Checking Our P.U.L.S.E. For Kids: A Personal and Practical Guide to Effective Educational Leadership

By Robert Nelson

Being a principal or an educational leader matters…TREMENDOUSLY. As leaders, our mission is to be the best educational leader for our school, but it takes a formula to help kids win at life. This book will take the reader through the following acronym, P.U.L.S.E., using it as a pathway to becoming an effective educational leader who will stop at nothing until their students are successful.

P: Principal: The single most influential person in a school. A weak principal brings a weak school.

U: Unity: It takes Unity, Empathy, and Equity to build a positive culture of influence in our schools.

L: Leadership Capacity: Growing, Cultivating, and Empowering leaders in our school will build a sense of ownership that can change a community.

S: Students: Every decision is Student-Centered in our schools. Our future is depending on it.

E: Extra: Effective leadership is about blending a leadership style into the vision for the school. The mission is in the details.

After reading this book, the reader will be able to pass the Final P.U.L.S.E. Check, strengthen themselves as educational leaders, focus on the practical and consistent habitude that will lead to student and faculty success, and spotlight the many questions that we must ask ourselves as leaders and individuals. The world does not have enough great principals to lead our schools, so we must make it count when we assume the principalship. Leadership matters and it starts with us, both professionally and personally.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098353919

Book preview

cover.jpg

Copyright © 2021 by Robert Nelson

Checking Our P.U.L.S.E. For Kids

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known

or invented, without permission in writing from the publisher,

except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection

with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

Printed in the United States of America

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-09835-390-2

eBook ISBN: 978-1-0-9835-391-9

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my wife, Heather, and our children, Brittani, Robbie, Abby, and Emily. Thank you for your continual love and belief in me as a husband and father. To my parents, both of you have always been there for us throughout every step of our journey. Love all of you with my whole heart.

Meet the Author

Robert Nelson is an award-winning educational leader with 25 years of coaching experience helping kids win at life. He has been rated as a Highly Effective Principal in the state of Florida for many years and received multiple principal awards from his district from the Counseling Association, Center for Exceptional Children, Hillsborough Association of School Administrators, Hillsborough Reading Association, and the Hillsborough Parent Teacher Student Association. He was chosen to be the first Lead Principal of High Schools in the nation’s seventh largest district, Hillsborough County Public Schools in Tampa, Florida. In this role, Mr. Nelson facilitated a professional development program designed to grow all principals and assist new principals with increasing student achievement and boosting their overall effectiveness as educational leaders. Additionally, Mr. Nelson completed the School Superintendents Association National Principal Supervisor Academy, a program focused on the CCSSO (Council of Chief State School Officers) Principal Supervisor Standards and the Inquiry Cycle to develop principals as educational leaders. He served on many district committees, presented at numerous district events, and participated in many state and national conferences throughout his career. Recently, he started an educational blog, www.findingyourinnergoat.com, which focuses on his journey as an educational leader, father, and husband and an educational leadership coaching company, Nelson Leadership Group, LLC (www.nelsonleadershipgroup.com). Mr. Nelson received his undergraduate degree in Secondary Physical Education from the University of South Florida and his master’s degree in Educational Leadership from Nova Southeastern University. He lives in Tampa, Florida, with his wife of twenty-three years and their four children, Brittani, Robbie, Abby, and Emily.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1

(P) Principal

1

Core Belief: Finding Our Why for Wanting to be an Educational Leader

2

Measurable Performance: How Do We Know Our It Level of Effectiveness as Educational Leaders?

3A

Sacrifices Part I: The Importance of Balancing Our Professional and Personal Lives During Our Tenure.

3b

Sacrifices Part II: Watch Out for Burnt-Out and Bored-Out

4

Non-Negotiable Opportunities: Our Master Schedule is Student-Centered

5

Most Important Trait: We Have to Hire the Right People

6

Visibility: Be a Mover, not a Sitter

7

Instructional Leaders: Walkthroughs, Feedback, and Follow-Up

8

Leadership Management: Designing Our Systems and Structures to Meet Our Vision

9

Essential Education Terms: Engagement, Rigor, and Differentiation

10

School Strife: Shut Down the Outside Noise or Die by Pleasing

11

Principal Influence: Do Families Move into Our District or Area Because of Us?

12

Performance Decisions: Evaluation is Critical to a School’s Success

13

Simplicity: No Need to Overthink

14

Leaders Always Learn: Always Seek to Grow Our Weaknesses

15

Leadership Fact: Working Smarter and Harder Beats Talent

16

Leadership 101: Operate with a Sense of Urgency

17

Leadership Warning: Do Not Have a Meeting to Just Have a Meeting

18

Professionalism: Do Not Ever Burn That Bridge…Totally

19

Real Talk: Think Deeply About Leadership…Above and Below

20

Key Leadership Question: Will They Run Through a Wall for You?

21

Make The School or Break The School: Move the Middle 50%

22

Mentality: Do Not Accept Excuses, but Do Accept Reflection with a Side of Patience

23

Pre-Planning: Be Creative for and Conscious of Our Teachers

24

Principal Philosophies: How does Retention/Promotion Effect Our School?

Part 2

U (Unity)

25

Developing Bonds: Bring Students, Families and Communities into Schools by All Means Necessary

26

Solidifying Bonds: Securing Relationships

27

Inclusion: We Must Believe in Our ESE Students (and Program)

28

Leadership Difference: We Must Take Care of and Celebrate Our Teachers and Faculty

29

School Culture: Random Acts of Kindness Cannot Be So Random

30

Dream: Believe in Possibilities Unconditionally

31

Harmony: End All Administrative Staff Meetings with Kumbaya

Part 3

L (Leadership Capacity)

32

Professional Commitment: Make Every Decision based on Each Student

33

Trust the Analytics: Let Data Drive Our Decisions

34

School Influence: Building Instructional and Leadership Capacity

35

Quality vs. Quantity Proactiveness: Strategic, Intentional, and Purposeful Decisions

36

Friendly Fire: Use Our Internal Drive for Our Students

37

Our School Faculty: Ownership vs. Rent

38

Instructional Priority Essential: Consistent Progress Monitoring

39

Leadership 102: Accountability

40

Leadership Dislikes: Hate the Words Regression and Complacency at All Costs

41

Details: Small Group is Better Than Large Group

42

Fact: Teacher Goal Setting Can Improve Student Achievement

43

Can I get an Amen?: Technology Does Not Replace a Great Teacher

44

Personal Commitment: Learn to Take Care of Us, Meditate, and Go Home

45

Be Bold: Lead to Make Mistakes

46

The Only Certainty: We Can Only Control the Amount of Time During the Day

Part 4

S (Students)

47

Classroom Facilitation: Let the Students Do the Work

48

Student Discipline: We Must Evolve in Our Mindset and Practice

49

Attendance: The Silent Assassin

50

Student Achievement: Focus on Gains

51

Student Culture: Is it Cool to be Smart in Our School?

52

Rigor: Where is the Bucket of Questions When Students Get It?

53

Switch It Up: Turn Lunch Duty into Student Engagement

54

Somebody Needs to Step Up: Who Owns the Average Student?

55

Electives, Athletics, and Clubs: Not Every Student is Excited for their Core Class

56

Leadership Belief: Our Students Must Write in Every Subject

Part 5

E (Extra)

57

Be Extra: Step Out of the Box for our Students and Faculty

58

Show the Love for the Role: Can We Dance?

59

Leadership Supplement: When Days Get Tough, Listen to Christmas/Holiday Music

60

Leadership Etiquette: Everything is Better with Food

61

Save Your Budget: Quit Buying Desks

62

My Pet Peeve: Do We Have to Use Chart Paper?

63

Sugar and Salt Look the Same: Do Not Sell Your Soul to the Devil

64

Take My Advice: Party Buses Are Not That Much Fun

65

Everybody Loves a Good Raffle: …If You Read Your Email

66

Preparedness: Substitute Teachers will be Needed on Mondays and Fridays

67

Jerry Maguire Moment: Show Us…Our Calling

68

Unfortunate Part of the Job: Our Leadership will be Needed in Tragedy

69

Acquire a Second Diploma: Are We Marketing the Great Things About Our School?

70

Show Me the Money: Go Find A Pot of Gold

71

Sanity Check: Laugh at All Costs

72

Time Management: Confusion Reigns with No Calendar

73

Love: All MEANS All

The Final Exam

References

Preface

Being a principal or an educational leader matters…TREMENDOUSLY. I still have kids in the public-school system and that means it matters even more. Educational Leaders have a tremendous amount of pressure to produce positive results in their school. The pressure from the state education board, central office leaders, faculty members, families, communities, and/or your students to achieve results at a high level and in a quick manner can be daunting and polarizing for any principal. Having a process in place to succeed on a professional and personal level is essential to perform for your students and faculty. The added responsibilities and influence we have as leaders can take a toll, so we must balance those responsibilities so that we can be at our best for our students.

According to the National Association of Secondary School Principals and the Learning Policy Institute, Turnover is a serious issue across the country. The national average tenure of principals in their schools was four years in 2016-17. This number masks considerable variation, with 35 percent of principals being at their school for less than two years, and only 11 percent of principals being at their school for 10 years or more. The most recent national study of public-school principals found that, overall, approximately 18 percent of principals were no longer in the same position one year later. In high-poverty schools, the turnover rate was 21 percent.¹ Not an exceedingly long time to make an impact.

As leaders, our mission is to be the best educational leader for our school, but it takes a formula to help kids win at life. This book will take the reader through the following acronym, P.U.L.S.E., using it as a pathway to becoming an effective educational leader who will stop at nothing until their students are successful.

P: Principal. The single most influential person in a school. A weak principal brings a weak school.

U: Unity. It takes Unity, Empathy, and Equity to build a positive culture of influence in our schools.

L: Leadership Capacity. Growing, Cultivating, and Empowering leaders in our school will

build a sense of ownership that can change a community.

S: Students. Every decision is Student-Centered in our school. Our future is depending on it.

E: Extra. Effective leadership is about blending a leadership style into the vision for the school. The mission is in the details.

Many studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of learning targets (sometimes referred to as learning standards or objectives). Great Schools Partnership consolidated some studies and printed some key conclusions and quotes on the positive effect of appropriate standards and/or curriculum-based learning targets for students.²

The Great Schools Partnership is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit school-support organization working to redesign public education and improve learning for all students. Working at all levels of the education system, from the classroom to the statehouse, the Great Schools Partnership provides school and district coaching, professional development, and technical assistance to educators, schools, districts, organizations, and government agencies. We also create tools and resources for educators and communities, administer public and private grant programs, and coordinate large-scale school-improvement initiatives for foundations and states.³

We, as educational leaders, ask our students the what, why, and how of a lesson when visiting classrooms. We collaborate with our teachers about their measurable learning targets on a daily basis. As leaders, we look to meet our own leadership learning targets, which typically relate to some type of leadership standards set forth by our district or organization. We have been trained, engrained, and branded on the quality of daily, effective learning targets. High quality learning targets are essential to the growth of our students, faculty, and community. This book will be no different. Each chapter will contain a measurable learning target called a P.U.L.S.E. check and a quote related to the topic of the chapter. The P.U.L.S.E. checks in this book will be based on my personal experiences as a high school principal and leadership coach.

After reading this book, the reader will be able to pass the Final P.U.L.S.E. Check, strengthen themselves as educational leaders, focus on the practical and consistent habitude that will lead to student and faculty success, and spotlight the many questions that we must ask ourselves as leaders and individuals. The world does not have enough great principals to lead our schools, so we must make it count when we assume the principalship. Leadership matters and it starts with us, both professionally and personally. As my former area superintendent’s motto states, "No Excuses, Only Success." Conquer your fears, GO lead, and do NOT make excuses. Kids are depending on us.

I will alternate between using the terms students and kids, because sometimes we need to be reminded that they are just that, kids. I will use the term educational leaders throughout this book to serve as guide for any educational leader; assistant principal, team leader, subject area leader, resource coach, supervisor, leadership coach, aspiring administrator, etc., but will always default to the principal role.

Part 1

(P) Principal

The single most influential person in a school.

A weak principal brings a weak school.

1

"Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself.

It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult." 

—Warren Bennis, a scholar, consultant, and author, widely regarded as a pioneer in leadership studies⁴

Core Belief: Finding Our Why

for Wanting to be an Educational Leader

According to Educationdata.org, the United States has 130,930 elementary and secondary schools (public and private),⁵ meaning our country needs a large number of principals. The dream to be a principal of a school is a very realistic possibility. The question of "why we would want to be an educational leader is the most important question we should ask ourselves, and we will ask it on a continual basis. Many educators have asked my opinion about being a principal. My first question in return is always why" do YOU want to be one?

Some Why Answers:

I want to lead

I want something more…

I want to fix this place

I can make better decisions than our current principal

I might as well get paid like a principal because I am making all of the decisions for the principal.

However, the most common answer is "I want to make a bigger difference with kids. Making an enormously progressive difference with kids is a very noble answer and that is why we got into education in the first place. If making a bigger difference with kids" is our answer, then let us ask ourselves the following questions about our "why":

Are we willing to make a constructive difference with each and every student at our school?

How do we ensure that each student will have a plan, system, and/or structure to reach their potential and be successful?

Now what if our "why is not the common answer? I am owed that promotion, I have done all the work at this school, and so on and so on… If we cannot focus our why" on the kids, then our schools will struggle with the details needed to maximize opportunities for student growth and achievement. Hopefully, we can all agree that no matter the circumstances…color, race, financial status, learning background, behavior background, academic standing, etc., we are in our leadership position to make an extraordinarily memorable impact with all of our students and help them win at life. Let us take our initial PULSE for this particularly important purpose.

2

Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes. 

—Peter F. Drucker, a consultant, educator, and author, widely known for his influential thoughts on management⁶

Measurable Performance: How Do We Know Our It Level of Effectiveness as Educational Leaders?

In 2020, the RAND corporation did a study on the perception of school leadership. The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decision making through research and analysis.⁷ Their findings concluded that 98% of principals perceived that they stated a clear vision for schools, high standards for teacher, and made clear expectations to faculty for meeting instructional goals. However, the teachers saw it differently. The teacher findings concluded that 79% of the teachers felt the principal stated a clear vision for the school, 84% set high standards for teaching, and 77% made clear expectations to staff for meeting instructional goals.⁸

A big take-away from this study is becoming aware of the inconsistencies in our own perceptions when compared to the school community. The way in which we perceive our leadership is different than the way our teacher or school community perceive our leadership. Schools move so fast that it is hard to sit and reflect on our leadership at times, but it is imperative that we take a deep breath and study the feedback.

I remember the time when I was promoted to a high school principalship. I was so excited, went out to dinner that night with my family, answering congratulatory texts and calls from friends and colleagues…what a rush of excitement! I went to school the next morning and remember standing out front of the main building in the stillness of the morning and staring at the building in its majestic history and thinking Oh s&%@, I am in charge of all of this. I am responsible for every student, faculty member, parent/guardian/ community members, district colleagues and supervisors…all of them. That rush of nervous trepidation seeps in because you just realized the enormous responsibility and commitment