This book provides school administrators with practical, easy-to-use, and inexpensive ways to reward and recognize the efforts of their staff. More than 100 ideas are divided into three categories based on the amount of effort they require. Recognizing and rewarding your staff can be as simple as writing a heartfelt thank-you note to a bus driver or as unexpected as taking a teacher's grading duty for a night. This invaluable guide will help principals and superintendents everywhere bring out the best in their teachers and staff members. The best part is that rewarding and inspiring your staff will be rewarding and inspiring for you too. Dr. Emily E. Houck is the former superintendent of the Scott Valley Unified School District in California.

K-12 schools in the United States are suffering from an epidemic of teacher attrition: nearly half of all new teachers leave the field within their first five years, and thousands of teaching positions across the country are going unfilled. What can school leaders do about this persistent turnover and the resulting loss of human potential? In this timely book, Bryan Harris describes the four broad supports that he says are crucial to helping early-career teachers succeed and stay in the profession: comprehensive induction programs, supportive administrators, skilled mentors, and helpful colleagues. He offers practical, research-based strategies to help leaders provide these supports and create a culture of collaboration across the school. The result is a school in which beginning teachers truly thrive as effective practitioners who see themselves successfully helping students learn more every day.

"For students to be successful in school, they first have to be in school." With that simple statement, Jessica Sprick and Randy Sprick launch a compelling case for prioritizing student attendance. This comprehensive guide provides school and district-level administrators and teams with the background information, strategies, and tools needed to implement a multitiered approach to improving attendance and preventing chronic absence. The authors use the results of their work in schools throughout the United States to dispel the myth that educators have little control over student attendance and provide success stories from elementary and secondary schools that have reversed longstanding patterns of absenteeism. Citing extensive research, Sprick and Sprick share details about the shocking prevalence of chronic absence in U.S. schools and its effects on students, teachers, families, and the school community. They explain how to replace punitive approaches to absenteeism with effective methods that begin with universal supports and continue through Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions for students with more persistent problems. Specifically, they explain how to Build an effective school team to address absenteeism . Create systems to collect accurate data and set priorities. Develop an attendance initiative that generates student enthusiasm as well as staff, parent, and community support. Design and implement strategies that are tailored to specific schoolwide concerns and demographics that reach all students. Equipped with the information and tools presented in this book, educators can ensure wise use of staff and other resources—and create a culture of attendance that is the foundation of successful schools. This book is a copublication of ASCD and Ancora Publishing.

William Sterrett serves as an associate professor and program coordinator at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Previously, as a principal in Virginia, Sterrett received the 2008 Milken National Educator Award. Sterrett earned his B.S. in Middle Grades Education from Asbury College (Kentucky) and his Ph.D. in Educational Administration & Supervision from the University of Virginia, and he is the author of the ASCD books Insights Into Action: Successful School Leaders Share What Works and Short on Time: How do I make time to lead and learn as a principal?

Conversations between administrators and teachers take place every day, for many reasons, but what can we do to elevate them so that they lead to better professional relationships, more effective school leaders and teachers, and improved learning for students? C.R.A.F.T. Conversations for Teacher Growth offers the answer, demonstrating how exchanges that are clear, realistic, appropriate, flexible, and timely can be transformational. The authors explain how C.R.A.F.T. conversations support leaders' efforts in four "cornerstone" areas: Building Capacity, Invoking Change, Promoting Collaboration, and Prioritizing Celebration. With this foundation in place, they offer explicit guidance for developing the skills necessary to move through all components of a C.R.A.F.T. conversation: planning, opening, engaging, closing, reflecting, and following up. Extended vignettes featuring administrators and teachers bring each component to life, illustrating how focused efforts on improving how we communicate and build relationships can help schools achieve their goals and become places where adults—and students—thrive.

William Sterrett discusses how principals can maximize their time to meet students' needs, foster innovation and collaboration among teachers, and cultivate success throughout the school.

In Forces of Influence, Fred Ende and Meghan Everette contend that schoolwide success starts with relationships—not only between students and adults, but also among all adults up and down the education hierarchy. It's by leveraging these relationships that educators can influence outcomes and effect real change. But how can educators make sure they exert their influence astutely and sensitively, navigating education's priorities and pressures while keeping their work focused on the mission? This thought-provoking book helps readers navigate this tricky terrain, introducing four "forces," or levels, of influence and explaining how educators can use them to support one another's practice and push for positive outcomes for all learners. The authors * Explore each of the four forces—the pull, the push, the shove, and the nudge—and explain why they work and what research shows about their effectiveness. * Introduce the Forces of Influence Leadership Matrix (FILM), a framework that identifies how the four forces connect and helps readers determine when to use which force, with whom, and how. * Provide advice on how to course-correct by switching and layering the forces for positive results—and how to recover from setbacks. * Offer copious tools to support this work, including role-plays, self-assessments, templates, and questions to spur reflection and action taking. Everything educators do requires them to build, sustain, and leverage relationships. With this guide, they no longer have to wing it.