"Six Pillars of Dynamic Schools" uncovers an often overlooked truth--effective change is the product of hard work and dedication. There is no silver bullet; no matter how many programs, software packages, or new initiatives a district uses, the magic won't just "happen." Dynamic schools result from consistent and redundant focus on the fundamental core elements affecting teachers and students--the premise of "Six Pillars of Dynamic Schools." What sets this book apart is its focus on "how" school leaders do business, instead of on "what" business leaders should do. Regardless of the methods chosen, there are six fundamental processes--pillars--that must be ongoing within the school and district in order to sustain meaningful change on the road to dynamic schools. The chances of long-term success for school reformation plans that lack even one of these essential pillars are doomed to mediocrity at best and complete failure at worst. Ideal for use as a book study in a professional learning community, Problem-Based Learning exercises are provided with each chapter to drive discussion and facilitate learning and understanding.

Each chapter opens with the big picture of leadership in a school relating to the chapter's topic through a personal example and story. In order for there to be a strong foundation in place so a person can be an effective school leader, he or she needs to reflect on the pillars of school leadership. Each one of these pillars needs to be understood for a person to be able to lead a school and for the ideas in this book to work. This part will reference research relating to the six pillars of school leadership: 1. Vision 2. Relationships 3. Trust 4. Efficacy 5. Student-Centered 6. Instructional Knowledge Chapter sections will follow this structure: The Topic: in heading Ten-Minute Opportunity Ten-Minute Tip Ten-Minute Collaborative Opportunities Principal's Perspective: Each chapter will have a section where another experienced principal shares his or her insight on the topic and how they have found success. The book also includes vignettes, case studies, questions to reflect on, infographics, and checklists.

This unique book offers a comprehensive and integrated introduction to the five fundamental elements of life and society: energy, information, feedback, adaptation, and self-organization. It is divided into two parts. Part I is concerned with energy (definition, history, energy types, energy sources, environmental impact); thermodynamics (laws, entropy definitions, energy, branches of thermodynamics, entropy interpretations, arrow of time); information (communication and transmission, modulation–demodulation, coding–decoding, information theory, information technology, information science, information systems); feedback control (history, classical methodologies, modern methodologies); adaptation (definition, mechanisms, measurement, complex adaptive systems, complexity, emergence); and self-organization (definitions/opinions, self-organized criticality, cybernetics, self-organization in complex adaptive systems, examples in nature). In turn, Part II studies the roles, impacts, and applications of the five above-mentioned elements in life and society, namely energy (biochemical energy pathways, energy flows through food chains, evolution of energy resources, energy and economy); information (information in biology, biocomputation, information technology in office automation, power generation/distribution, manufacturing, business, transportation), feedback (temperature, water, sugar and hydrogen ion regulation, autocatalysis, biological modeling, control of hard/technological and soft/managerial systems), adaptation and self-organization (ecosystems, climate change, stock market, knowledge management, man-made self-organized controllers, traffic lights control).

Good leaders are necessary in both the business world and everyday life, but what exactly constitutes good, effective leadership? Contrary to popular belief, effective leadership is rare and good leaders are few and far between. In Do Good to Lead Well: The Science and Practice of Positive Leadership, Craig Dowden explains the psychology and science behind positive leadership and how we all can easily improve our leadership skills. Written for executives, leaders, and aspiring leaders who want to challenge the status quo of leadership--people who want to raise their game and have a transformative impact on themselves and the people around them--Do Good to Lead Well breaks down the Six Pillars of Positive Leadership: 1. Self-Awareness 2. Civility 3. Humility Craig's goal is to convey, on the deepest level, that effective leadership is not a choice between doing the right thing or being successful. It's about setting the example and doing good to lead well.

Children in today's world are inundated with information about who to be, what to do and how to live. But what if there was a way to teach children how to manage priorities, focus on goals and be a positive influence on the world around them? The Leader in Meis that programme. It's based on a hugely successful initiative carried out at the A.B. Combs Elementary School in North Carolina. To hear the parents of A. B Combs talk about the school is to be amazed. In 1999, the school debuted a programme that taught The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleto a pilot group of students. The parents reported an incredible change in their children, who blossomed under the programme. By the end of the following year the average end-of-grade scores had leapt from 84 to 94. This book will launch the message onto a much larger platform. Stephen R. Covey takes the 7 Habits, that have already changed the lives of millions of people, and shows how children can use them as they develop. Those habits -- be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek to understand and then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw -- are critical skills to learn at a young age and bring incredible results, proving that it's never too early to teach someone how to live well.

An eye-opening 2022 Gallup poll shows that a majority (55%) of American parents are “somewhat to completely dissatisfied” with the schools their children attend. Meanwhile, a 2022 CDC survey of 7,705 high school students found that 44% of them described persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness with 9% admitting to having made an attempt at suicide. After 45 years of teaching kids and leading schools, Malcolm Gauld offers a blunt explanation of how we got here: “We care more about what they can do than about who they are, and they know it.” The solution lies in a reordering of priorities where our schools come to value attitude over aptitude, effort over ability, and character over talent. This book offers a blueprint for how to do that. The first step in enacting this shift calls upon school leaders to look deeply and honestly at the quality of the cultures in their schools. The author pointedly observes, “Every school has a culture. Is yours by design or default?” After a thorough exploration of the nature of culture, the author introduces and describes a dynamic school culture improvement program called the Discovery Process, explaining how it has been implemented in both public and private schools. The program, aligned with national social and emotional learning (SEL) standards, is presented as a concrete approach to Culture by Design.

This practice-based text offers a roadmap to optimal collaboration for all school leaders – including counselors, superintendents, principals, and university faculty – to provide the best mental health outcomes for students. Administrative Leaders and School Counselors is a timely publication that creatively and cohesively authenticates the relationship between administrative leaders and school counselors. In order to systemically promote mental health consciousness and considerations for school counselors as practitioners and in training, collaboration among school leaders is essential for comprehensive school counseling programs, practices, funding, partnerships, and services designed for students. The first to feature perspectives from a diverse set of leadership positions in schools, the book provides individuals with exposure to educational leadership models and decisions that impact the roles of school counselors. The book will appeal to faculty who are teaching and training those who are or will ultimately be working as professional school counselors, counseling psychologists, or educational leaders such as principals, directors, department chairs, and superintendents.