part of something because if we can accomplish that everything else was easy great stuff great stuff and it's so much you know given what you gave me so much more we could talk about there but I'mma I'm G bring it to a close so that we could jump into our rapid fire bam impact questions that's um we I normally do 21 questions but we'll do 777 these are one sentence um responses or onew responses anything over any if if you find yourself inserting a comma then you've gone too far and I have to give you the buzzer a right so uh rapid fire here we go we're gonna start with principal cesley Parker is education on the right path for underserved children yes can true Equity occur in America schools for black brown and other un underserved students yes does uh principal cesley Parker's work contribute to the progress we desperately need yes if you could do a reset on your life would your line of work be different or the same the same why do you continue to do this work I love what I do what particularly fires you up within the work that you do the people I serve what do you dislike about the work you do the hate in the world Dr Maria Lewis what has been your greatest victory in your work thus far seeing others grow and become the best version of themselves possible what was your greatest mistake in the work you do thus far going too fast not slowing down and reflecting earlier in my career what has been your greatest challenge in your work thus far combating negative negativity just combating negativity around education um combating that in inspiring positive thought and growth mindset are you proud of your first year as an assistant principal I am proud of my first year but I've learned from it because every year is an opportunity to learn and be better than the day before are you proud of your first year as a principal I'm proud of that as well of the accompl ments and then the opportunities that I've grown from who inspires you in your work who my my boys inspire me I have two young African-American male boys and they inspire me because every student that I look at is is is mine and that's my inspiration because I want them to have doors open what book would you recommend for the fam out there this afternoon of course your book principal CA L that I'm waiting waiting to get and read because you know instructional leadership is critical and key appreciate you Dr sh sha Snider what do you want to accomplish that you have not accomplished yet it's my hope that uh I can accomplish things that I can't even conceive yet so I can't answer that question wow are you satisfied with where you are professionally uh my favorite one of my favorite rappers W would say satisfactions for suers okay what would you say to APS out there who who continue to face closed doors to the principal ship they need to critically reflect build on their areas and make it so that they hope that not that they hope they're getting notice but that they're impossible to ignore what would you what would you say to a AP to APS out there who feel their talent is being wasted Talent is undeniable so they need to continue stacking days and grinding what would you say to a principal out there who who what would you say to principles out there there who who've lost their leadership passion uh I think they need to remember their why and do some soul searching because we need passionate leaders what would you say to say to principles out there who lost their leadership confidence you know if you've lost confidence it's probably because you're going through something pretty challenging and ironically enough challenges and obstacles is what builds confidence so they are right where they need to be to build that confidence back up and if Dr David schnick checks see see I'm locked into what I thought it was all week man was was a word in a dictionary what would be your definition someone who relentlessly pursued continuous Improvement but had fun while doing it if principal CES Parker was a word in a dictionary what would be your definition inspiring others to be their best selves and if Dr Maria Lewis was a word in a dictionary what would be your definition inspiration optimism and leaders grow leaders love it love it love it and that brings us to the end uh great stuff to the fam out there you already know what we do um we give our guests your favorite emoji if today's session resonated with you if it was beneficial for you if it was if you found some nuggets you could use or if it was just good content then give us your favorite emojis uh give us give us quite a few of them keep them coming keep them coming you already already started but to the folks who are new to the platform that's how we applaud our guests and then I get my emoji here got my big Louisville sluger and we just knock it out the park y'all hit it out the park every time you came to plate to the plate uh four times at bat Grand Slam home runs home whole lot of runs scored today you did a marvelous job man this was just great content great information keep them emojis coming y'all I see them all four platform I appreciate you keep them coming keep them coming this was really good stuff and I thank you for it uh once again let them know how to contact you Dr Lewis will'll start with you please reach out send me an email Coach Maria Lewis atgmailcom you can find me on um LinkedIn Facebook me I'll be happy to get in contact I love communicating and conver having conversations with uh leaders around the country Dr Sheek Snider same thing how do they reach reach you Davis shnider Jr you can Google me and you'll be able to find everything you need it's uh you can find me on LinkedIn or Facebook that way Dr dsh on Instagram Twitter Tik Tock uh and dsh Snider gmail.com we appreciate those um those emojis coming man they coming in powerfully Doc um principal principal Park I keep W to call you doc you know that you bringing it into existence you bringing it into existence they can meet me out uh reach me at seay parker. CP atgmailcom as well as on um X at C Willy 510 or they can Google my name and it'll come up under cesy Parker my Facebook platform is CES Parker and every all my other social media is under CES Walker appreciate it you know uh to the fam I'm gonna get ready to close this out but um I meant to say two things number one the person from Trinidad and Tobago who was watching I appreciate you uh it's always nice when we got International we always have our fam Jaclyn Harriet up in Nova Scotia Canada but it's always nice when we got other people from different parts of the world checking in too so I forgot to acknowledge I hope you're still there appreciate you checking in from Trinidad and Tobago and then the other one is uh jacqulyn Harriet I I noticed the comment where she said that Jasmine Harris it was good seeing you in Atlanta at at the uh National Alliance of black school Educators so you know my initial thought was like I didn't see you in Atlanta Jasmine Harris so so did what you must not have been there the day I was presenting because I was only there that one day but uh I see you with I see you in CIA somewhere uh in 25 um let's see let's see hey folks let me uh any any closing thoughts to my guests quick closing thought if if if you have any if not don't worry about it well I'll just say this continue to be great every single day know that you make a difference that you inspire and you are the difference so continue you doing the great work of building the capacity of all those around you there you go there you go thank you principal C for what you do with your platform and continue to elevate and lift others up with you thank you to everybody out there who was paying attention today hopefully you found something that you could take to make things a little better for your kids and your teachers thank you principal cell for inviting me on the show I it was definitely an experience that I I look forward to continue and thank you for inspiring me one to go get my doctorates as well as you know just continue to do the work um I would just like to say for any aspiring assistant principal who doors have may been closed that's an opportunity for you to learn and continue to watch the show cuz there's some great nuggets on the show that you can get to inspire you to continue to do great but don't let that door be closed the last opportunity turn that into a positive and keep striving to be great love it love it all right folks let me give you the rund down um and then we going to close us out and then y'all can watch football all day because that's all I'm going to be doing uh so next week is week number 244 we got the Fantastic forcoming uh so that'll be myself Sean hurt Dr sheika Houston birthday uh woman Dr Tammy Taylor um and and uh Josh Tovar and Dr Marty Mareno um we will be here together and we'll be just talking about some stuff that's just relevant to all of you so that's how we going to do it know what agenda we just going to let it fly and we're going to talk about things that we feel that will resonate with the people who watch our four platforms so with that being said join us next Saturday at 10:55 same time and we gonna have a great closing out the year that's going to be uh December 30th so it's going to be uh no the 28th that's what it is that's December 28th and it's just going to be a great uh closeout for 2024 so next Saturday join Sean herd at 10 o'clock on Facebook live create and educate with Dr shika Houston Dr Tammy Taylor at 10:30 and then we'll all be together with me at 1055 and then Josh and um Dr Moreno will be together again um on Sunday at 7 o'clock hey y'all if you don't have a copy get yourself a copy um if you can wait for January 6 that's what Amazon is saying right now they all on a truck somewhere but I'm I'm optimistic that they're going to get in sooner but if you can wait uh then go to Amazon and get yourself a copy or copies plural but if you want it right now just go to ASC that's my publisher ascd.org where is it at it's somewhere there it is ascd.org just get yourself a copy from there you can even go to Barnes & noble.com they have copies as well but um go to ASC go to the publisher and that way they can give me a better count of how many we've sold um when I check with them again probably at the end of January but we at about 2,000 right now I ain't I ain't complaining about that but get yourself a copy or copies um my leader my uh my school Leadership Institute which I'm calling my instructional Leadership Institute join me in Raleigh Raleigh North Carolina July 15 16 go to principal ca.com scroll down to where it says instructional Leadership Institute click the link to take you to the event bright page and then go on and register and I'll see you there you get a free copy of this and if you're one of the first 50 to register you get a free copy of this right and then also again the premium members of ASC 5600 copies have been sent out so maybe yours is on the way if you're a premium member of ascd make sure you subscribe to the AP and new principles Academy YouTube channel subscribe surprise me and take me to 23,000 we needed five more when we started the uh started this morning I don't know where we are but we needed five more to hit 23,000 subscribers right so um if you haven't subscribed subscribe and even hit the notification Bell so that you can be informed when we go live um and then visit um principal ca um.com for additional resources and then finally as always your diet make sure you eating right your exercise some of you may have seen my Facebook and X post yesterday I was outside it was frigid man I had two pairs of gloves on it was snowing but I got them miles in I only did two though yesterday I got them two miles in and uh and I and as I posted someone might saywell why don't you just go to the gym where it's warm I don't like the gym Vibe man every time I go in the gym I'm the oldest one in there that's number one number two um I just like being alone I'm I'm a guy I'm a man of the people when I'm working but when I'm not working you hard pressed to find me around people outside of my family I'm I'm an introvert it just doesn't come across in the work because I love what I do but outside of that I just don't like that's just not my thing right the gym is crowded with bunch to young people um and I'm I'm going to say this to you I you know I hope it's received the way I want it to be received uh I'm in the gym and and it's excessive nword in there right and and and I can't I can't deal with excessive nword because I I want to teach all the people but it's too many people to be trying to teach like 100 people in the gym and as I'm walking the gym it's in word that in word this in word that it's it's it bothers me right then the music is playing and it's more inward so I just can't subject myself to that environment right so uh you know if I could sit all in PE like if they gave me the mic and I could I I could do a lecture right in the gym then then then you know but they ain't gonna do that they'll probably lose customers right so uh you know but it is what it is I walk outside in the fridge of temperatures but from from January to March I'm typically in the gym because it's just too cold to be out there man I need four pairs of gloves I need I'll need four pairs of socks it's just that bad so I go to the gym from January to March and then I'm paying my $21 every month for the rest of the year so I'm just throwing money away but hey it is what it is other than that y'all your pro your Co Pro your covid-19 or any other diseases out there precautions make sure that you are doing the right thing whatever whatever precautions you got to take I'm not going to make any recommendations just make sure that you realize that covid has not gone it's here right and all the other viruses they're here right so don't don't don't go out here acting like ain't everything is all good and kosher no it's not it's bad and them airplanes that I'm on I'm so glad I don't have to fly another one till January 5th but them airplanes man that's that's that's a toxic environment as far as diseas them people sitting on that plane they cough without covering their mouth man I look at them I I give them to Star down because because if you think you going to do this whole flight by doing that so here here go me like I'm trying to look forward and H come that cough I can see him out the corner of my eye ain't think about covering they just cough right I'm like this here really right so that's what I do either they sitting next to me or they sitting across the aisle from me and and let's say I'm sitting at the window and there two people next to me and they across the aisle here go me I'm I'm just I'm just going to look at you right hopefully that teacher stare going to do something so so you can't see me on C so let me do it on camera then I'm I promise I'm G leave here here I go because cuz we we gonna be up here for four hours man you can't do that like like just so so to really embarrass him like I got them surgical mask I know y'all I know I said I'm G stop but y y just hear this y'all I got them surgical mask right I got them in the bag but you gonna do that then I'm going to embarrass you I put pull out the n95 right but not my black one I pull out my white one that's really going to stand out because you know that n95 like got that beak on it so I put on the n95 and then I go like this here somebody say CFE Diva man yeah yeah man that's c i because you gotta stop man because I can't wear that thing the whole flight because I got to eat at some point right so you know that's that's how I do it I pull that n95 like I'm acting silly my wife probably like yo okay it's time for you to shut it down all right y'all look and my mother too she on here she my mom be 90 like uh next week is it next week yeah next Sunday my mother be 90 right so we'll post that then but she on here right now she hasn't missed not one of these right so she on here hey Mom I see you I'll call you later all right y'all have a great week have an extraordinary week have your best week yet peace peace thumbs up that fist back one two three bam I see y'all next Saturday have a great week everybody oh and a great holiday Merry Christmas Happy qu uh happy Hanukkah happy Quanza all that good stuff man I'll see y'all next Saturday stay there y'all