Talking Out of School

Superintendent Bill Runey shares how he reshaped leadership at the Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School District—and how the relationships you invest in carry you through your hardest moments.  

Edward Aldarelli said the biggest transition he made when he moved up from principal to take the helm of Edison Township Public Schools was becoming the New Jersey's district "head visionary."

In the wake of recent tragic school violence incidents in Colorado and Minnesota, K-12 administrators and district leaders face an urgent imperative: ensuring their emergency response plans and protocols are up to the task of protecting students and staff. This timely podcast revisits and expands upon critical school safety strategies from the “5 P’s” methodology (Planning, Process, Protocol, Practice, Prevention), a comprehensive framework for school safety preparedness that transforms theoretical safety plans into life-saving action. What You’ll Learn – The 5 P’s Framework: Planning: How to identify and prioritize vulnerabilities in your current safety infrastructure Process: Developing clear, actionable emergency procedures that work under pressure Protocol: Implementing effective lockdown plans and communication systems Practice: Conducting trauma-informed drills that build confidence without causing harm Prevention: Establishing proactive threat assessment and early intervention strategies When an emergency strikes, there is no time for confusion. The goal is to build muscle memory, so staff and students know exactly what to do without hesitation – from identifying vulnerabilities to implementing lockdown plans that actually work under pressure.    Podcast Guests  Ron Shaffer  Industry Solutions Leader, Education  Salto  [email protected] 

When it comes to creating safe, sustainable, and student-ready schools, capital planning is more than a financial task—it's a leadership priority.  In this podcast, experts in the field will explore why capital planning is foundational for K–12 success, especially as districts face aging infrastructure, evolving learning environments and the spaces that support them, and the need for more stakeholder support. Hear from experts as they explain how capital plans can secure investments from the community and create a culture of strategic thinking, and how district leaders can obtain accurate facilities data to make sound financial decisions—contributing to a healthy and well-maintained learning environment for students.    Key Takeaways  Why capital planning is more than just addressing the worst items first  The role capital planning has on stakeholder buy and investments  The ROI of well-executed capital plans  How to collect and manage accurate facilities data  How district leaders use facilities data to make financially feasible decisions on facilities maintenance and stewardship    Speakers Caroline Johnson Wade, Senior Director, Sales, Gordian  [email protected]   Chad Hancock, Associate Director, Planning Services Department, Gordian  [email protected]     To learn more about Gordian's capital planning solutions for K-12, visit our website or contact us.

The Brain State: 10 Essential Tier 1 Supports for Educators and Students District leaders who promote brain state model-based approaches, like Conscious Discipline and Applied Educational Neuroscience (AEN), in their schools equip educators with the knowledge to properly instill self-regulation and emotional resilience in students. Educators who understand their brain state - or how the brain functions - can teach behaviors as learnable skills to foster student wellness, while ensuring their own actions are preventative and adversity responsive. At Tippecanoe School Corporation (TSC), Conscious Discipline-Certified Instructors partner with in-district Neuro-Educators to provide PD districtwide for teachers to learn about the brain state through the TSC’s CDAT team, called the Brain Brigade. In this podcast, a TSC Neuro-Educator and partnered Conscious Discipline Certified Instructor will explore how the Conscious Discipline-informed Brain Brigade trains educators on using these skills districtwide, including a critical component of the TSC program, “10 Essential Tier 1 Brain-Aligned Practices.”  Key Takeaways:   District Perspective on Tier 1: What district leaders need to know about “10 Essential Tier 1 Brain-Aligned Practices” to enhance cognitive development, self-regulation and engagement in their schools  Promoting Brain Culture Districtwide: Conscious Discipline (CD) brain-based approach and implementation strategies help teachers embrace and understand the importance of self-regulation and Applied Educational Neuroscience  Family Engagement Strategies: Best practices on communicating with families to promote mental wellness at home and why this matters  Assess Your District Needs: How to identify if the integration of comprehensive Applied Education Neuroscience and CD practices are right for your district Speakers Katie Ahearn, Certified Instructor, Conscious Discipline Anne Marshall, Neuroscience Educator and Instructional Coach, Tippecanoe District For more information on how to receive Conscious Discipline's training and coaching tailored to your district's needs, contact our Partner Development team here.

District leaders are under increasing pressure to support the individual needs of students with disabilities, who comprise approximately 15% of national public school enrollment. One way to help students with special needs is by providing a digital learning environment. One study* revealed that online learning has provided this population with added flexibility and convenience to manage and absorb information at their own pace, along with individualized learning opportunities that address their specific challenges. In this podcast, a digital learning expert with experience developing online, blended, and hybrid programs for special and gifted education students will provide school and district administrators with best practices to support students with special education needs in the digital learning environment. GUEST: Nikki Callaghan, Director of Exceptional Student Education, FlexPoint

Arming students with the skills to traverse the internet responsibly is education's latest challenge, says these two leaders live from the Future of Education Technology Conference. 

"We oftentimes don't think much about training with adults on social-emotional development, but we're not done growing," says Karen G. Foley, president and CEO of JPA Chicago.

Johnston County Public Schools Superintendent Eric Bracy used ESSER dollars to pay for a high-quality, research-based curriculum. Now, the move is paying off.

Cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and diversity are three of the top issues in K12 IT departments. They are also the big themes at next month's FETC 2025. 

Over the years, Director of Purchasing Gary Kerbow has been tasked with daunting construction projects when helping Hurst Euless Bedford ISD expand. Once, the board of trustees needed a recently acquired building up and running as quickly as possible, but copper thieves had looted the entire infrastructure, requiring extensive rewiring. Another time, Gary had to determine the full scope of repairs when creating offices for new management staff in an existing warehouse space. Most construction veterans would consider these requests near impossible, and they would be if Gary didn’t have certain procedures and tools in place. In this podcast, Gary will speak about the lessons he’s learned from these and other projects at a number of school districts in North Texas. Key Takeaways:  What superintendents need to know when assigning similar time-sensitive tasks  Best practices for vetting vendors to ensure difficult projects are completed on time  When procurement directors need to reconsider where and how they procure critical parts  How staffing levels and needs impact renovation/construction projects  How to streamline construction projects through collaboration and communication  Ways to innovate the scope of work for all contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers  Speakers Gary Kerbow, Director of Purchasing, Hurst Euless Bedford ISD 817-399-2036 [email protected]   Will Leisure, Account Manager, Gordian [email protected] 817-964-7441   RESOURCES K12 Contact: [email protected] https://www.gordian.com/solutions/industry/k-12/

On the latest episode of District Administration's Talking Out of School podcastI, FETC featured speaker Kimberly Zajac share ideas for using the efficiencies of artificial intelligence to make instruction ever more inclusive.

Today, we're joined by Francie Alexander, senior vice president of efficacy and consulting research at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), to discuss the pressures placed on edtech companies to produce results in school districts around the country. She also shares her advice for those in charge of selecting edtech tools for their districts and how to choose the most effective product.

You’ve probably heard about AI's large language models. But what is a "small language model" and why might this fine-tuned version of artificial intelligence work better in K12? 

An incendiary presidential election, compounded by social media and cable news, is pushing us further away. But as superintendents and community leaders, we can bridge the gap, Katy Anthes says.

In this episode, we're by Sasha Rabkin, the chief of program strategy and innovation for the Advanced Education Research and Development Fund, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research and development in K12 education. Today’s discussion is on philanthropy and its role in K12 education initiatives and how leaders can implement more inclusive models of philanthropy while utilizing equity-focused research and development to inform these discussions.

Can school district leaders afford not to make media literacy a pillar of their instructional programs? Teaching the subject effectively is key to graduating students who are productive citizens, Superintendent Shari Camhi, says.

Jeremy Anderson walks us through how the National Math and Science Initiative is connecting districts with state and federal programs to close opportunity gaps and increase college access through advanced STEM education. 

Many districts are challenged by outdated, costly and inefficient processes when it comes to the purchasing and procurement of instructional resources, which can frustrate teachers and staff and create significant waste. In this podcast, the recently retired superintendent of the Spring Grove Area School District (Penn.) will discuss how the district found ways to better support teachers and staff with the educational resources they needed, which had a direct impact on student academic outcomes, while reducing costs and improving visibility and efficiency. Speakers: Dr. George Ioannidis Superintendent (Retired) Spring Grove Area School District (Penn.) Brett Tuson Director of Education Amazon Business business.amazon.com/education

Lauren Morando Rhim, executive director of the Center for Learner Equity, details her organization’s pivotal two-year study of how charter schools support students with disabilities.

In this episode, we sit down with Bill Salak, the CTO/COO of Brainly, who explains why we might be "under-informing" our students by prohibiting smartphone use in schools. 

Mike Duncan, CEO of Battelle for Kids, guides district leaders in developing a portrait of a graduate that offers students more more meaningful learning and durable skills. 

In this episode, you'll hear from three leaders from the State College Area High School in Pennsylvania who take us behind the scenes of their award-winning PBIS program, which has successfully reduced suspension days and improved the overall school climate.

We’re talking music and other topics with Craig Witherspoon, a former band teacher who is now superintendent of Richland County School District One in South Carolina. He was just namwed ssuperintendent of the year by the South Carolina Alliance of Black School Educators

"Emotional intelligence" is not only a vital part of Superintendent Atiya Perkins' leadership philosophy, it's how she stays in touch with her own humanity.

CAST's Lindsay E. Jones shares how the Universal Design for Learning is helping educators personalize rigorous instruction for an ever more diverse population of students.

What do you learn when you sit down to chat with 15 superintendents at all stages of their careers and from districts of all shapes and sizes? 

In the District Administration podcast, literacy experts Dr. Lynn Kulich and Dr. Robert Zewiecki from Renaissance Learning stress fluency's importance for reading comprehension and proficiency. Despite frequent assessments, fluency is rarely taught explicitly. The podcast covers evidence-based fluency practices, its impact on multilingual learners, and insights from the book "The Fluency Development Lesson: Closing Reading Gaps." Key points include the stagnant progress in reading proficiency over the past 40 years, worsened by the pandemic, and the need for equitable access to complex texts for marginalized students. The discussion highlights the interdisciplinary nature of the "science of reading," debunking the misconception that it solely focuses on phonics. Dr. Kulich uses the acronym CAP—Comprehension, Accuracy, Automaticity, and Prosody—to outline fluency's components, emphasizing that fluency bridges decoding and comprehension. Effective fluency instruction involves teaching these components and includes a balanced approach with decoding and context clues. Research shows that 75-90% of students struggling with high-stakes reading tests have issues with word recognition and fluency. Improving fluency can significantly enhance reading comprehension, accounting for 20-70% of variance in comprehension from grades one through nine. Effective methods include interactive read-alouds, choral reading, echo reading, phrase reading, partner reading, and repeated reading. Dr. Kulich's book, "The Fluency Development Lesson," offers five-day units tied to poems by David L. Harrison to improve fluency through diverse and engaging activities. The book targets teachers, literacy coaches, parents, and caregivers, providing structured lessons and a framework for customized instruction. It integrates phonics, phonological awareness, vocabulary, and comprehension, and has been successful with multilingual learners and diverse classrooms.

If you’re a superintendent or administrator trying to tackle public relations, this week's guests on District Administration's "Talking Out of School" podcast are here to help. Lynette White is the district and community relations coordinator at the Banning Unified School District and Renae Bryant is the director of plurilingual services at Anaheim Union High School District.

In this episode, we have a chat with InnovateEDU's founder and CEO Erin Mote, who shares some exciting news in the edtech space and advice for leaders on closing the digital access divide for students.

In this episode, we sit down with the NASSP's 2024 National Principal of the Year Andy Farley to learn more about his leadership philosophy and his advice for current and aspiring principals in this age of the principalship.

Tiffany Shlain's new documentary, "The Teen Brain," looks through the lens of neuroscience to help teens—and their parents and teachers—better understand the upsides of an intense period of growth and development.

Preventing violence in public schools has been Sandy Hook Promise co-founder and CEO Nicole Hockley’s mission since 2012, when her son Dylan was among the 20 children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. She and the team at Sandy Hook Promise are now a leading voice on making schools safer places and providing mental health support for students by focusing on "upstream violence prevention."

Pamela Shetley and Doug Anthony head the University of Maryland's Education in School System Leadership Ed.D. program, which challenges aspiring superintendents to take on a district’s real-time wicked problem, diagnose its root causes and find the solution.

Recruiting more aspiring educators of color will not only fill teacher vacancies but also propel student achievement and improve school climate, says this week's podcast guest, Javaid Siddiqi, the president and CEO of The Hunt Institute.

Teachers quit the classroom when they lack control, choice and collaboration, says Becky Pringle, president of the NEA teachers union.

In this episode, Dr. Ken Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services,  describes the current school safety climate and what leaders can do now to ensure a safer 2024-25 school year.

Gordian recently commissioned a double-blind study, conducted by Forrester Consulting, shedding light on the pressing challenges confronting K-12 facilities nationwide. Shockingly, nearly half of K-12 school facilities leaders admit to falling short of achieving their primary objectives, jeopardizing student safety, facing costly fines, and undermining the overall learning environment. Delve into our podcast to delve deeper into the report's revelations, and discover effective strategies for district leaders to tackle the prevalent school facilities challenges unveiled by the study. Key discussion points include: 1. The imminent dangers of deferred maintenance and proactive measures for repairs and upgrades. 2. The pivotal role of comprehensive assessments and data in making informed decisions regarding school facilities and infrastructure. 3. Strategies for pinpointing strategic maintenance and renovation opportunities within a school system and understanding their impact on students and communities.

At the risk of telling you something you already know, chronic absenteeism is one of the most serious challenges to superintendents' efforts to get all students back on track. "The churn that's happening in classrooms is now affecting everyone, it's affecting the ability of teachers to teach, teachers to set classroom norms, and kids to learn," Attendance Works Executive Director Hedy Chang says on this week's podcast.   

The Los Angeles Unified School District is taking AI where few other districts have gone before. So how does "Ed, "LAUSD's personalized AI student assistant work?

In this episode, experts discuss the effectiveness of Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) in schools, covering equity promotion, learning gaps, and the importance of various instructional strategies. Dr. Robert Arzawicki of Renaissance Learning highlights the role of foundational literacy in educational success, while Farah Asaraj from the Council of the Great City Schools stresses the need for systemic, equitable MTSS practices to aid all students, especially multilingual learners and those with disabilities.  The conversation underscores the broadening scope of MTSS to encompass behavioral and emotional support and the push for culturally responsive assessments. With a growing trend towards MTSS adoption for equitable student outcomes, listeners are directed to resources from state guidelines, Renaissance Learning, and the Council of the Great City Schools for further exploration, positioning the podcast as a vital tool for enhancing MTSS strategies and fostering educational change.

Leadership and equity expert Baruti Kafele, better known as Principal Kafele, is a powerful speaker with an inspirational approach to PD that drives educators toward their full potential.  

Transforming K12 into a more fully student-centered system is the wicked problem facing public schools, says Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education.

The superintendency is more complex than ever, and turnover rates reflect that. In this episode, we're joined by Harford County Public Schools Superintendent Sean Bulson, an 11-year superintendent who speaks about the importance of resiliency and how he's managed to stay true to the spark that made him fall in love with the profession in the first place.

A group of superintendents makes their voices heard at the White House and in Congress during the “100 Superintendents March on the Hill.”

Marguerite Roza,  a professor and director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, aims to help district leaders make smart decisions about the best way to use financial resources on behalf of students.  

In this impactful episode of the District Administration Podcast, Jill Moley, Director of Development for Conscious Discipline, and Jessica Meisenheimer, Director of Special Programs at Liberty Public Schools in Missouri, explore the transformative power of prioritizing adult wellness and mental health in schools. Amid rising stress levels among educators, our guests delve into why an adult-first approach is essential for fostering a nurturing school environment where students thrive.  Discover how Liberty Public Schools implemented Conscious Discipline, an evidence-based, trauma-informed program focusing on self-regulation and classroom management, to dramatically reduce disciplinary issues, enhance academic achievement, and boost staff retention and satisfaction. Whether you're an educator, administrator, or simply interested in educational transformation, this conversation offers insights and inspiration for making a lasting impact on school culture. Tune in to learn how shifting the focus to adults can lead to a school atmosphere of understanding, empathy, and connectedness, paving the way for the next generations to succeed.

District Administration's Micah Ward and Matt Zalaznick sit down with Denise Watts, superintendent at Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools, to discuss what it's like being a new superintendent in 2024. At a time when superintendent turnover is at an all-time high, she describes why it's an exciting time for new leaders like herself who are standing on the heels of giants.

Dr. Joe Gothard is the superintendent of Saint Paul Public Schools in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is the recipient of the 2024 Minnesota Superintendent of the Year and is among three finalists nominated for AASA 2024 National Superintendent of the Year. Dr. Gothard joins staff writers Alcino Donadel and Micah Ward on the second episode of "Talking Out of School."

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten talks to K12 administrators about how they can support teachers and unify their communities around public education.