LYS High School Principal Search - Last Days to Apply

LYS Executive Search

~ High School Principal ~

A large, Northeast Texas school district is searching for its next high school principal

The successful candidate will have

• Demonstrated leadership success as a secondary campus administrator
•  Demonstrated success educating at-risk student populations
• LYS training and experience, preferred

Information of note

• Large 4A/5A high school campus
• Urban, suburban setting
•  Diverse student population
•  Competitive salary and benefits

Qualified and interested candidates submit the following to Search@LeadYourSchool.com

• Letter of interest
• Resume
• Administrator’s certifications
• Two letters of reference
•  Recent campus performance data

Application Deadline: June 12, 2013

Search Consultant: E. Don Brown

LYS Executive Search

(832) 477-5323

LYS Nation, once again a school district is targeting you to be its next campus leader. Time to step up again!

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: Texas Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

A Board Member Writes... CSCOPE is the Root of All Evil (Part 4:3)

In response to the 2/15/13 post, “It Seems That CSCOPE is the Root of All Evil (Part 4 of 4),” a school board member writes:

SC,

I appreciate the information that you have provided as I currently serve as a school trustee. We are currently discussing purchasing CSCOPE. However, your presentation reeks of ill will toward others and I have grown so tired of the hatefulness and discord from both sides of the aisle. I think you would be better served to present your information in a straightforward factual manner.

Again, I do thank you because you answered a lot of my questions that I am hearing from my constituents. By the way, these people aren't stupid, mean-spirited, or evil - they are just trying to find answers.

SC Response

Thank you for your civil agreements and points of contention.  I cannot begin to express how much I appreciate it.  When I present to groups who have questions about CSCOPE, I share the pros and cons about the tool.  In my writings, prior to the “Root of All Evil,” posts, I endeavored to lay out a rational argument for the mission critical need of a vertically aligned, common scope and sequence, of which CSCOPE is an example.

The tone of the “Root of All Evil,” posts was different because of the traction the irrational, illogical arguments had gotten.  I did not make up the attacks that I listed; they were actual quotes.  My intent was to expose those attacks for the craziness they represent and provide some facts / rationales to counter those attacks. 

And as always, not liking CSCOPE or recognizing the imperfections in CSCOPE, isn’t in itself good or bad.  In fact, the rational critiques of CSCOPE only serve to make us better consumers and CSCOPE a better product. 

On the other hand, when political extremist hijack an issue to further their own agenda, we can either wring our hands or we can do something.  The posts were my attempt to do something. I have no stake in CSCOPE, but like you, I do have a stake in rational discord and I do want to make sure that for those who are looking for it, they can find real answers and logical arguments.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: Texas Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Blog and E-mail: A Review of Functions

Some of you have seen a version of this post before, but since I wrote it, we have added approximately 200 new members to the LYS Nation.  Therefore, I thought a refresher might be in order.  The following is my attempt to explain the features that are embedded in the blog site and the e-mail updates.

Note: This section relates to the blog site (not the e-mail updates).

On the left side of the page, E-Mail Updates: If you enter your e-mail address in the subscribe box, you will get a daily e-mail update of all the postings within the last 24 hours, after you respond to the confirmation e-mail (a spam preventative).

On the left side of the page, under the E-Mail Updates area:  UpTweet – If you like a post, click UpTweet and it takes you to your twitter account so you can post a link on your timeline.

On the left side of the page, under the UpTweet area:  Lead Your School Resources and Tools - Links to the Lead Your School Principal Search page; Lead Your School campus support site; PowerWalks site; Amazon.com page for “The Fundamental Five: The Formula for Quality Instruction”; Amazon.com page for “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale”; and the Amazon.com page for “Jump Start Your School”.

On the left side of the page, under the Lead Your School Resources and Tools area: Current School News - Click on any of the four key words and the most current news stories that relate to that key word will be displayed.

On the left side of the page, under the Current School News area: Popular Posts – Shows the three most viewed blog posts from the last thirty days.

On the left side of the page, under the Popular Posts area: RSS Subscriptions

On the left side of the page, under RSS Feeds:  RSS Followers

At the bottom of the blog page, under the last post of the week: Blog Archives - Click on a week, and all the posts from that week will be displayed.

Note: This section relates to the actual posts (on the blog site).
If you click on a post title, it will pull up a comment box at the end of the post. Just type in your comment and click the "post comment" button.

At the bottom of each post, click "comment" and you can leave a comment or read comments others have left. However, the majority of the comments, I post under the heading, "A Reader Writes."

At the bottom of each post, click the envelope if you want to e-mail that post to another person.

At the bottom of each post, if you click a "Label" word, it will pull up all the other posts that have the same label words.

At the bottom of the post, there are reaction boxes. You get to rate the post.

Note: This section relates to the E-mail updates.

If you click on "Lead Your School", it will take you to the blog site.

If you click on a post title, it will take you to the post and there will be a comment box at the bottom of the screen. Just type in your comment and click the "post comment" button.

Note: This section relates to Reader Comments.

This is how all comments are handled:

Your comments, opinions and question are welcomed and encouraged.  Keep them coming.

All comments opinions and questions are reviewed by me.

Comments, opinions and questions, where it is asked that the information not be shared, receive a private response from me.

One liners and comments that do not require a response are just posted as a comment.

Comments, opinions and questions of merit are posted as, “A Reader Writes…”  They are posted in a first come, first serve fashion.  So sometimes it takes a while to get to yours.

I don’t know if it is proper blog etiquette or not, but I spell and grammar check comments before I post them.

Comments are handled with a modified FERPA procedure.  I will and do mask the identities of some writers, their schools and their districts.  I do this to protect the writer and who or what they are writing about.

Post format.

Text in italics is the comment of the reader.

Your turn… This is your invitation to weigh in and join the conversation.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: Texas Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

State of the Blog - The Last 100 Posts (1,300 and Counting)

Hello, LYS Nation.  This is the 1,300^th post to the column, so as has become a tradition, we will review our progress. 

First, the review:

The 1^st post was on Monday, February 16, 2009.

The 100^th post was on April 14, 2009.

The 200^th post was on June 10, 2009

The 300^th post was on September 2, 2009

The 400^th post was on December 16, 2009

The 500^th post was on April 7, 2010

The 600^th post was on August 2, 2010

The 700^th post was on December 17, 2010

The 800^th post was on May 17, 2011

The 900^th post was on October 5, 2011

The 1,000^th post was on March 7, 2012

The 1,100^th post was on August 24, 2012

The 1,200^th post was on February 1, 2013

The 1,300^th post is today, June 5, 2013

The 1,300 posts represent more than 1,570 pages of single spaced text.  This is the equivalent of about a 6,300-page book.

The top 10 posts, in terms of distribution, have been:

1.     Campus Security Checklist (12/18/2012)

2.     Your 6-step STAAR Preparation Strategy (12/14/2012)

3.     Make the Last Month Count (5/9/2013)

4.     A Teacher Shares... Testing for Testing’s Sake (5/8/2013)

5.     It Seems That CSCOPE is the Root of All Evil – Part 2 of 4 (2/13/2013)

6.     A LYS Teacher Asks... What Do You Really Think? (3/19/13)

7.     A New Principal Asks... Student Apathy (3/29/2012)

8.     Top Tweets From the Week of May 12, 2013 (5/20/2013)

9.     Early Voting – The “Pro School” Litmus Test (10/22/12)

10.  It Seems That CSCOPE is the Root of All Evil – Part 1 of 4 (2/12/2013)

There have been over 255,580 page hits.

There are 1,547 e-mail subscribers. Thank you!

There are now international readers and e-mail subscribers, with the following 34 countries represented: Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Japan, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, and U.S. Virgin Islands

All of this is incredibly exciting; especially when you consider that not too long ago, every number was 0.

A Little Blatant Self Promotion:

First, if you like the blog and you haven’t signed up for the e-mail subscription, please do so.  I find that it’s easier to write to people than it is to write to web hits.

Second, if you like the blog and find it useful, tell three other people.  This blog is a much more powerful resource for school improvement when it is a dialogue.

Third, if you have not sent in a comment yet, please do so.  Education research points out that the act of critical writing actually makes the learner smarter.  Let the blog assist you in sharpening your saw.

Finally:

Thank you so much for reading and responding.  This network, which started out as a way for just a handful of principals to stay connected has turned into a small nation of board members, central office administrators, campus leaders, and teachers who are focused on redefining what students are capable of.  Who knows what we will discuss in the next 100 posts.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5
• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: Texas Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

PowerWalks Hero Schools (May 2013)

In furtherance of a LYS Nation tradition, we will take this time to tip our caps to the campuses that have embraced the most important step in creating and maintaining an action oriented professional learning community.  These are the campuses that have conducted an extraordinary number of formative classroom observations in a given month.  There were a total of 2,911 PowerWalks conducted during the past month and the May targets for Hero School designation were:

Big Schools – 200 PowerWalks Observations

Medium Sized Schools – 125 PowerWalks Observations

Small Schools – 60 PowerWalks Observations

Very Small Schools – 30 PowerWalks Observations

Now without further ado, here are your sixteen PowerWalks Hero Schools for the month of May 2013.  Congratulations!!!

Elementary Schools	Junior High and Middle Schools	Alternative Schools	Combined Campuses	High Schools
McFee ES - 310 (CFISD)	Big Spring JH (BSISD) - 147		Louise Schools – 185 (LISD)	Fairdale HS – 236 (JCPS)
JH Hines ES – 215 (WISD)	Tidehaven IS – 30 (TISD)			Marlin HS – 181 (MISD)
Ray ES – 186 (HISD)
Kendrick ES – 183 (WISD)
Bell’s Hill ES – 133 (WISD)
Cottonwood Creek ES – 111 (HISD)
Hutto ES – 85 (HISD)
Brook Ave. ES – 79 (WISD)
Specht ES - 73 (CISD)
Dean-Highland ES – 68 (WISD)
Dublin ES – 30 (DISD)

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: Texas Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations)
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Top LYS Tweets From the Week of May 26, 2013

A number of you in the LYS Nation are now Twitter users.  If you haven’t done so yet, we want you to join us.  To let you see what you are missing, here are the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of May 26, 2013.

1. Students who take at least 2 AP courses in high school are more likely to complete a 4-year degree than their peers who do not. (By @DrJerryRBurkett)

2. Don't change your lessons to fit technology, find the technology to fit your lesson. (By @redwriter2783)

3. Individual teachers can adopt 21st century practices, but real impact comes when an entire school embraces the same vision. (By @sjunkins)

4. I always say, "It's all about personnel..." A great teacher can make use of any "tool" and will be effective! (By @HalLRoberts)

5. For those celebrating a reduction in EOC's. Nothing will change in grades 3 - 8 and we never got to the upper level HS tests. Performance issues will remain. (By @LYSNation)

6. If you are being recruited your social media account will be watched. They don't know you, so what you post is who they think you are. (By @ONeilCHSprincip)

7. Be a rebel and dare to use a CSCOPE lesson next year! (By @tra_hall)

8. Don’t treat unconnected teachers like they are doing something wrong. Reflection doesn’t have to be done online to be effective. (By @sjunkins)

9. Teachers had a purging and packing party! Teacher says, "Thanks for forcing me to clean out!  It's amazing how much I didn't need!" (By @hjgrubbs)

10. All my High School athletes wish they were done with HS and all of my Alumni wish they had 3 more years in HS. I wish they all enjoyed today. (By @hansonrun)

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5
• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: Texas Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

LYS Principal Search - Middle School (Northeast Texas)

  LYS Executive Search

~ Middle School Principal ~

A large, Northeast Texas school district is searching for its next middle school principal

The successful candidate will have

•  Demonstrated leadership success as a campus administrator
• Principal experience preferred
• Secondary experience preferred
• Demonstrated success educating at-risk student populations
• LYS training and experience, preferred

Information of note

•  Mid-sized middle school campus
• Urban, suburban setting
•  Diverse student population
• Competitive salary and benefits

Qualified and interested candidates submit the following to Search@LeadYourSchool.com

• Letter of interest
• Resume
• Administrator’s certifications
• Two letters of reference
• Recent campus performance data

Application Deadline: June 13, 2013

Search Consultant: E. Don Brown

LYS Executive Search

(832) 477-5323

LYS Nation, once again a school district is targeting you to be its next campus leader. Time to step up again!

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5
• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: Texas Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook