Ideas For School Improvement

How Professional Learning Communities in Education Lower Teacher Attrition Rates

How does the worst performing school in the district – one with high poverty rates, high student transfer rates, and the largest number of ESL learners – transform itself into a school which exceeds district, state, and national averages? How did Westside Elementary School in Springville, Utah improve across the board, even pulling significant increases [...]

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Keeping Students Motivated in School

Keeping students motivated in school is an ongoing issue in education. Two-thirds of high school students say they’re bored in class every day. We all have days when we zone out or would rather be anywhere else (yes, even the teachers), but every single day more than half of students are bored? Because the material [...]

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Improving Student Performance through Professional Learning Communities

Professional Learning Communities in education – a hot topic but do they really work? Professional Learning Communities in education (PLC) are organized groups of teachers that have the goal of bettering instruction and student performance. Pioneered by Rick Dufour, author of Professional Learning Communities at Work: Best Practices for Enhancing Student Achievement, PLCs seek to [...]

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3 Daily Reminders for First Year Principals

The job of a first year principal is one that very few people can understand until the first day of in-service when you realize that all the preparation in the world could not get you ready for the days ahead. I cannot begin to express the gamut of emotions- excitement, apprehension, joy, and nervousness. All [...]

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4 Real Reasons Why Teachers Leave the Profession

Teachers leaving the profession continues to be a serious problem in education. Even though the demand for teachers is higher than ever, there are teachers leaving the profession in staggering numbers. School boards and educational research organizations are trying to discover why this is happening. As a past teacher, I can give some first hand [...]

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Improving the Laws Against Cyber Bullying

Time to increase and improve the laws against cyber bullying! Bullying was once identified as the strong kids picking on the weak kids on the playground. Bullies would use their size and strength as intimidation, and kids felt helpless to defend themselves against their attacks. In recent years, bullying has become more than just a [...]

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