The Assistant Principal Podcast

Outline and Show Notes 321: Just say “YES” with Ronke Adetolu Power Quote: "If my future stayed parked in 'someday,' then I did not have to risk failure today” Teaser: I love having guests on the show who are coming from outside the field of education I think they can bring fresh perspectives and he

Assistant Principal Podcast Content Episode Outline 311: Power! Teaser: The leadership guru John Maxwell said, “Leadership is influence, nothing less, nothing more.” Now I don’t agree with the statement 100%. As my friend and mentor, Dr. Jacque Jacobs would point out, just because you’re driving 35

Assistant Principal Podcast Content Episode Outline Show Title: Our Morning Routines Links: Insight Timer App Down Dog App Mara’s checklist Episode 310: My 11 Morning Affirmations Episode 276: SWOT and Stop Start Continue Consider Sponsor Spot 1: I’d like to thank Kaleidoscope Adventures for sponsor

Outline and Show Notes Show Title: AI Beyond the Talk with Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Power Quote: “We don’t need to be the expert” Teaser: I recorded today’s interview on July 8 and it’s just a week since I was at the ISTE-ASCD national conference in Orlando and ISTE is a very tech focused, educational

Outline and Show Notes Stop, Drop, and Get Organized with Jeffrey Bradbury Teaser: Today’s show is a bit different. My guest has a depth of knowledge on technology that is inspiring and honestly a bit intimidating at the same time. If you are tech savvy, you will probably get a lot out of today’s sh

316: Small Practices to Live and Lead Better Note: Most of these notes are ai generated from a transcript of the show. Sponsor Spot 1: So, when it comes to student travel, I get why it can feel like a big lift. That’s why I always point people toward Kaleidoscope Adventures. They’ve been doing this

Outline and Show Notes Nurturing Collective Efficacy with Kurtis Hewson Teaser: Today’s show is a bit different. My guest has a depth of knowledge on technology that is inspiring and honestly a bit intimidating at the same time. If you are tech savvy, you will probably get a lot out of today’s show.

Outline and Show Notes Show Title: Reimagining Leadership in the Age of AI with Jerry Almendarez Teaser (written by Claude ai): Today's episode tackles a question that should make every one of us a little uncomfortable: why do our school systems keep working harder without getting meaningfully bette

Show Title: Motivation Deep Dive with Katie Powell Outline and Show Notes You’ve likely heard me talk about The Motivation Equation being value divide by effort. My guest today helps us dig beyond the formula to consider the two sides of the equation in more detail. Sponsor Spot 1: I’d like to thank

Outline and Show Notes Show Title: What SPED Needs from You with Liz Capone Guest: Liz Capone Teaser: It’s pretty typical for new assistant principals to be given fairly substantial responsibilities, related to special education, especially in terms of attending IEP meetings. This is fine if the ass

Outline and Show Notes Schools to Watch with Dr. Joe Coleman Teaser: Schools to Watch is a national program designed to promote middle school excellence. In today’s show I interview a state Schools to Watch coordinator, but the episode is more about good things happening in good schools than it is a

Assistant Principal Podcast Content Episode Outline My 11 Morning Affirmations Teaser: I’ve been looking forward to doing this podcast for a while. Now we’re going to dig into my 11 morning affirmations and honestly and without exaggeration these affirmations have been huge in helping me to stay tru

Outline and Show Notes Reframing Resistance with Becca Silver Power Quote: What’s scary for us may not be scary for them.” Teaser: | I’m really excited for today’s episode. You’ve heard me talk about reframing resistance as feedback by getting curious instead of judgmental. Today’s guest helps us di

Outline and Show Notes Urgency and Efficacy with Taylor Crosby Sponsor Spot 1: I’d like to thank Kaleidoscope Adventures for sponsoring today’s show. Lots of companies can help you organize class trips, but Kaleidoscope helps you organize adventures – because isn’t that what student trips should be?

Outline and Show Notes Leadership with Dr. Brian Martin Teaser: My guest on today show is a vice principal at an international school in Columbia, but almost everything that we talk about today is relevant to leadership in general and to school leader ship in particular. This is a really fun discuss

Assistant Principal Podcast Content Episode Outline Show title and release date: If I Had One Day With You 5/26/26 Teaser: The genesis for today’s episode came while I was hiking in the woods. I began thinking about what I would do working with someone if I only had one day. This “thought exercise”

Outline and Show Notes Realistic Recharge with Dr. Julie Hasson Power Quote: "the wrong kind of hard" Teaser: Today I’m back with Dr. Julie Hasson. In part 1, we went deep into burnout, toxic positivity, and self-care. In today’s show we’ll dig into Julie’s Recharge model. This episode is every bit

Outline and Show Notes What Does Burnout Mean? With Dr. Julie Hasson Power Quote: “The wrong kind of hard.” Teaser: Dr. Julie Hasson and I has so much fun recording our conversation – we just kept on talking, so instead of giving you a giant dump of stuff, we decided to break it into two distinct ep

Power Quote: Am I a manager of priorities or a builder of people? Teaser: After recording today’s episode, I realized I needed to record the episodes on Strategic Action Cycles. Those episodes were a primer for this episode. If you haven’t yet listened to past two episodes on Strategic Action Cycles

Teaser: Today we dig into the second of our three-part series on the power of small change. Last week I covered some of the major challenges with BIG Change and then shared the four principles of leverage. I’ll give a quick recap of the principles of leverage in a few minutes, but if you did not lis

Teaser: We’ve all experienced it – BIG change. Not change as in the pandemic or a hurricane, or even NCLB. I mean BIG change initiatives that we do to ourselves. The programs or solutions we implement to great fanfare, that we pour money and time into, that almost inevitably fade out to be replaced

Wow! 300! Power Quote: It’s all about the people and the relationships Teaser: You are about to listen to the 300th episode of the assistant principal podcast. We released our first episode on August 26, 2021 with the topic of Strategic Leadership and, honestly, that episode was so bad I pulled it f

The Systems Supporting Teacher Growth with Isiah Williams Teaser: If you’ve listened to this show for longer than a month you have likely heard me talk about the flywheel – the “magic” system for driving continual teacher growth. In December I was at an administrators’ conference in Pinehurst, NC an

Guiding Change with Dr. Christie Cooper Teaser: Building on DiSC styles and how they influence change processes. 50-70% of change initiatives Fail! Sponsor Spot 1: I’d like to thank Kaleidoscope Adventures for sponsoring today’s show. Lots of companies can help you organize class trips, but Kaleidos

Leadership Styles with Dr. Christie Cooper Teaser: The leadership style activity I do with groups… Sponsor Spot 1: I’d like to thank Kaleidoscope Adventures for sponsoring today’s show. Lots of companies can help you organize class trips, but Kaleidoscope helps you organize adventures – because isn’

Five Change Lessons March 17, 2026 Sponsor Spot 1: I’d like to thank Kaleidoscope Adventures for sponsoring today’s show. Lots of companies can help you organize class trips, but Kaleidoscope helps you organize adventures – because isn’t that what student trips should be? Kaleidscope is a full-servi

Show Title: Make Every Moment Count with POY Jason Johnson Power Quote: Make Every Moment Count Teaser: The R word – relationships. Sometimes it feels like we talk about it too much but not enough. It doesn’t make sense, but I hope you know what I mean. In a digital world, it feels like relationship

Support, Don’t Solve Teaser: Becoming a strategic leader is a journey – a long one. It’s a journey full of stops and starts, and slow incremental improvement. But there are also some inflection points – places where leaders make a great leap forward. Those inflection points usually have more to do w

When there are “I’s” in TEAM with Dr. Chad Dumas Teaser: I’m really excited about today’s episode. I had so much fun recording it and I think that lightness and positivity come out in the interview. It’s a great combination of high-level stuff and some really fundamental truths about teams and leade

What a Ford Mav-Wreck Can Teach Us About Leadership Sponsor Spot 1: Travel can positively impact students in a big way - but if your first thought is, “who is going to plan all of this?”, don’t worry because that’s where Kaleidoscope Adventures comes in.The KA team has been planning student group tr

Reimagining School Leadership with Dr. Lindsay Whorton Power Quote: “Leadership has to be a team sport.” Teaser: I hope you enjoy listening to today’s episode as much as I did recording it. It’s a wonderful combination of big picture thinking and exploring some new ideas but then also getting down a

Dr. Lindsay Whorton has served as president of The Holdsworth Center since 2019, leading its growth from seven Texas school districts to 89 districts serving over 1,900 educational leaders. A native of Independence, Missouri, Lindsay graduated from Drake University with degrees in secondary educatio

The Five Gives Teaser: It’s that time of the year for assistant principals when it just feels like you’re completely underwater all the time the thought you had at the beginning of the year of engaging in teacher development of doing observations and coaching those are kind of long lost dreams at th

289 When Fall Didn’t End Very Well Teaser: “I would love it if you would consider doing a podcast episode on what happens when a principal gets off track and needs to get the trains back on track... Just as our students get off track around October (the honeymoon phase is over), I found myself last

Oh, They are Mad! with Darrin Peppard Power Quote: “Listen more, talk less.” Teaser: Here’s the email I received that inspired this episode: I’m wondering if you have an episode of your podcast focusing on dealing with unreasonable parents. This year has been exceptionally difficult regarding the at

Three Resolutions and One Word Teaser: The New Year is a great time to refocus and gain some clarity, but New Years’ resolutions feels to me like something that sounds good in theory but doesn’t work in practice. At least it hasn’t for me. Instead of resolutions this year, I’m using one word to help

Teaser: At the end of each year, I re-air what I consider to be the best episode of the year, but my favorite episode for this year was released on Nov 11 (episode 279). Instead of re-airing something you’ve already heard, I decided to have my guest from that best episode, Darryall White, come back

Sponsor Spot 1: I’d like to thank Kaleidoscope Adventures for sponsoring today’s show. Lots of companies can help you organize class trips, but Kaleidoscope helps you organize adventures – because isn’t that what student trips should be? Kaleidscope is a full-service tour company offering a range of

Assistant Principal Podcast Content Episode Outline #284: 5-Minute Coaching Teaser: Today we are doing a deep dive into 5-minute coaching. This show is an adaptation of the 45-minute breakout training I frequently do at conferences, like NCPAPA earlier this month. I do have a handout that contains a

Power Quote: “How does this make learning better?” Teaser: A couple weeks ago I had Simone Lieschke on. Simone is co-principal at the American International School of Lusaka in Zambia. I appreciated her different perspectives and it was a conversation that made me, and I hope you, step back and refl

Power Quote: “What’s the point if I’m not willing to grow?” Teaser: As you will hear, I began my teaching career overseas through a serious of serendipitous events. For reasons I myself don’t fully understand, I’ve been feeling the echoes of international education on my thoughts, so I decided to li

Thankfully Thinking with Frederick Teaser: I’m planning on this episode being a little light. Honestly, I’m not sure how many people will tune in given we are dropping in a week where many of us are thinking more about dinner than data. We are not going to do any music this show, just acknowledging

Power Quote: I am a teacher Teaser: I’ve made an intentional effort this year to feature the voices of practitioners. I find the conversations to always be interesting and informative. Some guests are more high energy than others and I want to comment on that before we get into today’s interview. I

Power Quote: “My job is to remove the barriers that prevent teachers and students from being successful.” Teaser: We’ve had some very good episodes this year (and, yes, probably some not-so-good ones) and I think today’s may be one of the best. My goals for each show are that you finish listening fe

Teaser: I love talking with experts and we can learn a lot from someone like Elena Aguilar or Mark Shellinger, and from other consultants and thought leaders like my good friends William D Parker and Darrin Peppard. And – we also need to be hearing from the people who are doing the work. In today’s

Today’s episode is packed full of amazing information, ideas, and inspiration. We are going to conclude today’s show with a simple technique for putting everything in the show into practice. It is simple, and you can become competent in the technique with almost no practice, and it will take you les

SWOT! No, it’s not mosquito season – thankfully that is passing as we head into the amazing season of fall in the mountains of Western North Carolina (WNC). SWOT is an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It is a simple strategic planning tool. You might be thin

Teaser: First, a bit of context to today’s show: This year, Darrin Peppard (Leaning Into Leadership podcast) and I are partnering with the North Carolina Middle Level Educators Association to provide leadership development for a group of middle school principals, APs, and deans. We kicked off this L

Let’s begin by looking backwards. On Sept. 16, Mara and I released an episode on three things you should be doing now to care for yourself. Mara took the lead on that one as we dove into designing your morning, clarifying your identity and mission, and building a sustainable habit of creating you ti

Teaser: I’ve been having a lot of conversations with APs and other leaders recently and one of the common themes is how overwhelming the work is right now and how hard it can be to invest in self-care. Mara and I discussed some self-care strategies a couple weeks ago in episode 271. One thing we did

Quote: “What is one step better than nothing?” Teaser: No special intro, let’s just get into it! Sponsor Spot 1: I’d like to thank Kaleidoscope Adventures for sponsoring today’s show. Lots of companies can help you organize class trips, but Kaleidoscope helps you organize adventures – because isn’t

Quote: “You are worthy of investing time in yourself!” Teaser: No special intro, let’s just get into it! Sponsor Spot 1: I’d like to thank Kaleidoscope Adventures for sponsoring today’s show. Lots of companies can help you organize class trips, but Kaleidoscope helps you organize adventures – becaus

Teaser: The title for this episode is The Key Ingredient in New Teacher Support. We don’t actually use that language anywhere in the episode and I only decided on the title after we were finished recording. Instead of making you wait in suspense, I’m going to share the key ingredient right now – it’

Description: The number one thing is relationships – we’ve all heard that. It’s almost a meme. I think “the power of relationships” as an idea exists as two extremes where we tend to over emphasize and at the same time fail to appreciate the full power of relationships. I’m not sure I’m communicatin

***Link to FREE Conversation Planning Guide *** Show Title: This is Going to be Difficult with Erika Bare and Tiffany Burns Power Quote: “Remember the stated issue is often not the real issue.” Description: Today’s show is fun, interesting, and full of useful tips. I love how we discuss big concepts

If there is a theme running through the late summer podcast episodes, it’s this: listen to your teachers. Everything becomes easier when we listen. Today, two former beginning teachers of the year help us elaborate on the why and how of listening. Sponsor Spot 1: I’d like to thank Kaleidoscope Adven

Description: Before recording this episode, I was very uncertain about how it would come out. Identifying strategies for doing professional development on the cheap had the potential to be disjointed and unactionable. Thankfully, I love how this discussion came out. There are some coherent themes ru

Power Quote: I noticed… and I wonder… Description: Welcome to the third and final part of my interview with Elena Aguilar. Today we dive into how we can reconnect people with their sense of power – building teacher self-efficacy through reflective questions. Decades of research identifies teacher se

Power Quote: Behind every action is a belief Description: Today we dive into part 2 of my interview with Elena Aguilar. Part 1 was a must listen and we released in back on July 1 (260). A link to that episode and my two previous episodes from 2024 are in the show notes. In part 1 we talked about lis

I’ve been connecting with many new and nearly new APs recently and my conversations inspired me to put together a diverse panel of assistant principals to have a conversation specifically for those of you just beginning your administrator journey. And of course, there are some great tips here for ex

Teaser: “Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to Improve the quality of life and leadership for assistant principals. Together we can achieve that by focusing on three things:Escaping the tyranny of the urgentEng

Power Quote: “Climate is the emotional state felt within the physical space” Description: I had so much fun recording today’s show. My guest stands tall (literally and figuratively) in the realm of helping school leaders develop positive culture and climate. If you are a regular listener, you know I

Power Quote: “ How do you want me to listen?” Description: Today’s guest is someone I consider to be a master at the art of coaching, which is appropriate as she wrote the best-selling book titled The Art of Coaching. I Had Elena Aguilar on the show a little over a year ago and we split the intervie

Link to post on LinkedIn for book giveaway Description: Today’s interview will be a bit different as my guest is coming from four decades of leadership experience in the corporate arena. Despite the different setting, the leadership lessons will sound familiar to you. I think this discussion with so

Power Quote: “Uncover the rock” Description: If you haven’t begun reflecting on the year yet, today’s episode will get you in the mood. I encourage you to pause today’s show frequently – there are a number of moments that deserve some contemplation and pausing to think about what something looks or

Power Quote: “If we want better outcomes for students, we have to create better outcomes for teachers.” Description: I hope this doesn’t sound too egotistical but I LOVE it when a guest echoes my own preaching, especially when that guest is a current school leader. This episode is full of foundation

Two for the Price of One (!) with Frederick and Darrin Link to the NCMLE Leadership Excellence Network: https://ncmle.org/cohort-home Description: Today’s show is actually two shows in one. I recorded it with my good friend Darrin Peppard at Road to Awesome and we are releasing this episode on his s

Description: “Sam I am, I do not like green eggs and ham!” Our guest today is not Dr. Seuss, but he does talk a lot about SAM, not the peddler of a strange breakfast, but rather a process for helping instructional leaders reclaim their purpose. Sponsor Spot 1: As a loyal listener to this show, you k

SWOT ***Free SWOT and STCC tools available for download here: https://adept-experimenter-3588.kit.com/0cd1576fe5 Teaser: We are half-way through May and hopefully you have begun thinking about next year. A couple weeks ago I took several district leadership teams through a simple process to facilita

Power Quote: “Somebody has to be able to say “pause!” Description: Have you ever listened to one of those podcasts where the host asks a question, the guest gives an answer and it goes back and forth in a way that feels more like a school lecture than a discussion? This Is not that episode! It’s alm

Power Quote: “If I make them better, that makes me better” Description: Today’s guest is the 2025 NASSP National High School Assistant Principal of the year – how cool is that! This was such a fun interview. You are going to hear Saani talk about a number of things he’s done as an AP and I want you

Power Quote: We are wired to belong Description: You’ll hear me compliment today’s guest on his affirmative presence. He’s the kind of person you want to be around. It was only at the end of the show that I was able to pinpoint why and it is this: he makes me feel seen, valued, and heard. Stay tuned

Power Quote: “I’m still learning, but we will figure it out together.” Description: You are going to LOVE today’s show! As with last week, you may want to take notes. Today’s guest, a practicing principal, shared with me that he has been a listener of the show for several years, and you will hear ho

Power Quote: You are who you eat lunch with Description: Today’s show is so packed with gold nuggets, you might want to take notes or listen twice. You will hear many of my core themes filtered through a slightly different lens. Our guests are accessible and real, so perk up and hold on! (and ignore

Description: How are you? I confess to having mixed emotions about how to respond to this question. On the one hand, I’m having fun in my business and everyone around me is healthy. On the other hand, I have a lot of friends worried about losing their jobs to anti-DEI policies, my favorite national

Show title and release date: The Motivation Equation Note on Sponsorships: Help cover the cost of producing the podcast Motivate me to produce a better product Give you access to some beneficial services I will work to keep sponsorship ads under 3 minutes total If you are interested, using the affil

(Teacher) Team Leadership with Dr. Chad Dumas Description: If you’ve been listening to me or following my daily email, you’ve heard me talk about 5-minute coaching, the series of three questions we can ask teachers to help them become more reflective practitioners. The value leaders provide during t

Today I’m digging into some questions I received from participants in my recent GAMSP training on moving from Fires to Fulfillment. Podcast episode 242, released two weeks ago, is an edited audio of the presentation and you can find the full presentation on a hidden website page at frederickbuskey.c

Today’s show is high energy with lots of thoughts and concepts that will grab your attention and your intention. My guest and I talk a lot about the power you have as a leader to transform your reality, and I want to be clear – it’s tough out there right now, some of us are working in more challengi

#243: Final Questions First with Joe Pettit Description: This is just a short tease for the full interview coming out on March 11th, 2025. I had forgotten to ask Joe the four closing questions, and when I shared that with him, he was kind enough to answer the questions and send me an audio file. I f

If you read my daily email, you likely know that my big goal for 2025 is to give 25 keynotes and presentations. On Monday, February 24, I gave my first ever keynote at the Georgia Middle School Principals’ conference – big shoutout to Cheryl Riddle who organized the conference and was so wonderful t

Today’s episode is inspired by a book study I did last week with 25 building and district school leaders. The focus of the book study was stage 5 of A School Leader’s Guide to Reclaiming Purpose, which is all about 5-minute coaching. We began with celebration We did 5-minute coaching We reflected in

We are in a moment of significant change. There’s a lot of instability and unpredictability and people don’t know what’s going to happen – good, bad, or indifferent. We don’t know what all of the announced or teased policy changes mean or if they are going to take effect. This environment creates a

Description: Today’s guest is Tequila Lamar. The name should be familiar to you because I just featured my first interview with Tequila as the “Greatest Episode of All Time.” And now she’s back and now this episode may be my new favorite of all time. We will of course build on our previous discussio

| A couple weeks ago in one of my daily emails I asked for people’s experiences, perspectives, and questions about culture. A reader responded: As far as culture , my main frustration is a lack of initiative I notice in some of our adult, professional faculty members... Behaviors like not arriving o

In May, on episode 199, I had Jamie Brown on the show and he took us through a very simple but effective script for having a restorative conversation with a student. That show was re-aired at the end of December as my favorite show of 2024. After the show, Jamie and I discussed how APs can help new

236: Culture Questions From Claude Part II Show Description: | Last week I asked Claude AI to give me 12 questions I could answer that would help elaborate on school culture. We answered the first six questions last week and will do the second batch of six this week. I have to say, I was quite impre

235: Culture Questions From Claude Part I Show Description: Two weeks ago, I did a show that described how school culture is a byproduct of the degree of alignment between people, purpose, structures, and resources. High alignment – good culture. Low alignment – poor culture. I also shared in that e

#234: Leading an Ethical School with Dr. Nason Lollar Description: Today’s guest has developed a framework and language around professional conduct, which he defines as “my contribution to our culture of learning.” Cool. And what else is cool, is that you will hear, in slightly different terms, some

#233: Imposter Syndrome (Greatest Episode of All Time) There is a very brief intro to this, my favorite episode of all time! Originally released in May, 2023… Let’s face it, you aren’t cut out for this job. You are in over your head, and soon everyone will discover it! What were you even thinking? Y

#232: 2024’s BEST Podcast! Power Quote: “Every kid has a story” Jamie’s Student Debrief Protocol: 1. Are you okay? 2. What was the trigger? 3. How did the behavior impact others? 4. What could you have done differently? Description: This is a replay of my favorite interview form 2024, PLUS a few new

A School Leader’s Guide to Building Culture Show Description: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” - Peter Drucker, Author “Culture is like the wind. It is invisible; yet its effect can be seen and felt.” - Bryan Walker, Partner and Managing Director, Ideo “Corporate culture is really hard to defi

#330: Email Sucks Show Description: Last week, Darrin Peppard and I went over some of our favorite time hacks. Towards the end of the show, we talked about email. Today, I’m devoting a whole show to email. I’ll share some tips and tricks, but how we manage email is as much about our mindset as it is

#229 Outline and Show Notes Show Title: 10 Awesome Time Hacks with Darrin Peppard Power Quote: Description: Time. The most limited resource (along with attention). Many leaders feel if they can better manage their time, they can become better leaders. Yes… and no. The big secret to time management i

228: The Blueprint with Todd Bloomer Power Quote: The further you are from classrooms… the easier it is to become jaded. Description: If I said I knew a principal who was in classrooms all day Monday, would you believe me? I hope so, because you are about to know him too. Guest Bio: Todd Bloomer was

Should We Give Teachers Matches? With Alex Auriemma Description: Back in September I released episode 218 titled “Teacher Evaluation is Broken.” Before I recorded that episode I had been thinking about the topic, and today’s guest and I actually recorded the conversation you are about to listen to p

Win the Morning, Win the Day with Johnathan Cranford Description: If your ISS program runs like clockwork and results in increased academic achievement and fewer misbehaviors, then feel free to skip today’s episode. If you attend one of the 99% of schools that struggle to fully leverage ISS, you wil

Silence is Golden Show Description: I teased this show on this morning’s daily email message, in which I suggested I might release a podcast episode that was all silence, to drive home the message that when it comes to helping people reflect, our silence is golden. Of course, the point would be lost

#224: The Power of Reflection Show Description: We are over half-way through the Good Enough October Challenge. Remember, the big idea here is that you don’t have to be a great leader, you just need to be good enough. Specifically, good enough leaders consistently help the people around them grow by

Presence Shouldn’t Wait for Christmas Power Quote: Once you embrace how valuable your full presence is, you will be more motivated to share it with others. Description: This week we continue looking at what it takes to be a good enough leader. Last week we established that being able to consistently

222: How will you show up? The Big Idea What if the person you are trying to grow knows more about what they need than you do? This is perspective shift #1: They know more than you ● Stop trying to diagnose what’s wrong ● Assume people want to be really good at what they do ● Ask them what outcomes

Show Title: What is Leadership? with Mara and Frederick Helene Rebuild Collaborative link: https://hurricanehelenewnc.com/gallery Description: Leadership takes many forms. In this episode we discuss some of these different forms. We’ve tried to highlight a variety of ways people lead, especially tho

#219 Good Enough October Challenge If you'd like to donate to Helene relief, here is the link to Lance's team: https://hurricanehelenewnc.com/ Facebook page to learn more: https://www.facebook.com/lance.buskey Show Description: The difference between great, good enough, and not good enoughUpdate fro

WNC Links: Accurate Local News (radio): https://www.bpr.org/ Local donation options: https://www.bpr.org/bpr-news/2024-09-28/list-ways-to-donate-and-help-flood-victims-in-western-north-carolina-after-hurricane-helene Lance Buskey Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lance.buskey Lance’s Venmo: Lance-b

Teacher Evaluation is Broken Show Description: Assuming you were a teacher, and assuming you were evaluated from time to time:· Did your evaluations ever result in termination?· Did the ever result in you getting a big raise or promotion?· Were they part of a process that helped you grow into a bett

Show Title: O Captain, My Captain with Michael Miller Power Quote: “Let there be joy!” Description: Today’s show is like a voyage. We’ll begin in one port, set a course, examine the voyage, and anchor at our destination. This episode is expansive and there are lots of wonderful insights into leaders

Show Title: The Principal’s GREAT Assistant Principal with John Hinds Power Quote: “There’s a system for that” Description: You’ll hear the word “systems” quite a bit in today’s show. Today’s guest will paraphrase a quote attributed to Edwards Deming, one of the titans of process improvement from th

10 Ways in 10 Days Part 2 Grab the PDF guide of all 10 Ways: https://adept-experimenter-3588.ck.page/d58fd6430f Show Description: According to a recent ASCD article synthesizing the recent research on early career teacher retention, 29% of first year teachers will leave the school they are in , to e

10 Ways in 10 Days: Easy Activities for Supporting New Teachers, Part 1 Grab the PDF guide of all 10 Ways: https://adept-experimenter-3588.ck.page/d58fd6430f Show Description: According to a recent ASCD article synthesizing the recent research on early career teacher retention, 29% of first year tea

Seven Favorite Things Today’s show covers seven favorite of my favorite parts of the book! One for the introduction and one for each of the six stages. The Strategic Leader’s Guide to Reclaiming Purpose: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CWRS2F6N?ref_=pe_93986420_774957520 Monthly nudges : A single email

Assistant Principal Podcast Content Episode Outline Show Description: In 2007 I lead a group of six professors at Western Carolina University in a total redesign of our masters of school administration principal licensure program. I was the coordinator of a program that had jest become fully online,

Show Title: Presence and Passion for Living with Lindsay Titus Power Quote: “Emotions are energy in motion” Description: How do you take care of yourself when you are so busy taking care of others? How can you be present when there is so much to do? What’s the meaning of life? Okay, we won’t go quit

The Three Epiphanies Maybe you are a new admin this fall. Maybe you are headed to a new school. Maybe you are staying where you are, but new people are coming to you. In today’s abbreviated episode, we’ll play with this idea of newness. The Big Idea · What this podcast was going to be…. · BB King ·

Show Title: 42 and Stuff with Dr. Steve Miletto Description: Today’s conversation is like a meandering stream that is destined to end in a specific place. What are the meanders, and where do they lead? Stay tuned! Guest Bio: Dr. Steven Miletto has been an educator in Georgia(US) for 37 years. He has

Show Title: Authentic Parent Partnerships with Ari Gerzon-Kessler Power Quote: Description: Imagine that we have some time scheduled to meet together. What would you want to talk about? And how would I know what you wanted to talk about? You would either have had to tell me, or I would have had to a

Supporting Early Career Teachers – a Systems Approach Show Description: With all the challenges we face, it can be difficult to focus on just one thing. In fact, it often feels like we do the opposite – throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks. In today’s episode I detail how we can make im

Show Title: “One-offs Matter” with Jen Manly Power Quote: “One-offs matter.” Description: Do you remember being a teacher? Or maybe you are an aspiring AP and you are still in the classroom. Either way, I want you to think about the relationship between the evaluation process, professional developme

Show Title: Coaching and a Culture of Learning with Elena Aguilar Power Quote: “To normalize growth, we must normalize making mistakes.” Description: Before we get started, I need to give a shout out to Dr. Pam Buskey. Today is our anniversary and though the years have flown by too quickly, every on

Show Title: The Coaching Relationship with Elena Aguilar Power Quote: “We are social beings.” Description: In 2013 Elena Aguilar wrote The Art of Coaching . I came across the book soon after and it has shaped the way I view and do coaching. Today’s show is part 1 of my discussion with Elena in which

Ch-ch-ch-changes (turn and face the pain?) Show Description: Last week you listened to Chad Dumas and I discuss PLCs. When we began talking, I had in my head the idea of a PLC being a discrete thing – group of teachers collaborating around honing their teaching skills. I suspect that most of you lis

Outline and Show Notes Show Title: Will the Real PLC Please Stand Up? with Dr. Chad Dumas Power Quote: “Clarity precedes confidence” Description: I’m giving you fair warning – today’s show is loaded with both big ideas and small techniques. The discussion will feel like it is meandering a bit but st

Show Title: Celebrating 200 with Frederick and Mara Power Quote: People are the purpose Guest Bio: Frederick Buskey helps school leaders reclaim their purpose! Building on 33 years of k-12 and higher education leadership experience, Frederick provides simple frameworks and practical tools to help le

Outline and Show Notes Show Title: Are You Okay? With Jamie Brown Power Quote: “Connection before correction” Jamie’s Student Debrief Protocol: 1. Are you okay? 2. What was the trigger? 3. How did the behavior impact others? 4. What could you have done differently? Description: Are you okay? Of cour

This is a bonus episode done while I was hiking and reflecting on my own training facilitation. Frederick’s Links: Email: frederick@frederickbuskey.com Website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/ LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/strategicleadershipconsulting Daily Email subscribe: https://adept-ex

Show title and release date: Who Should Drive Change? With Frederick Power quote: Lighter = faster and easier with less risk of injury Show Description: In a few weeks you will hear my discussion with Dr. Chad Dumas in which we dig into PLCs. We begin by noting the “PLC” is one of the most despised

Outline and Show Notes Show Title: Mastermind! With Dr. Nick Davies Power Quote: Be willing to fail Description: When I say the word “mastermind”, what thoughts spring into your head? Do you picture the head of a shadowy criminal enterprise, or the 1980’s colored-dot guessing game (think WORDL with

Outline and Show Notes Show Title: Three questions with Dr. Brandon Beck Power Quote: “Our ultimate goal is to unlock unlimited potential in others” Description: Today’s show is going to inspire you. It will take you deep into yourself, maybe places you go every day, but also to places within that y

Interview Tip: Tell the Story that Drives You! The Big Idea · Interview tips for aspiring APs (Dos vs. don'ts, or any stories of a successful interview or an interview that did not go well) o Remember you are interviewing them o Be authentic – if you compromise in the interview you can never get it

A Human Approach to Schooling with Dr. Faiza Jamil Power Quote: We lose our ability to see the whole Description: You can think of today’s show as a bit of a thought experiment. What changes if we make relationships, at every level of the school, THE priority? It is a thought experiment, but we also

Power quote: If you don’t have a relationship, you aren’t coaching… your telling. Show Description: The foundation of coaching. That’s today’s topic, although it wasn’t what I had planned. This episode was scheduled to be about coaching fundamentals, but as I began working on the first part of the s

Investing in Growth with Dr. Nick Davies Power Quote: Control What you can Description: If you don’t grow, how can you get better? Yet, in a job where you can’t ever get everything done, how do you find time to grow? Today we have the 2024 Washington State Elementary Principal of the Year here to he

Description: Today’s show is guest hosted by Mara Buskey, the Inclusion Strategist at Strategic Leadership Consulting. Frederick’s new book, A School Leader’s Guide to Reclaiming Purpose, is out and we thought it would be fun to celebrate by turning the tables and having Mara be the guest host to in

Guest: Andrea Bitner Show Title: We Are the Ticket with Andrea Bitner Power Quote: “Lack of language does not equal lack of intelligence” Description: I love doing shows where you, my colleague, can walk away with concrete steps to use in making immediate incremental improvements. The only thing bet

Show Title: Run to the Complexity with Jason McKenna Power Quote: STEM is a mirror of our world” Description: STEM has been around for awhile, but I’ll be honest – I don’t actually know what stem is. It is a process? A product? A package? And who can do STEM? And, as school leaders, how do we know i

Description: Today’s show is completely different from anything I’ve done in the past. Our guest took my free course on building a positive classroom culture and reached out to share how he used what he learned and to pick my brain about next steps, so what you are going to hear today is a coaching

The Solution Starts with Us with Charle Peck Power quote: “The solution starts with us” Show Description: Is your school community thriving? How do you know? More importantly, how do you – how can you – be a powerful agent for building a thriving school community? The wonderful thing about the answe

“Let’s do this together” with Dr. Nate Regier Power Quote: Conflict has a purpose Description: One of the most frequent things I’m asked about is how to have difficult conversation. I have some thoughts, but I’m not an expert. That’s why today’s guest is here. What if we looked at conflict as an opp

Show Notes, Episode 184: The Power of Presence with Kelly Scarbrough It’s always fun to sit down with another consultant or author and dive into their field of expertise to find powerful ideas and tools you can use to improve your life and leadership. However, some of the best ideas come, not from e

Outline and Show Notes Guest: Tomeka Love Links and promo stuff? Preferred name/title? Relax and laugh Will be video recording and may use small or big pieces Small things won’t be edited If there is a gaff – long pause Intro-interview-outro Questions for me? FB hit record Show Title: South Carolina

Originally aired as episode 125 on May 16, 2023. This is one of my all-time favorite episodes. Enjoy! Frederick’s Links: Email: frederick@frederickbuskey.com Website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/ LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/strategicleadershipconsulting Daily Email subscribe: https://ad

Description: Back in episode 141, Dr. Helen Kelly and I talked about burnout and the things school leaders can do to help recover from work and avoid burnout. Helen noted in that show, that recovery was only 20% of the antidote, because the problem of burnout is not an individual problem – it is an

Today’s show begins with a 40,000-foot view of student voice and then takes us right to ground level to break down implementation of a specific practice for elevating not only student voice, but also teacher voice. Are you ready? Connect with Lyndsay: Website: https://www.lindsaybethlyons.com YouTub

Hello Colleagues and welcome to this week’s 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! Actually, this will be our last episode of 5fF and instead of recapping… explain how I reached this decision. Lens of 3 epiphs: 1 2 3 Here’s the story: MM complaining too much to do… Jeff asked, I sa

Culture, specifically, organizational culture. It’s part cliché, part elusive whale, and part obsession. We all work (or have worked in my case) within schools or educational organizations which have a culture and we all know how powerfully that culture influences what happens within the school. The

Hello Colleagues and welcome to another 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! Today’s shout out goes to… Those of you reaching out to me via email and LinkedIn! It inspires me to keep going. Specifically, I’d like to thank: Darius Coulibaly Kelly Scarbrough Valerie Jones Annette B

177: Leaning In and Listen with Alex Auriemma About this show (Teaser from outline) I am keeping this teaser short because I cannot wait to get into today’s conversation. Back in August I encouraged listeners to ask their veteran teachers three questions. The questions were designed to help you lear

Hello Colleagues and welcome to another 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! Today’s shout out goes to… my incredible book reviewers. My book on how to move from spending time on tasks to investing time in people id tentatively scheduled for publication in March. One way to tell

For years I have done management and discipline trainings for new teachers. For years, those trainings changed little. Recently though, by approach has shifted. I’m now focusing on helping teachers build positive classroom cultures, by attending to three elements: 1. First and most importantly are r

Hello Colleagues and welcome to another 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! The week’s emails: What makes a good hike? The impact of alignment on culture The 3-day pocket door series Made a mistake – what should I do? The importance of information, especially opportunity cost We

Today’s show will touch on a number of important things:· Why do great teachers leave their schools, or education? What makes a great leader? If you don’t trust a teacher to manage their own growth, what can you do about it? What do teachers want?If any of those sound interesting to you, then you sh

Hello Colleagues and welcome to another 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! Today’s shout out goes to Matthew Downing, host of the DivingDeep EDU podcast. Matthew was recently promoted to the role of Supervisor of elementary Instructional Technology wih the Upper Darby School Di

In this episode I discuss three important things I'm teaching a group of teaching interns about building a positive classroom culture. Frederick’s Links: Email: frederick@frederickbuskey.com Website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/ LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/strategicleadershipconsulting

Hello Colleagues and welcome to another 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! Today’s shout out goes to… Krista8967 who wrote in a recent review: I absolutely love this podcast. Frederick Buskey gives helpful tips that you can put into action right away. This show has been a part

Show Notes, Episode 169: The why and how of meetings with Michele Matoon About this show Have you ever been in a meeting that didn’t go well? I know, silly question. What about this – have you ever been in a meeting that DID go well? And why, if your experiences have been anything like mine, are the

Hello Colleagues and welcome to another 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! Today’s shout out goes to… IamBlandon who kindly reviewed the show on Apple Podcasts, saying the following… Thank you! I’m so close to completing my journey on becoming an administrator! Thank you so muc

Show Notes Show Title: Tech as a tool for supporting teachers with Jessica Preisig Show Description: Talking about technology in education elicits a range of responses from enthusiastic embraces to gag reflexes, and on either end of the spectrum technology can be problematic. However, with some mind

Hello Colleagues and welcome to another 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! Today I’m celebrating fall! The leaves are beginning to turn color, the nights are getting crisp – which means better sleeping for those of us who like being buried under a mound of blankets – and everyt

Being a human is being imperfect with Dr. Efraín Martínez, No. 165 Show Description: We all have stories about where we came from, how we grew up, and the people we’ve walked our journeys with. We have joys and traumas that inform how we see out world, and how we see others in our world. Today we’ll

Hello Colleagues and welcome to another 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! Today’s shout out goes to… Now + Next Cohort 2. Valori, Lisa, Paige, Gail, Jen, Kayla, Michelle, and Emily, thanks for making the program so wonderful. It is a testament to what can happen when inspired

Show Description: I will lead off this episode with a couple apologies:1. I’ve got a cold and am low energy, so I’m admittedly not bringing my A-game this week. Paraphrasing BB King…2. I know this episode’s title has a click-bait feel to it, but it is the best I could come up with today (see apology

Hello Colleagues and welcome to another 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! Today’s shout out goes to… Mitchell Hall, Gifted and Talented Education Specialist, Garrett County Public Schools, Maryland who emailed me about the relationship matrix we featured on our August 30th dai

You make it what you want with Sean Olson Show Description: It would be a trope if there wasn’t so much truth to it – become an AP and spend countless hours “doing” discipline. It’s hard to support and grow your teachers if you are handling discipline all day. But what if we could change this narrat

Hello Colleagues and welcome to another 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! Today’s shout out goes to Caitlin and the whole team at EB Academics. Caitlin was kind enough to interview me on episode 243 of the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast. Caitlin is a wonderful interviewer,

Assistant Principal Podcast Content Episode Outline Show title and release date: Presence Show Description: Ask 100 school leaders for their best piece of wisdom and the majority of respondents will likely tell you that it is all about relationships. That’s great, but how do you turn “its all about

Hello Colleagues and welcome to another 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! Today’s shout out goes to AJ Bianco, Vice Principal at East Brook Middle School in Hillsdale, NJ. AJ also was a contribute rot last week’s episode on veteran teachers. You may recall at the end of that s

We assume that being an educational leader revolves around making deposits. What I mean is that we invest our time supporting and growing others. When we help others, we are, usually, making deposits. There will come a time however, when we need to make a withdrawal – when we need to have someone do

TodHello Colleagues and welcome to another 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! Today’s shout out goes to the instructional coaches of Lexington 4 school district in Gaston, SC. Emily, Mary Beth, Kari, Katie, and Amanda, I appreciate you taking time to give me critical feedback o

Last week’s show was about growing veteran teachers. I focused largely on the importance of relationships. At the end of the episode, I encouraged you to ask your veteran teachers three questions:o What is your teaching super-power?o What’s the biggest difference between who you are now as a teacher

Hello Colleagues and welcome to another 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! Today’s shout out goes to…William D Parker, host of the Principal Matters Podcast and a kind, gentle, and caring human being who is quickly becoming a good friend. Will released his interview of me back

I was a coach before I was a teacher. Literally, I volunteered as a football coach right after I graduated from high school. I played three years of high school and four years of college football, and I had position coaches, defensive coordinators, and head coaches all involved in my development as

Hello Colleagues and welcome to another 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! Today’s shout out goes to… I don’t know. It’s been a quiet week at the podcast as everyone gears up for school. Please consider emailing me, DMing me on LinkedIn, or leaving a review of the podcast on Ap

Today’s episode is packed full of amazing information, ideas, and inspiration. We are going to conclude today’s show with a simple technique for putting everything in the show into practice. It is simple, and you can become competent in the technique with almost no practice, and it will take you les

Hello Colleagues and welcome to another 5 for Friday episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast! So much to celebrate today: · WOW! This is number 150 of The Assistant Principal Podcast! · We topped 4500 downloads in July – a new record! · I keep hearing from listeners telling me how the podcast has

Congratulations! You finally have that brand new AP job! Or maybe you’re walking into a different new leadership position, or moving into a different school. Or maybe you aren’t going anywhere... yet. Today my special guest and I are going to dig into the four essentials that many of the support pro

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of July 31-August 4, 2023.

Passion! Remember when you were just starting out and you wanted to set the world on fire? I know, you are in school leadership, so you are still setting the world on fire – in a good way – but maybe some days it feels like your box of matches is running a bit low. Maybe? Today we have a very specia

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of July 24-28, 2023.

You can’t do it alone! Building a support network is essential to any leader’s success but is critical to first-year assistant principals. A good network consists of four roles which we will explore today.

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of July 17-21, 2023.

Accountability is compassionate. Conflict builds trust. Switches influence our mindset. At first glance, none of these statement may seem to make a lot of sense, but 30 minutes from now you will probably be embracing the ideas behind them – ideas that lead us to powerful truths which will improve li

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of July 10-14, 2023.

What if I could give you three strategies to magically prevent burnout? Do I have your attention? Full disclosure – I don’t have three strategies, because burnout isn’t about you. It’s about something bigger. And you can’t prevent burnout. It requires something greater. Sounds a bit confusing? Playf

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of July 3-7, 2023.

One of my favorite books is Jim Collins’ Good to Great – a book about what separates great companies from good ones. Collins’ book focuses on organizations, so what about leaders? What separates a great assistant principal from a good one? If you aren’t at the level of leadership you’d like to be, h

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of June 26-30, 2023.

We are in an era where teacher and school lead autonomy is under a lot of pressure. It is becoming common practice, especially at the elementary level, for teachers to be handed a tightly structured curriculum and scripted teaching package and told “do this.” We even hear the term “teacher-proof” be

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of June 19-23, 2023.

In behavioral psychology, a punishment is defined as any change that reduces the likelihood of a behavior occurring again. Retribution is defined as legal revenge, with something being taken or inflicted upon someone else for a wrong. Let’s be honest, we mix these terms up a lot. Students can only a

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of June 12-6, 2023.

One of the most common laments I hear from school leaders involves the lack of student engagement present in so many classrooms. What drives engagement isn’t activities, its learning – deeper learning. But what is deeper learning, and how do we help teachers learn about it and implement it? I hope y

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of June 4-9, 2023.

I’ve been hearing from a number of people who are getting ready to be brand new assistant principals in the fall and I have been thinking about the most critical things for them to do during the summer and the first few weeks of school. Of course, you need to build relationships and learn how your s

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of May 29 – June 2, 2023. I’m going to go completely out of order today and just work through the overall theme which was about solving problems. In today’s episode we will touch on the six dimensions of organizat

Last fall I offered a five-page guide on ten activities to support new teachers during the first two- weeks of school. The activities were designed to achieve three goals: ● Create a trusting relationship with the teacher ● Lay the foundations for a well-managed classroom ● Provide curricular guidan

Last Friday I began with a shoutout to Soupman2545 for leaving a review and helping me improve the show. It felt good to begin the show with a thank you so I’m going to begin doing this regularly on Fridays. Today I want to acknowledge the daily email readers and podcast listeners who responded to l

I know… you don’t have time to pause, you barely have time to breathe, and you are saving flourishing for summer. You are too busy with all the tasks, and taking care of everyone else. Except for being in this moment, and, right now, this is the only moment that matters because it is the only moment

If you listened to Tuesday’s incredible show with Tequilla Lamar, you noticed something new – music! Mara and Collin have been suggesting for some time that we needed to add a few musical transitions, but I have been dragging my feet until I read a recent review of the show. Shout out to soupman2545

Let’s face it, you aren’t cut out for this job. You are in over your head, and soon everyone will discover it! What were you even thinking? You can’t help your teachers grow. You should never have done this, and you will certainly never make it to the next level. Ouch – such terrible thoughts! There

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of May 8-12, 2023. Celebrations: Garden planted out! New AP (1 & 2) mentoring program progress!

That my friends is a musical introduction to today’s theme – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. We aren’t talking about spaghetti westerns, but rather a valuable process to help school leaders get an honest snapshot of what is working, what’s not working, and most importantly what to do about it. My g

Today we will begin with the end. There are many big and complex problems we need to solve, but the process will be slow and require great effort. In contrast, there are small quality-of-life improvements we can make that are simple and yield immediate results. We looked at three this week: Get rid

Back in episode 44 I shared the story that drives me in which I talked about Kelli, an assistant principal who was overwhelmed with discipline. I visited her around 10:00 o'clock on a spring morning in her rural elementary school and she already had seven office referrals. When I asked Kelli how man

If you get my daily email, you already know that this week’s messages involved me going head-to-head with ChatGPT on the topic of creating a positive organizational culture. What I didn’t have space to discuss in the emails is how we can use the framework of the six dimensions of organizations to he

At the beginning of this school year, North Carolina embarked on a two-year, $90-million journey to train every elementary and teachers and administrator in a program called LETRS, which aligns to Science of Reading standards, a research-based approach to teaching reading. The training focuses on bu

Famous leadership theorist and author John Maxwell said, “leadership s influence, nothing less, nothing more.” Is that it? Is that really all leadership is?

When I say “People before Purpose” what do I actually mean? When I say the silver bullet -the one truly magical solution – is to build relationships, what does that look like? Today we will unpack two relationship forms. Congenial relationships are based on personal connections, while collegial rela

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of April 10-14, 2023.

Saying that great leaders are great listeners has almost become cliché. Listening is one of those things that sounds simple, but which can be challenging to execute – especially when all the craziness is happening. Part of the challenge is that listening requires presence – full presence. I’m going

If I can’t do everything, doesn’t that mean that I choose what does get done – and what doesn’t? And if I’m choosing, do my choices reflect my values? These three ideas make up my three epiphanies: I can’t do everything Therefore, I choose what gets done And my choices do – or should – reflect my va

You’ve heard me talk about the flywheel. It is the process of providing professional development, following it up with targeted observations, and using observation data to drive the next round of professional development. As with so many things, while the concept is simple, execution is difficult. T

I had a lot of fun writing this week’s emails. Last week I met and worked with some incredible people, and it just made the whole week special. I hope that positivity radiates through this week’s messages. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of Marc

You’ve heard me talk about the flywheel. It is the process of providing professional development, following it up with targeted observations, and using observation data to drive the next round of professional development. As with so many things, while the concept is simple, execution is difficult. T

Simple fences, small wins, and three tips for interviewing. But wait, there’s more! Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of March 20-24, 2023.

So many teachers to coach but so little time! A simple coaching cycle might consist of a Five minute pre-conference, 30-minute observation, 10-minute post conference, and 30 minutes of professional development. Most APs don’t have 75 minutes to invest in a single coaching cycle. But what if there wa

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of March 13-17, 2023.

Are the keys to being a great teacher the same as the keys to being a great principal? And are those keys the same for being a great assistant principal? We will unlock the answers to those questions today, with a very special guest.

This week I took a break from the daily emails. Mara did a great job filling in, but rather than try and tell her story today, I thought I’d share a bit about what waterfalls can teach us about school change. I often think about leadership, and the prevalence of water in the Smoky’s almost guarantee

Do you work too many hours? Do you feel like there is never enough time? Do you ever miss your family and friends? Today, my guest, Danny Bauer and myself will explore some keys to a mindshift that will help you rethink how you approach your work and, more importantly, your own health.

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of February 27-March 3, 2023.

Leadership is a journey and although I talk about it being a journey of five stages, we never truly arrive, and this is a great thing! A never-ending leadership journey is good news because it means we are never done growing, and we can always be getting better. Every day I have an opportunity to do

For about three weeks we had a tight focus on mentoring. I hope you embraced the three core messages: Spend more time with and show more appreciation for your mentor If you don’t have a mentor, find one Be intentional about mentoring others Beginning this week we pivoted to our next big theme: trave

Part two of our incredible interview with Dr. Jan Osborn. This week we learn more life lessons and hear more good stories from Jan!

One of the beauties of life is that over time we collect special ideas from cherished people. Through deep connections with friends, colleagues, and mentors, we become better people. Some of us even become referred to as wise. Wisdom is not something mysterious. Wisdom does not come from contemplati

In my junior year of college Dr. Bob Kelly said to me, “I predict that someday you will earn your doctorate.” His statement planted the seed of an idea that had not been there before. In 1994 I enrolled in a Special Education course at the University of Findlay. That course was taught by Dr. Jan Osb

None of this week’s messages were earth shattering or focused on big changes, but that is the whole point. It is the small changes that matter. Making one or two small changes today lets us invest an extra minute or two in supporting someone who needs it – and that is where the big change happens. T

Show Notes, Episode 97: Every building, every class, every day! About this show: Unless you are a first-time listener, you have heard me talk about the flywheel – the core set of instructional practices that drive continual teacher growth. But what does this flywheel look like in practice, in a real

Five for Friday Show Notes Teaser: This week was all about leadership as a concept. What is leadership? Beyond what leadership is, we looked out how leaders gain power, and the ability they have to build – or destroy. In today’s episode I will deviate significantly from the short messages of the wee

Show Notes, Episode 95: All Other Duties as Assigned with Dr. Ryan Donlan About this show: There are a couple of closely related questions I am frequently asked:As an AP, what’s my role in helping to support the principal’s vision?How do I lead if my principal and I have different leadership styles?

Five for Friday Show Notes Teaser: Outside of Monday, the theme running through this week’s emails is care. We look at care from a couple of different perspectives that include increasing attention, decreasing attention, and giving some love to the second principle of leverage – working A-B. Hello c

Show Notes, Episode 93: Cultivating Motivation with Mike Anderson About this show: There once was an old man who didn’t like baseball. He likes quiet and solitude. But every day all summer long, the neighborhood kids would gather at the empty field next to the man’s house and play ball all day long,

Five for Friday Show Notes Teaser: Today’s Five for Friday will be a bit different. Leading off we will talk about the best pot to use for cooking oatmeal. I bet you didn’t see that coming! After the brief cooking lesson, we’ll invest the rest of our time exploring a question I received from a reade

Show Notes, Episode 91: Meet the New Principal with Dr. Sam Sircey Part 2 About this show: I’m working with three new principals this year. They are all first-year principals in new schools, two of them in a new district. Going to a new school is never easy, not for a new principal, not for a new as

Five for Friday Show Notes Teaser: This week’s big idea: We are here to support people, and the first step in supporting is listening. Hello colleagues and welcome to The Assistant Principal Podcast, I’m your host Dr. Frederick Buskey. I’ve been growing leaders and future leaders for over 30 years.

Outline Guest: Sam Sircey Preferred name/title? Relax and laugh Will be video recording and may use small or big pieces Small things won’t be edited If there is a gaff – long pause Intro-interview-outro Questions for me? FB hit record Show Description: I’m working with three new principals this year

Five for Friday Outline Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week

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Five for Friday Outline Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week

Show Notes, Episode 51: Who are you? With Craig Martin About this show: Last spring several of the assistant principals in our APEx group asked if we could work on how APs can influence school culture without over-stepping their boundaries. One AP noted that this could be especially problematic if y

Five for Friday Outline Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week

Show Notes, Episode 26: Courage with Mary Hemphill About this show: Are you living your leadership journey courageously? Before Dr. Mary Hemphill became the Director of Academic Standards for the North Carolina Department of education she was a passionate and innovative principal. Before that, she w

Five for Friday Outline Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week

Show Notes, Episode 83: The APs Journey with Maria Werner About this show: Are you stuck in the gravitational pull of the black hole of urgency? Or maybe, you are figuring out some ways to escape that force and move towards being a more strategic leader. Or, perhaps, you have already figured it out.

Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of December 5-9, 2022.

Assistant Principal Podcast Content Episode Outline Show title and release date: What’s your problem? December 6, 2022 Show Description: What do (a) too many discipline referrals, (b) a poor teacher, and (c) an overflowing car line have in common? The answer is not that they are all problems. In fac

Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of November 28-December

Assistant Principal Exceleration Show Notes, Episode 79: Just be visible About this show: “Can Every School Succeed?” That’s a big question and I’m not sure about the answer. I do know that every school can get better. Is that enough? Again, I don’t know. But I do know someone who does and he is our

Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of November 21-25, 2022

Assistant Principal Podcast Content Episode Outline Show title and release date: November 22, 2022 Show Description: Last episode we looked at the flywheel through the lens of normative, or group, professional development. Remember, the flywheel refers to a set of practices that, when executed over

Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of November 14-18, 2022

2022-11-15_75_The Flywheel Part 1_FINAL audio 00:12 : Leadership really is a journey. Oftentimes, we begin that journey by being sucked into the black hole of urgency. And then we're able to start to break away from that pole of that urgent gravity by implementing some strategically reactive process

Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of November 7-11.

Assistant Principal Podcast Content Episode Outline Show title and release date: Show Description: "Those sessions do nothing for me" This was a quote from a teacher about some PD and it was shared by an admin seeking feedback on a social media site. More specifically, the teacher was commenting on

Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of October 31-Nov. 4, 2

Show Notes, Episode 71: Restorative Practices with Josh Stamper About this show: Change starts from within. That was the title of episode 20, in which we talked with Doctor Gabby Grant about introducing restorative practices into your school. Before taking external action, we need to take internal a

Assistant Principal Podcast Five for Friday Template Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host this week, Mara Buskey and if you don’t already know me, I am the Inclusion Strategist with Strategic Leadership Consulting, as well as Frederick’s daughter. The goal o

Assistant Principal Podcast Content Episode Outline Show title and release date: October 25, 2022 Show Description: Every teacher should have a procedure for beginning class. Most opening class procedures share some common elements:· What to do with materials· How or when to sit down· Getting starte

Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of October 22-28, 2022.

Show Notes, Episode 67: Blooming Where You Are Planted with Robyn Jackon About this show: “As an assistant principal, you must learn to bloom where you are planted. If you do, you will open up huge opportunities to make a meaningful difference right now in your career and build the skills you need t

2022-10-21_68_Five for Friday Final Audio Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast I'm your host, Frederick Busky. The goal of this podcast is to improve life and leadership for assistant principals. Today's episode of five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for

Have you ever popped into a classroom, just to see what’s going on, and have the teacher stop the lesson and begin explaining to you what they are doing? Or have them continue teaching but give that look of, “what are you doing in my classroom?” Or, after one of these pop-ins, had the teacher run to

Today's episode of five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of October 3rd through seventh twenty, twenty two. If you already get my daily leadership emails, then I hope you'll find some added value here. And if you don't already subscribe, you can find a link on my homepa

Show Notes, Episode 63: Productive Disruption with Dr. Mary Hemphill About this show: Ship is sinking (may 26, 2022, Ep 28) The teacher shortage is not going awayThe academic setbacks from COVID will ripple through our schools for ten yearsContinued trauma has exacerbated already challenging mental

2022-09-27_62_Five for Friday_FINAL AUDIO 00:01 Hello colleagues, and welcome to the Assistant Principal podcast. I'm your host, Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to improve life and leadership for assistant principals. Today's episode of five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership e

Show Description: How did your to-do list go today?How about yesterday?How will it go tomorrow?If you missed last week’s webinar on escaping the black hole of urgency, you may still be focused on the to-do list. I won’t recap the entire webinar here, but I will pull a couple of highlights. Show Intr

Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of September 19-23, 202

Assistant Principal Podcast Content Episode Outline Show title and release date: 9/20/22 Show Description: Everything has a cost. That cost can be easily measured in time, money, and attention. But the larger and more important cost is opportunity cost. Opportunity cost reflects what we could have d

Webinar registration: https://event.webinarjam.com/register/2/532gpun

Show Notes, Episode 58: Supporting New Teachers with John Schembari About this show: We all know how critical it is to support new teachers, but do we actually know how to support them? Today we answer four questions: What do we mean when we say “new teacher?” How can APs build collaborative relatio

Monday: Relationships in the workplace take three basic forms: · Congenial: people share a social bond · Pragmatic: people share a professional bond · Collegial: people share professional and social bonds The problem with congenial relationships is that while they make people happy, they don’t help

Show Notes, Episode 55: The Black Hole of Urgency For many of us, our goals – our dreams – of leadership revolve around helping others: · By helping them gain skills, · By aligning systems so their work is easier and less frustrating, · By increasing opportunities, · And by building powerful collegi

Looking forward to episode 56: The Black Hole of Urgency!

Assistant Principal Podcast Five for Friday Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership

Show Notes, Episode 53: Supporting New Teachers, August 30, 2022 About this show: In my teacher education program at The Ohio State University, I had two professors who literally wrote the book on managing students and spaces in physical education. Some of our student teaching lessons were taped, an

Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of August 22-26, 202. I

Show Notes, Episode 51: Who are you? With Craig Martin About this show: Last spring several of the assistant principals in our APEx group asked if we could work on how APs can influence school culture without over-stepping their boundaries. One AP noted that this could be especially problematic if y

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of August 15-19, 202. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of August 15-19, 202. We also celebrate out 50th episode by listening to five of our favorite outtakes f

Show Notes, Episode 49: The Instructional Leadership Team About this show: This episode is titled THE Instructional Leadership Team. Why “THE Instructional Leadership Team” ? Why not the instructional leadership team? The fun reason is because I’m an Ohio State grad, and The Ohio State University so

Episode 38, Dr. Maddie Jurek Quadrant2 micro-journal subscribe link here

Show Notes, Episode 47: From first year AP to AP of the Year with Dr. Tia Jones Pt. 2 About this show: What does it mean to be an assistant principal? What is your job? What are the essential skills? One of the reasons being an AP is so challenging is because there aren’t really clear answers to the

Show Notes, Episode 46: From first year AP to AP of the Year with Dr. Tia Jones Pt. 1 About this show: What does it mean to be an assistant principal? What is your job? What are the essential skills? One of the reasons being an AP is so challenging is because there aren’t really clear answers to the

Summary of the daily leadership emails from the week of August 1-5.

Show Notes, Episode 44: The Story That Drives Me About this show: Many of us have a story that drives what we do. We had a special teacher, or a great mentor, or even a horrible experience. Whichever it might have been, there is a story that is so deeply rooted in our psyche, that it drives what we

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of July 25-29, 2022.

Show Notes, Episode 42: The Curmudgeon with Nat Ellis About this show: When we talk about teachers resisting change, we often conjure up images of the curmudgeon – the 30-year veteran teacher who hasn’t changed and refuses to “get with the program.” However, often times there are good reasons to res

“Every day I do what I’m best at, and every day I do my best. Some days my best is better than others.” Paraphrase from BB King

Show Notes, Episode 40: Team Coaching with John Willis About this show: Today, I am joined by John Willis, the founder of the Teaming Edge. John is here with us today to explore Team Coaching. Notable Quotes John Willis “We’re not trying to fix anybody, because nobody is broken” “Team coaching is a

If relationships, with others, but also with ourself, is really what it is all about, how should we be living? This weekend, and into next week, please be intentional about one thing: being fully present with others. Focus, ask questions, listen to the answers, look, smile, and laugh. Give 100% of y

Show Notes, Episode 38: Just Put the Key in the Door with Maddie Jurek About this show: Yay! You finally found time to get into a classroom and do a big observation! You sit down, congratulating yourself for prioritizing, and the teacher and students dive into a lesson on quantum physics. Wait! What

Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the week’s daily leadership emails for the week of July 4-8, 2022. If you already get my daily leadership emails, then I hope you’ll find some added value here and if you don’t already subscribe you can find a link on my home page at frederickbuskey.com. Man

Show Notes, Episode 36: Parent Partnerships with Dr. Leigh Ann Alford-Keith About this show: “We talk a lot about social emotional learning and the whole child, but the whole child includes the family.” These aren’t my words. They came from today’s guest when she appeared on the show back on episode

A recap of the week's five Strategic Leader emails. This week featured a sequence around the theme of "five things you can do now for a more productive fall." A bonus at the end is how I turned some negative thinking around to rewrite my own (flawed) story.

Show Notes, Episode 34: Persistent Growth with Emily Parks About this show: We are all teachers here, right? So, I can be honest, Right? We love all children equally and we have no favorites. That said, there are always those students who give us energy. They bring a passion for learning that inspir

Link to the daily email: https://mailchi.mp/c15c68e6df32/specialedition

Show Notes, Episode 32: The Flywheel with Dr. Melissa Burns About this show: In Jim Collins’ Iconic book, “Good to Great”, he describes the flywheel. An organization’s flywheel consists of some core practices that, when executed consistently, drive organizational excellence. If you’ve been listening

Show Notes, Episode 31: Prioritizing Your Own Leadership Development with Maria Werner About this show: Dealing with discipline, being the test coordinator, and taking care of a million things for everyone else. Somehow you find the time. But do you find – or make – that time for yourself? What are

Show Notes, Episode 30: Six Ways to Eliminate Interruptions About this show: In a noisy world, is it possible to find the quiet necessary to do work that moves us forward? In this episode, we cover six suggestions for creating a saner and more productive leadership life Notable Quotes Frederick: “I

Show Notes, Episode 29: Culture with Brad Coleman About this show: Culture. What is it? How do we shape it? Why is it so critical? You could fill an entire library with books related to culture and how leaders influence it. Or you could listen to this episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast with

Show Notes, Episode 28: The Ship is Sinking About this show: Imagine you’re on a nice little boat, floating along a gentle river or out on a calm lake. Everything is fine until you hear a gurgling sound. You look down and are astounded to see water pouring in from a how in the bottom of the boat. Yo

Show Notes, Episode 2: Why is Instructional Leadership so Hard? About this show: Have you noticed how many first-year teachers have trouble managing their classrooms? And if they never receive really good support, they become 5 and 10-year teachers who can’t manage their classrooms. And then they le

Are you living your leadership journey courageously? Before Dr. Mary Hemphill became the Director of Academic Standards for the North Carolina Department of education she was a passionate and innovative principal. Before that, she was an assistant principal with the courage to stand up for her convi

Show Notes, Episode 25: Parents and Community About this show: “We need to increase family engagement.” I hear this all the time. We know what we want from families, but do we know what families want from us? Today’s episode will take us beyond reading rallies and pizza nights and even beyond my fav

I’m asking for your help. I’ve put together an MVP (minimally viable product) training video and am looking for a few people to pilot it. In exchange for access to this mini-PD, you would be committing to the following: • Watching the video (about 45 minutes, but can be chunked into six parts) • Com

Show Notes, Episode 23: Testing Coordination with Carrie Prochaska About this show: April showers bring May flowers and May flowers bring…. Testing in schools! Many of the assistant principals I work with also serve double duty as test coordinators. It is a challenging job, but today’s show should c

Show Notes, Episode 22: Growth Mindset About this show: If you have ever played buzz-word bingo, and had “growth mindset” on your card, you knew you odds of winning were good. But what is “growth mindset” all about? As an assistant principal, you probably already know where this is going. Yes, we wa

Show Notes, Episode 21: Meeting the Needs of New Teachers About this show: In today’s episode, guest host Mara Buskey leads us through a discussion with two relatively new teachers about what they need from their assistant principals, how they view leadership, and what kind of feedback and style of

Show Notes, Episode 20: Change Starts from Within About this show: The topic of this show is restorative practices, but the show title is the key to implementing such practices: Change starts from within. In this episode we take a detour from the common one-two-three approaches to kicking off a rest

Show Notes, Episode X: Title About this show: Serving exceptional students can be one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of school leadership. In this episode Elizabeth Schumpert, Director of Student Support Services for Saluda County Schools, helps us gain some insights into supporting e

Show Notes, Episode 18: The Math of Leverage About this show: The four principles of leverage, described last week in episode 17, can guide us to creating progress in our organizations. A key to progress is focusing on incremental progress as opposed to big changes to fix things. In today’s episode,

Show Notes, Episode X: Title About this show: Ever wonder why we are always driving change in our schools? Ever wonder why change initiatives rarely seem to produce the promised results? What if there was a better way? What if, instead of making sweeping changes, we just made tomorrow a little bit b

Show Intro Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. This podcast compliments APEx, the Assistant Principal Exceleration program, but you certainly don’

Show Notes, Episode X: Title About this show: Dr. Melissa Burns is the principal at Sara Collins Elementary School in Greenville, South Carolina. Melissa is a remarkable principal and leader who balances wisdom and practicality. One of Melissa’s many superpowers is developing other people’s leadersh

The Assistant Principal Podcast Episode X: Tracking Teacher Development Why does it always feel like improving teacher quality is an uphill battle? One big reason is that our schools are not structured to facilitate consistent teacher growth. Focusing on helping teachers to grow requires us to focus

Show Notes, Episode 13: What Makes a Great AP Today I’m joined by Brenda Byrd, an Assistant Superintendent for School Leadership (and a former South Carolina Elementary Principal of the Year and a National Distinguished Principal). Brenda works for Greenville County School District in Greenville Sou

Show Notes, Episode X: Title About this show: Today I’m joined by Becca Silver the founder and lead consultant at The Whole Educator. Becca has been posting some great stuff on LinkedIn, which is where we met. Becca is here to help us explore the AP – Instructional coach relationship. Notable Quotes

The Assistant Principal Podcast Episode 8: Who Should I Coach? In this episode we look into the surprisingly complex question of “Who should I coach?” We examine the five ways that teachers grow, we overview what a systemic approach to teacher growth looks like in a school, and we answer the questio

Episode 7: Dr. Sam Sircey and Perspectives Today I’m joined by Dr. Sam Sircey , the Principal of North Buncombe High School in Weaverville NC.Sam is here with us today to explore perspective taking! Dr. Sam Sircey: “If we can’t get a new perspective, we can become complacent and compliant. That’s ok

Today we are doing a coaching grab bag. Today’s episode was inspired by my ongoing work with assistant principals from several different school districts. With these APs we’ve already looked at different types of teacher observations (there are four), some basic observation tools, and some post-obse

Imagine this: You receive only six emails a week. One is from your district office and provides all the info you need for the week. One is from your principal and provides all the info your teachers need for the week. The other four are from the PLC teams that you support and are copies of their mee

This is a special edition of The Assignat Principal Podcast inspired by some work I did recently with nine assistant principals as part of the APEx program. This podcast assumes that you are familiar with 5-mc. If you aren’t, you can go to frederickbuskey.com/resources and download a one-pager. This