Top Tweets from the Week of September 3, 2017

If you are not following @LYSNation on Twitter, then you missed the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of September 3, 2017 when they were first posted.  And if you are on Twitter, you might want to check out the Tweeters who made this week’s list.

1. This quote sits on my mind today: "My whole career has been about 'You can't do that,' and guess what: I did that!" -E. Don Brown (By @jackson_carrie)

2. Congratulations to LYSer, Becky Flynn! She is the new Assistant Principal at Roosevelt Middle School in OCPS!! Who will be next? (By @LYSNation)

3. For elected officials to treat teachers as threats rather than heroes is an astonishing affront to civil society. (By @pastors4txkids)

4. Texas Senate to Texas House: "We will starve your schools until you let us privatize them." (By @pastors4txkids)

5. Some kids go an entire day without anyone saying their name. Be the teacher who speaks to each student by name every day. (By @justintarte)

6. School leaders must consider the instructional cost of any activity. (By @SRead806)

7. Don't be afraid to take the road less traveled on. LEAD your school! (By @Crysrommuel)

8. Research: "Homework in elementary school does not contribute to academic achievement," but daily reading does. (By @DanielPink)

9. Prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse. (By @TheEconomist)

10. I am confident my students will perform much better after I read your book: The Fundamental 5 (Cain & Laird). Excellent book!!!!! (By @michaelwillis08)

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 
• Upcoming Conference Presentations: The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote) 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Top LYS Tweets from the Week of July 23, 2017

If you are not following @LYSNation on Twitter, then you missed the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of July 23, 2017 when they were first posted.  And if you are on Twitter, you might want to check out the Tweeters who made this week’s list.

1. Excited to share that E. Don Brown, the LYS and NASSP Principal Emeritus, is the recipient of the 2017 NASSP Distinguished Service Award. We could not be more proud of our HERO. (By @LYSNation)

2. If it's good for kids, we're going to do it. -E. Don Brown (By @LYSNation)

3. Texas cannot drastically cut education funding and then rail against "failing schools." You can't be the arsonist AND fire marshal. (By @DiegoBernalTX)

4. Private school with nice, big sign stating: "Now Enrolling, New Students." Public school's sign would say "Always Enrolling, All Students." (By @MikeforSchools)

5. "Doing it bad is the first step to doing it better" (By @AsstSuptAAA2)

6. The public education of American children has never been more important than now. (By @pastors4txkids)

7. Sean Cain and Mike Laird (authors of The Fundamental Five) shared their advice on an effective teacher evaluation process. Pure common sense and crystal clear… as always. (By @kgrawer)

8. High performers devote at least 5 hours a week (1 hour per day) to reading, reflecting, or experimenting. (By @DanielPink)

9. Thank you, Sean Cain, for your essays which expose the corruption of private school vouchers! (By @pastors4txkids)

10. Sometimes you reach a point when sitting on the sidelines is no longer a moral and ethical option. (By @LYSNation)

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 
• Upcoming Conference Presentations: The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote) 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

More Staff or More Training

The question that every principal wrestles with come budget time, do I invest in staff or training?  What your Assistant Superintendent, Business Manager, HR Director and Title I Office want you to do is fill up on staff. 

It’s the easy solution.  The budget is allocated, class size is reduced, and operational stuff and things get done.  I’m not saying they are wrong. But I’m not saying they are right.

More staff just facilitates the status quo, just a little more efficiently.  But more staff rarely changes anything.  Sub-par instruction for 28 students isn’t made better by providing sub-par instruction to 21 students.  And operational stuff and things being taken care of have next to no impact on the classroom.

What I suggest (and did) is follow the advice of Great Principals.  Go LEAN.  That’s right, don’t add staff.  Instead invest in training.  Train like there is no tomorrow.  Improve the skill set of every adult on the campus.  Make them more effective and more efficient.  That way when the budget is squeezed and everyone else has to cut staff, you have a staff that is better prepared to handle adversity and effectively teach any student in any setting.

Here are two, field tested ways to make this happen.

1. Absorb a position. This is what E. Don Brown would do.  If his staff allocation was 100 teachers he would hire 99. Then with the unused salary, he would have $50,000 to $60,0000 as a training budget.

2. Capture your vacancy.  This is the solution that I used.  Everyone has a vacancy pop up during the school year.  The vacancy is never filled immediately which creates a budget surplus (Central Office knows this and loves this).  But while this surplus is growing, everyone on the campus has to work harder.  What this means is that the campus suffers while the district reaps the reward.  So, I went to my Superintendent (Bob Brezina) with the following proposal, since the staff was having to work harder and was short-handed, let me use the vacancy surplus to bring in on-going training to reward the staff for stepping up. Brezina loved the idea and my staff were among the best trained in the city.

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 
• Upcoming Conference Presentations: Texas ASCD Summer Conference, TASSP Summer Conference, Virginia Middle and High School Principals Conference; The National Principals Conference; The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote) 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook