This practical guide for educational leaders explores how you can transform your school or district into a vibrant center of learning and socio-ecological responsibility with only three manageable actions: taking students outside, bringing nature inside, and cultivating a mindset of awareness, responsibility, and empathy. This book is rich in practical, attainable approaches and stories of real actions taken by leaders, teachers, parents, and community partners to design, lead, and manage a vibrant, flourishing, sustainable learning community. Authors Uline and Kensler take you on an inspirational journey through nine key leadership strategies for you to begin or expand your work towards whole school sustainability.

This exciting book explores how leaders have implemented, sustained, and pushed innovative, deeper learning opportunities in their school settings. Across the United States and around the world, the concept of a school is growing more action-oriented, performance-focused, digitally relevant, and democratically infused. In this book, you’ll hear from real schools and leaders about practices that are changing schools and leading to deeper learning experiences across seven categories of innovative practice—including vision, agency in learning, trust in teachers, openness to new ideas, over-communicating change, equity mindedness, and courage to live outside norms. Leadership for Deeper Learning looks at how school leaders change the status quo and create different learning environments for students and teachers. Rich in stories and strategies, this book will provide you with the ideas and tools to rethink and reignite learning for the future.

This book draws from the successes of award-winning schools, teachers, students, and parents to help leaders understand how they can positively change the educational experience of Black students. When Black Students Excel offers real-life examples of outstanding elementary, middle, and high schools where teachers and school leaders have rejected policies and practices built upon deficit perceptions about the capacity of Black students. Chapters highlight leadership implications and offer specific suggestions for educators who are seeking to transform their schools in ways that advance the success of Black students. This practical guide includes questions to ask students and their parents, self-assessment tools, and an array of leadership and teaching practices that are effective to empower Black students, elevate school attendance and academic engagement, and improve other important outcomes. Unpacking important themes that influence the success of Black students, this book is a useful tool for educators who are seeking to understand how they can change programs, procedures, and practices in ways that engage and empower Black students.

This book explores how school leaders—both formal and informal—can create a supportive culture that leverages teamwork and empowers teachers to become leaders. By focusing on three foundational principles—empowerment, collegiality, and risk taking—schools can develop and enhance educators' capacity for success. With this practical resource, you will learn intentional and actionable strategies that empower participation in leadership at all levels through peer observation and team action planning. The book’s chapters explore how to create systems that support trusting relationships, inspire distributed leadership, provide a vehicle for teachers to learn from each other and take risks, and develop informal and formal teacher leaders. This book provides a positive and proactive approach to collaborative school leadership that will invigorate your school community to work together more effectively for improved student outcomes. Rich reflection questions in each chapter help readers conceptualize the information presented and take actionable steps toward improvement Additional tools are available online for easy download here: www.routledge.com/9781032040554.

School leadership instability is particularly problematic for scholars and practitioners concerned with PK-12 school improvement, as second only to teachers, campus leadership has been identified as a primary factor in students' academic success (Young et al., 2007). Yet, while principals play an indispensable role in students' academic success, the job has become considerably more stressful as the role of a school leader continues to evolve. Specifically, added responsibilities, increased work intensity, and the ever-present menace of high stakes accountability have intensified the stress levels encountered by today's school leaders (Carpenter & Brewer, 2012; Chaplain, 2001; Darmody & Smyth, 2016; Wang, et al., 2018). This intensification negatively impacts a school’s teaching staff and its students, as the overall quality of the school experience can deteriorate if principals are unable to meet their potential due to the burnout and fatigue associated with chronic stress (Darmody & Smyth, 2016; Devos, et al., 2007). For principals to fully realize their ability to serve as catalysts for school improvement, they should be allowed to prioritize physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional health. Desired levels of wellbeing occur in the absence of chronic physical, social, psychological, emotional, economic, and cognitive distress (La Placa, et al., 2013). As authors in this volume demonstrate, many school leaders have commenced specific practices targeting cognitive, emotional, and behavioral wellbeing to cope with occupational stress and flourishing- or, at the very least, surviving in such a challenging environment. Among coping strategies leaders have adopted include mindfulness and other wellbeing interventions/strategies intended to facilitate healthier lifestyles, relieve stress, and improve personal resilience (Aviles & Dent, 2015; Mahfouz, 2018; Wells, 2015). Recently, there has been a call to consider educational leadership through a positive human flourishing lens. Research in this area focuses on integrating wellbeing practices in professional development programs for teachers and school administrators to highlight the positive effects of personal and collective wellbeing in schools (Cherkowski & Walker, 2014). For example, empirical studies have examined how incorporating mindfulness practice promotes positive adaptive skills, stress resilience, and social and emotional skills needed in a school environment (Abenavoli, et al., 2013; Benn, et al., 2012; Dvor a kova et al., 2017; Jennings, 2015; Meiklejohn et al., 2012; Mahfouz et al., 2018). New understandings about the relationship between school administrators' wellbeing and school improvement efforts should ignite interest within the field. As such, this book’s chapters are organized into four distinct sections that provide: (a) an overview of the field (Section I), (b) an empirical argument for why such research is essential (Section II), (c) wellbeing models to be considered for use in the PK-12 setting (Section III), and, (d) specific wellbeing practices and frameworks currently being in PK-12 (Section IV).

What does it take to prepare students, teachers, and school staff to shape a just and sustainable future? In Trailblazers for Whole School Sustainability, you will meet educators and school leaders who are on the front lines of re-imagining school through the lens of sustainability. This book features inspiring stories from around the country, from urban and rural schools and districts, that highlight best practices and lessons learned from teachers, administrators, and students as they transformed their school communities for a just and sustainable future. These stories are structured around a practical framework that demonstrates how this work allows schools and districts to work smarter, not harder, by integrating sustainability and systems thinking into leadership; curriculum and instruction; culture and climate; and facilities and operations. While each school and district’s story in this book is different, the passion that drives each one to embrace sustainability in everything they do, from operations to curriculum, remains the same. Trailblazers for Whole School Sustainability shows what is possible when educators resolve to blaze a trail to re-imagine K-12 education for a just and sustainable future.

This comprehensive Handbook explores how to best understand, develop and practise educational leadership in an era of significant disruption to education. Contributors evaluate the latest developments in leadership in education and provide novel insights into key conceptual and methodological issues.

This book provides a variety of strategies for creating, grading, and using assessments in the virtual setting. With more teaching and learning taking place online, teachers are adjusting their strategies for creating, grading, and using virtual assessments. This strategies-based book helps you understand the key challenges and solutions to delivering virtual assessments, including use of quizzes, digital worksheets, grading, preventing cheating, and considerations of equity, quality, choice, and efficiency. Designed so that you can pick it up and start reading from any chapter, this book covers topics such as: how to create, grade, and use traditional forms of assessment in the virtual space; how to leverage discussion for meaningful learning in the virtual classroom; how to create, grade, and use virtual performances and projects; digital tools that may be helpful in engaging with and assessing students in the virtual environment. Based on research and full of practical examples, this book guides educators, professional learning teams, and whole schools in implementing a successful virtual assessment plan for all types of intended learning objectives.

This exciting resource will help you build confidence in yourself as an educational leader. Written by an award-winning leader, this book encourages readers to use research-based strategies to lead in meaningful, authentic ways that make the greatest impact on students and staff members each day. Full of real-life stories and key takeaways, readers will walk away from this book with a better plan for reinvigorating their leadership skills and awaken the confidence within. Whether you are a future administrator, a new principal, or a veteran administrator, the seven key leadership themes in this book will guide you in influencing and implementing change to effectively lead your school.

With the ever-changing, complex role of the principalship, school leaders are thirsty for a useful desk reference that aligns with professional standards. This actionable book brings the PSEL standards to life, providing leaders with support, mentorship, and practical advice. This book provides solutions to challenges and answers the hard questions associated with educational leadership alongside a host of tools, strategies, organizers, templates, and rubrics. Including voices from experienced leaders across rural, urban, suburban, tribal, and international settings, this book helps principals at all levels navigate challenges and make decisions that positively impact their students’ futures. You will be inspired to strive for a better future for your school community as you continually develop skills leading to a long, successful career in educational leadership.