3-2-1: On what love looks like, the courage to eliminate, and where the grass is greener
“Greatness takes guts. And often, it’s the courage to eliminate the things you can do fairly well so you have the capacity to do one thing exceptionally well. Have the courage to take more off your plate.”
II.
“Many situations in life are similar to going on a hike: the view changes once you start walking.
You don’t need all the answers right now. New paths will reveal themselves if you have the courage to get started.”
Superintendents share solutions to their three big challenges
Superintendents are concerned about the stability of leadership pipelines in their districts, according to a District Administration Leadership Institute survey conducted this fall.
The leaders polled also cited teacher retention and recruitment, and student engagement as top challenges.
Leadership pipelines
The superintendents who cited leadership pipelines as a top concern warned that filling leadership roles was becoming more difficult. Political pressures are dampening morale and provoking disengagement among leaders as their jobs become increasingly untenable, the survey found.
They also highlighted the need for more coaching, professional development and greater awareness of administrators’ well-being and workloads. Effective change relies on transparency and accountability, while communication and face-to-face interaction were seen as key ways to build trust among education leaders.
When Older Students Can’t Read: How This Middle School Is Tackling Literacy
Loralyn LaBombard is the only reading specialist at Bow Memorial School, a middle school serving grades 5-8 in a leafy town outside Concord, N.H.
In the world of literacy education, that is not an unusual distinction. After elementary school, many schools reduce or eliminate positions for supporting struggling readers.
But several years ago, LaBombard started to feel like student needs were outpacing what she could handle. More middle schoolers needed help with foundational skills, like decoding words, and many students had the same gaps.
The 5‑Minute Clarity Reset: How a Small Pause Can Change a Big Decision
Peter DeWitt is a former K-5 public school principal turned author, presenter, and leadership coach. Michael Nelson is a leadership coach and thought partner for the Instructional Leadership Collective.
Leadership sometimes seems like constant meetings, email messages, and moments where leaders are expected to have the answer. That pace can feel isolating, which puts leaders at risk of getting stuck with the same issue circling in their head. Taking just five minutes for a “clarity reset” is a simple, repeatable way to break that spin. In five minutes, leaders can move from mental noise to the next step leaders can act on.
There are plenty of options on how to engage in a five-minute reset. Jessica Cabeen outlines this one called a 5-Minute Brain Dump. Robert Miraglia calls it a five-minute reset for leaders. There are plenty of others leaders can find through a search as well. We’d like to offer something a bit different that helps leaders become more collaborative.
Why Parents Aren’t Reading to Kids, and What It Means for Young Students
Jeana Wallace never enjoyed reading as a child.
The books she read in school didn’t interest her and “constant deadlines made it even harder to connect with the stories,” she said. Reading was a chore, something to rush through for a test or school assignment.
So when Wallace became a mother in 2019, she didn’t read to her son at home often – about once or twice a week, “maybe not even that,” said Wallace, who lives with her family in Frankfort, Kentucky.
That changed around the time her son was 3 and she was working at a local adult education center where she helped develop a family literacy program. There, she learned about research on how reading to young children daily can improve school readiness, develop language and listening skills and promote social-emotional growth.
Are schools providing supports to all students in need?
Evidence-based support services remain uneven across K12 schools, with many still working to meet students’ academic, social and emotional needs even four years after the height of the pandemic.
The findings come from a nationally representative 2025 survey of public school principals, published in a new report from the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University.
Student needs remain high
Principals say student needs have stayed steady—or increased. Between 28% and 38% report that more students required high-intensity tutoring, mentoring, career coaching or wraparound services such as out-of-school community health, mental health and social supports during the 2024–25 school year.