In Putting Teachers First, author and speaker Brad Johnson offers tons of invaluable tips for building and maintaining strong, dynamic relationships with your teachers, leading to greater job satisfaction, lower turnover, and improved performance across the board. You’ll learn how to boost teacher morale and drive engagement by providing sincere feedback and recognition, creating incentives for teaching excellence, building trust between all faculty members, and more. Topics covered: The Importance of Teacher Satisfaction Motivating Your Teachers to Succeed Creating a Culture of Appreciation Learning to Become a Selfless Leader Inspiring Teachers to Remember Their Purpose Developing Your Emotional Intelligence Communicating and Connecting Effectively Building a Cohesive Team Celebrating Successes Each chapter includes practical advice as well as inspiring stories and anecdotes to motivate you on your journey.

Putting the Children First chronicles the educational struggle that took place in the city of Newark amidst years of political upheaval and economic neglect. It is a story of inspiration and hope as we come to understand what happened when educators, parents, and community members pulled together to turn education around in one of the most historically troubled cities in America. This volume tells the remarkable story of Project New Beginnings, a 7-year collaboration between the Newark Public Schools and Bank Street College to restructure early childhood education. Reporting from the front lines of urban schools, this important volume: gives voice to the variety of people involved in effective school reform-- teachers, principals, staff developers, superintendents, and foundation executives; illustrates how one school-change project kept its focus on the needs of individual teachers and classrooms while negotiating the many demands in contemporary urban schools; and confronts the difficult constraints and many hurdles the Project overcame to emerge as a model for school-university collaboration.

Build the bridge from data collection to improved instruction Students are people—not data. How can you use assessment data to focus on reaching every student? This book shows how to develop a common language for sharing all students’ progress with all teachers and leaders, and how to use ongoing assessment to inform instruction. Based on worldwide research of more than 500 educators, the book presents solutions organized by: Assessment Instruction Leadership Ownership The many benefits of personalizing data include increased student engagement and a positive impact on school culture. This reader-friendly guide helps you set goals, adjust lessons, identify students’ strengths and weaknesses, and implement interventions.

If we don't ensure that our teachers are physically and mentally well, they cannot be their best for their students.If we do not ensure, first and foremost, that our teachers are feeling physically and mentally well, they cannot be their best for their students. Consequently, a school which does not prioritize staff wellbeing is disadvantaging its own students. �Students first' is a misplaced sentiment: the best thing for students is a happy, healthy, motivated, well-trained, expert staff. By putting staff first you are providing for students the one thing which will help them make good progress in their learning: truly great teaching. Whilst it is easy to say that schools would not exist if it were not for the students, the glib converse is that without truly great school staff, the students would not be taught. What we need - as recruiting subject specialist teachers, school leaders and specialist support staff becomes increasingly difficult - is a revolution in how we treat our school staff. We have to put our staff before our students because it is the only hope we have of securing what our students need most: a world class education. The longer our schools are populated with hypoxic adults, we imperial all our futures.

Dear teacher, you are appreciated! This inspirational book, written by motivational speakers Brad Johnson and Hal Bowman, provides daily encouragement to thank you for all that you do in the classroom and beyond. Johnson and Bowman offer quotes and powerful stories for 100 days of the school year, highlighting topics such as celebrating small successes, bringing out the best in your students, knowing your worth, and being all in. The book is perfect for teachers of all grade levels, and for principals to buy their teachers for schoolwide morale, to keep teachers feeling their best. The uplifting advice will remind you why you’ve chosen this profession and the impact you have on others!

Families are a child's first and best teachers. A significant amount of research exists that strongly links the engagement of families in the educational lives of their children as a strong foundation to the successful achievement of all students. Educators cannot expect total engagement and high standards from students if both families and schools cannot form powerful alliances to guide those students to academic and lifelong success. Putting research into practice remains one of the most significant barriers to engaging families with schools. School leaders, already stretched thin, struggle to carve out the time and energy necessary to pour through research and create programs to promote family engagement within their school and community. As principal of a large, comprehensive, and diverse high school, Constantino solves this dilemma by providing a step-by-step process for practitioners to create family engagement programs at all levels. Engaging All Families provides a summary of research that acts as a foundation upon which the practitioner's tools are crafted. Readers are given the resources necessary to assess their present level of family engagement and the ideas, strategies, suggestions, programs, practices, policies, and procedures to implement a wide variety of customized family engagement programs. Numerous resources and references are also included. As a successful school administrator and nationally known expert in the field of family and community engagement, Steven Constantino builds the bridge from research to practice with Engaging All Families, and provides the information that allows all schools to become family friendly.

The Power to Save a Life Jacob Chastain grew up in an environment filled with drugs and violence. Inside the home that should have felt safe, fear and anxiety were the desperate norm. Stability and security eluded him as he was shuffled between family and friends that would take him in. But at school, things were different. There, day after day, year after year, Chastain's teachers saved him. Teach Me, Teacher is the true story of a childhood marked by heartache--a story that may be similar to that of the children sitting in your classroom. It's the story that shaped Jacob Chastain into the educator he is today. Lessons learned from his experiences as a child and as a growing educator offer reflections on the trials and triumphs facing teachers and students everywhere. From these lessons, we learn that one's darkest moments can ultimately lead to a meaningful and fulfilling life when someone cares enough to step in and make a difference. Written in celebration of teachers and the power of education, Teach Me, Teacher affirms that you have the power to save a life. "Jacob Chastain pours his heart out on the pages of Teach Me, Teacher by sharing his personal journey through childhood trauma. His message that "action is the antidote to suffering" is a powerful reminder to us all to do more, be more, understand more, and care more for our students." --Kim Bearden, co-founder and executive director, The Ron Clark Academy, author of Talk to Me "Teach Me, Teacher is one of the most courageous, heartbreaking, hopeful books I've ever read." --Regie Routman, author of Literacy Essentials "Jacob Chastain's raw honesty is something that we need more of in the education world." --Halee Sikorski, A Latte Learning "Teach Me, Teacher is both an uplifting memoir and a message to all of us in education of the power we have to build relationships and make a difference for all of our students." --Dr. Sue Szachowicz, senior fellow, Successful Practices Network "Jacob Chastain takes us on a transformational journey where past and present converge into possibility. His story of resilience and hope is a celebration of the impact each of us can have when professional purpose leads the way." --Dr. Mary Howard, author of Good to Great Teaching