3 School Leaders on Supporting and Motivating Teachers After Winter Break

red apple fruit on four pyle books

Award-winning principals describe their preferred strategies for uplifting educators at the start of a new semester.

The first month or so after winter break is a full-on sprint for teachers, with prep days (including for rapidly approaching standardized tests), professional learning community meetings, and other back-to-school events. Teachers are catching up with some of their students and meeting new students. For some educators, all of this is not a problem—after winter break, they feel refreshed and ready to go. They’re thriving. Others aren’t necessarily energized, but they’re ready to return to a normal work routine. 

Students come back from winter break with their own slate of priorities. They get to see their friends again. Depending on their grade, they might have different teachers and classes, seating chart swaps, and potential new friends (or even crushes!). Winter sports and extracurriculars are almost immediately in full swing. And who knows what homework assignments might be on the horizon? It’s a lot at once.

4 Ways School Leaders Can Show Up for Their Staff

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Leaders don’t have to be perfect—but they do need to be present. In this exclusive book excerpt, Carrie Bishop and Jessica Holloway share how to create a culture where teachers feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure.

To keep great teachers in the classroom, schools must move beyond traditional recruitment and hiring practices. Attracting and retaining exceptional teachers requires leaders to create work environments where educators feel valued, supported, and inspired to stay. And this necessitates a shift in perspective—one that highlights what schools can offer teachers, not just what teachers can offer schools.

In this excerpt from Make Your School Irresistible: The Secret to Attracting and Retaining Great Teachers (ASCD, 2025), Carrie Bishop and Jessica Holloway explain how leaders can foster a culture where teachers feel safe, seen, soothed, secure—what the authors refer to as the 4 Ss of good leadership. For leaders, these principles provide a framework for building trust, strengthening relationships, and making your school a place where teachers want to grow and thrive.

Change begins with the campus leader

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Real instructional change begins at the classroom level. However, school-wide efforts create the climate that supports these classroom-level changes. We’ve worked with principals and teachers for more than 35 years and seen countless ideas for improving schools.

Schools are in a constant state of change. They are shaped by the demographic, social, political, and economic milieu of contemporary American society especially their local community. As such they change a little each day in response to things like state or national standards, research on student learning, and parent and community demands.

Strategies to help new leaders

Structured opportunities for professional learning go a long way to help ensure the long-term success of new administrators.

Many new school leaders transition directly from the classroom to administrative roles, and the skills that made them successful as a teacher are distinctly different from those necessary to be an effective school leader. Many states require a master’s degree (or equivalent) to become a school leader, but to perform the job well, coaching, mentoring, and other supports are necessary for effective growth and development.

The challenge for new school leaders is the immediate need to be job-ready on day one. School systems are complex, and their needs are constantly growing and changing. New administrators are expected to contribute right away, making sound decisions that range from classroom instruction to safety and security. Given these high expectations and the intricate nature of leading schools, it’s best that districts and states find ways for new school leaders to engage in standards-based programs to level up their practical knowledge and expertise as quickly as possible. We’ve identified five key elements that support those who are new to the role.

Simple steps to start a district podcast

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Sharing school news through scripted audio communication is an effective way to keep families and the larger community informed.

Podcasts have become an increasingly popular method for consuming content. There are approximately 135 million podcast listeners in the United States, and 70 percent of adult listeners engage in podcasts with their children. What do these numbers mean for schools? Producing a podcast offers an easy and convenient alternative to keep families and community members informed about your school or district. Podcasts avoid email overload and confusing school website navigation, and provide consistency across schools when it comes to updates. The flexibility of podcasts eliminates time restrictions, allowing families to listen whenever they have time.

Here are five steps to get started.

Strategies to increase talk

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Teachers can experiment with a variety of strategies to build and assess students’ ability to converse in the target language.

At the middle school where I teach, my colleagues and I stand in the hallways to supervise students’ transition from one class to the next. The kids squeeze in as much conversation as possible in the four minutes between bells. Because we are a dual language immersion (DLI) school, these exchanges happen in Spanish, English, and many creative blends of the two. To capitalize on my students’ (seemingly inexhaustible) desire to chat, I work to increase student talk time in our Spanish immersion classes. I use several strategies to build and assess students’ oral language.

Improving student outcomes

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Teaching with intention toward learning outcomes can be done in a focused way that prioritizes flexibility, inquiry, and relationships.

As someone currently active in the teaching year, I want to first acknowledge and celebrate the highly active work of teaching, while also reminding colleagues to be “smart in their hard work.” Much is made of the beginning of the year and end of the year, but this in-between time is precious for all of us as we navigate holiday seasons and seek to enrich our instructional time.

Here, I point out some of the elements of teaching that keep me balanced and focused, especially at those moments when I feel like my work is losing some direction.

Making professional development count

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How do teachers across the globe view professional development? This is a question that the main author (Mary) has been asking teachers during in-depth interviews for the last two years in her work as an education researcher. After talking with 136 teachers in 29 countries across six continents, Mary was not surprised to find that teachers’ experiences with PD vary greatly. Many had never participated in professional development but were eager for the opportunity. Others participated in PD opportunities but were disappointed by their lack of relevance; and a fortunate group were empowered and engaged by the PD in which they participated. 

Creating a Sense of Belonging

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This year, I’ve been speaking with everyday Americans to hear their ideas about the purpose of public schools and how to improve them. One aspiration cuts across all perspectives: Everyone wants their children to feel a sense of belonging in school. Parents can’t understand why this isn’t more of a priority in education policy, and they are right. Research and experience establish that belonging is essential for addressing the most vexing educational challenges, including lagging academic achievement, chronic absenteeism and student mental health.

Who is excelling at teaching Reading?

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According to the latest national results, low-income fourth graders read an average of two to three grade levels below their higher-income peers. 

It’s not new that students in poverty have lower scores on reading tests than more affluent students. Housing prices, parent perceptions and online school ranking websites all focus on those raw, unadjusted scores, which ignore the fact that some schools and districts simply have a harder job.