Articles

I can remember my first days as a principal as if it were yesterday. The vividness of the memory is largely because my first days of being a principal were also the first days of the school’s existence, and all the staff members would be working together for the first…

Positive language is a powerful tool for building a calm, safe school climate. The words we use when we talk to students, the intention behind these words, and how we deliver them shape the way students see themselves and their school. When all school adults—not just classroom teachers—use positive language,…

A little over a year ago, I became the principal at a school where discipline referrals and staff stress were at all-time highs. Change was clearly needed, and soon. I’d spent the previous eight years leading another school into becoming a safe, joyful learning community, thanks mainly to our use…

With increasing demands to meet rigorous curriculum standards and improve the quality of instruction, efficient, productive professional development (PD) and staff meetings are more critical than ever. Too often, though, these sessions fall short of being fully engaging and productive—and opportunities for professional growth are lost. The familiar lecture-style meeting…

A strong community and a student-centered focus have long been the heart of Hyde-Addison Elementary, a well-regarded public school in Washington, DC. Since Hyde-Addison began using Responsive Classroom practices in 1999, staff have credited the approach with helping them build a welcoming and inclusive community for their very diverse student…

Early in my career as a school leader, I learned a great lesson: that as a principal, I needed to help children learn the skills that would enable the behavior their teachers and I wanted to see. As a teacher, I'd used myriad proactive and reactive approaches to handle classroom…

Teachers and administrators at Kensington Avenue Magnet School view the Responsive Classroom approach as a foundation upon which they can build. "We look at each new initiative through a Responsive Classroom lens," says Sheree Nolley, a faculty member for twenty-three years and currently the school's Responsive Classroom coordinator. That mindset…

Research has confirmed it: Principals play a crucial role in teachers' use of Responsive Classroom practices. The study. A recently completed three-year study conducted by the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education and funded by the U.S. Department of Education looked at whether the Responsive Classroom approach improves student…

Like many educators these days, the teachers in my building have new initiatives added to our plates each year. We need (and want!) to collaborate as a faculty about them, but it's difficult for us to find time to meet as a group. At my school we've found a solution…

At SOAR, a network of public charter schools in Northeast Denver, Responsive Classroom practices are embedded in the daily life of schools, and the approach itself is integrated into the network's core elements and values. Schoolwide implementation of the Responsive Classroom approach was part of the plan from SOAR's inception.…

Teachers are encouraged to reach out early and often to their students' parents and families, and with good reason. If children are to succeed at school, teachers need to get to know and establish genuine partnerships with families. But what about school leaders? Shouldn't school leaders, too, be proactive in…

When Rita White stepped into her first principalship at an inner-city school in Memphis, Tennessee, she faced daunting challenges. The school of 980 students was on the state’s “needs improvement” list, students were not making adequate yearly progress, and discipline referrals exceeded 1,000 a year. The approach to discipline was…

Think of a place where you feel welcome as soon as you arrive. For some people, that place might be home; for others, someplace where they eat, play, work, or shop; for others, a favorite vacation spot. When you think of places that feel welcoming to you, does your school…

As the founding faculty of Community Partnership School (CPS) prepared to welcome our first classes of pre-kindergartners, kindergartners, and first graders, we focused not only on the practical details of opening a school, but on developing a sense of schoolwide community. We knew that the routines and traditions we established…

Michelle Flores, lead teacher at Aspire Capitol Heights Academy in Sacramento, California, contacted us last week to share the news that her school had been designated a California Distinguished Elementary School for 2010. This statewide recognition program "honors schools that have demonstrated educational excellence for all students and progress in narrowing…

"This year, in partnership with the United Way of Greater Toledo Women's Initiative, the Toledo Public Schools, and the Toledo Federation of Teachers, our focus will be on creating caring learning communities that help us all do our best," announces East Side Central Elementary School principal Tony Speaks. It's the…

At the recent National Staff Development Council (NSDC) conference in St. Louis, I had an opportunity to view The Principal Story. This documentary, which aired on PBS earlier this fall, tells a poignant story about two elementary school leaders who turned around their under-performing urban schools. (Follow the link to…

Perhaps you've seen the news that First Lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack visited Hollin Meadows Science and Math Focus School in Alexandria, Virginia, last week as part of their promotion of the Obama administration's Healthier U.S. Schools initiative. Their visit was timed so that they could help…

I recently had the privilege of witnessing an encounter that made me think about how important it is to communicate our faith in children’s positive intentions. The assistant principal of a school I was visiting had just delivered a brief but powerful message about “great expectations” in the morning news…

When I describe the Responsive Classroom approach to educators from urban areas, somebody always says, “That sounds great, but it would never work at my school.” When asked why, the person usually cites issues familiar to all of us who work in urban schools: a high poverty rate, turnover of…

“My teacher’s coming, my teacher’s coming,” squeals a gleeful six-year-old as he catches his first glimpse of his teacher as she steps out of her car and walks to his front door. His eight-year-old sister was equally excited a half hour earlier as she sat on the front steps, nervously…

“We used to have pictures like these going back for years,” says Peter Harrison, principal of Young School, indicating a pair of large framed photos by the school’s entrance. Each picture shows about 300 children and forty adults gathered outside the compact modular building that now houses this K–2 school.…

When test scores indicated that students at the Lawrence Barnes School needed more work on vocabulary and reading comprehension, staff at the K–5 school devised a way to build skills and community at the same time. In the fall of 2005, Mary Weith and others from Barnes’s special education services…

At a time when many policy makers are concerned primarily with children's cognitive development and how they do on standardized tests, educators from around the country gathered in Amherst, Massachusetts, to reaffirm the importance of educating the whole child and to share effective ways to do so. The two-day conference,…