Rule book for Education Leaders

As an education leader, it is important that the leader understands that it is impossible to be an expert in everything that they are charged with overseeing and leading. The solution to this challenge is to seek out the best persons available for positions and that they have complementary leadership skills to mesh with your vision and of the school and district. The key to understanding the ebb and flow of the operation of a school building and district is to understand what needs to happen and when it's supposed to happen. The reason why I wrote  The Superintendent's Rulebook  was the natural extension of the mentoring work I was engaged in with new superintendents and principals. At that time I gathered, developed, and customized organizational tools for education leaders. I built upon work of John Burkhart of the Andes CSD, Questar III BOCES, and Greg Beall of ONC BOCES; combining the calendar work and needs that I had as a leader led to the development of this three...

As I am writing, we are in the Covid-19 pandemic forcing school districts across the nation to close and in New York State create a political tension on who has the authority to close schools and for how long. Whatever the ultimate outcome is for the school closers, I hope (this is ONLY if it is safe to do so) in New York State, at least we could somehow come back by June 1st. It would be ideal to have both teachers and students again but absent that bring back in at least the teachers. This would provide an opportunity for teachers and students to put some sort of annual closer to the school year. Absent doing this, I fear that it would prevent a "clean reset" for the start of the next school year. We have witnessed schools scramble to convert to online/video lessons. My wife, Laurie, who is a Cosmetology Teacher, has transformed our living room into her laboratory. She is conducting video classes with her students in a digital environment that allows her to demons...