When Student Journalists Investigate A Principal And She Resigns #TLS17

Don’t let up on the gas!

We’ve still got two great days before us.

Yesterday, I sent an email about measuring the impact of the Transformative Leadership Summit. Would you please do me a favor and fill out this short impact survey at http://transformativeprincipal.org/impact It will just take a couple minutes.

Today, as part of the Transformative Leadership Summit, we are entering into the Parent/Community experience. I’ve talked about my daughter with Down syndrome on the podcast, and her school experience and mine with her as her dad has really made me think a lot about what experience my students’ parents are experiences are like! I’ve sat in IEP meetings where the principal has been totally disconnected and not interested, and then been in some where the principal really knows my daughter. The difference is palpable.

Our speakers for today really understand how to engage and communicate with their families and other community members.

Glenn Robbins talks about how to get the whole community engaged in an idea. It’s got to start at Pre-K and go all the up to the top of the school district.

Destry Brown has been a superintendent for a long time, and so when his journalism students turned up some, how do we say it, interesting information on one of his principal hires, he gave them the green light to go ahead and keep investigating. This eventually led to her resignation. Now, some people would say that he should have silenced those kids, or that he should have found a way around that. What he did instead was let his kids have a real-life experience, and that is just the tip of the iceberg!

When I first contacted Destry, I thought that he would be perfect for the student experience, and it would work, there, too, but his approach is really about getting the whole community involved in the education of kids, and giving as many kids as possible very real life experiences.

Finally, Katie Kinnaman was a principal in Palo Alto, California, where parents are super smart engineers at tech giants and startup companies. We’ve all experience high-maintenance and helicopter parents, but Katie teaches us how to really balance the communication needed and make sure those parents have a good experience as well.

Today is really a great #CelebrateMonday.

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