The Better Leaders Better Schools Podcast | The #1 Downloaded School Leadership Show

A decade into the Better Leaders Better Schools Ruckuscast, Danny Bauer has coached and interviewed hundreds of school leaders — and the patterns are clear. Dan Watt, elementary principal in British Columbia and Ruckus Maker, flips the microphone and puts Danny in the guest chair. What follows isn't nostalgia. It's the unfiltered architecture of a school leadership development ecosystem that actually works — and what it means for how you lead your campus.
The Ruckuscast turns 10 this year. That's 10 years of watching which principals grow and which ones stall, which leadership beliefs hold up and which ones collapse under pressure. This episode is the debrief.
🌟 What You'll Learn
Why the same interview questions nearly killed the show — and the pivot that saved it
The core leadership belief Danny held 10 years ago that he's since discarded
What separates Ruckus Makers from Play-It-Safe Principals at the pattern level
Why curiosity in classroom walkthroughs beats judgment every time
The two questions every teacher on your campus is silently asking
🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules
🧰 Key Insight #1: Repeatable Processes Are Training Wheels, Not Destinations
What's broken: Most school leaders build repeatable systems and then defend them — mistaking consistency for quality, and process for progress.
The shift: Treat your systems as training wheels — useful at the start, necessary to eventually remove when they stop producing growth and start producing boredom.
Impact: When Danny scrapped his standard interview question bank and replaced it with curiosity-driven pre-interviews, the quality of guest conversations — and listener value — jumped immediately.
🧰 Key Insight #2: Busyness Is Not a Badge of Honor for School Leaders
What's broken: Principals optimize for activity — more posts, more meetings, more programs — and measure success by how full the calendar looks rather than what outcomes those activities actually produce.
The shift: Think deeply about inputs you can control and whether those inputs are actually the right inputs — strategy first, then tactics, and only the tactics that move the right needle.
Impact: Danny turned down CEO and sales positions, fired himself from facilitating the Mastermind, and cut social media volume — and the ecosystem got healthier, not smaller.
🧰 Key Insight #3: Judgment in Walkthroughs Evaluates Teachers Into Being Average
What's broken: Leaders walk into classrooms, form a verdict in real time, and deliver that verdict to teachers — which trains teachers to play it safe, avoid risk, and teach to the evaluator.
The shift: Replace judgment with curiosity — "huh, how did that go?" instead of "that lesson was weak" — and follow it with questions about what the teacher was trying, what they learned, and what they'd change next period.
Impact: A teacher who took a risk in third period and got honest, curious feedback can refine the lesson and nail it in sixth period; a teacher who got judged will never take that risk again.
🎙️ DANNY BAUER QUOTES FROM THE RUCKUSCAST
"If you come in there judging it and being like that was the worst lesson I've ever seen, is that teacher ever going to take a risk again? Probably not. Because you're a jerk. And you evaluated them into being average."
— Danny Bauer
"A Play-It-Safe Principal is just going to wait for the school district or whoever to develop them. Are you the hero of your story? Or are you a victim?"
— Danny Bauer
"Busyness is not a badge of honour, nor is it something that usually leads to the results that we want."
— Danny Bauer
"You exist in the system and there's a way that things are done. And so if you want to dream big and be bold in your leadership, then you have to get outside perspectives."
— Danny Bauer
"Your people really want to know the answer to two questions: Do I belong here? And am I doing a good job? If there's an absence of those answers, there's going to be problems within your culture."
— Danny Bauer
"What does it matter if I have a viral thread on X or a million comments on Facebook if they're just comments and nobody changes?"
— Danny Bauer
"Leadership is a human endeavor."
— Danny Bauer
🧗‍♂️ Your Do School Different Challenge
Ready to implement? Start here:
Tomorrow: Walk into one classroom today and instead of evaluating, ask one curious question — "what were you trying to accomplish?" — and actually listen to the answer.
This Month: Audit your weekly inputs — every meeting, habit, and commitment — and identify the three activities consuming the most time while producing the least change in student or teacher outcomes.
This Semester: Build a belonging audit into your end-of-year conversations with staff by asking directly: "Do you feel like you belong here, and do you know how you're doing?" — then act on what you hear.
⌚️ Episode Timestamps
00:00 - 10 years of the Ruckuscast — what's changed
03:05 - Dan Watt takes the host seat
04:16 - Why the same questions killed the show early
06:03 - How guests are selected differently now
09:28 - Episodes that redefined doing school different
12:24 - The leadership belief Danny had to unlearn
14:28 - Why getting outside your district changes everything
19:00 - Patterns in leaders who actually grow
21:23 - Why curiosity beats judgment in classroom walkthroughs
23:17 - The two questions every staff member needs answered
33:46 - Saying no to stay vibrant — what Danny turned down
35:25 - Busyness is not a badge of honor
39:51 - What a tired principal needs to hear right now
41:58 - The invitation to dance and why enrollment beats compliance
🎧 Listen & Subscribe
Listen to Better Leaders Better Schools on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts. If today's episode moved you, leave a review — it helps more Ruckus Makers find the show.
🧔🏻‍♂️ Your SelfMentorship Guide
Meet Digital Danny — your SelfMentorship guide. Always available, never forgets, and evolves with you. Think through your next leadership move at myprincipalcoach.com.
🤝 Today's Ruckuscast Partners
ODP Business Solutions has been a trusted partner for schools for 30 years — and they're not just dropping off supplies. They help school leaders design dynamic learning environments where students are actually excited to show up, from tech integrations that bring lessons to life to flexible furniture that turns any room into a collaboration zone. Everything ships from a single supplier so you can simplify ordering, stay on budget, and access cooperative contracts without the compliance headache.
🔍 Visit ODPbusiness.com/education to learn more.
Frontline Education's 2026 K12 Lens Report surfaces exactly what districts are doing differently to keep great teachers from burning out and walking out. The data is specific: districts that automate professional development processes are nearly twice as likely to report easier hiring outcomes than those that don't — and nearly half report measurable improvement. If you're building a campus where people feel supported and proud to stay,
🔍 Download the full report at frontlineducation.com/leaders.
IXL doesn't ask teachers to guess what their students know. Its diagnostic automatically identifies every knowledge gap, then builds a personalized growth plan for each individual student — so teachers walk into class informed, not hoping. The adaptive platform adjusts difficulty in real time as students learn, closing gaps without requiring teachers to manually differentiate everything.
🔍 Get started at ixl.com/leaders.
META DESCRIPTION: Danny Bauer reflects on 10 years of school leadership podcasting — what he unlearned, what separates growing principals from stalled ones, and why curiosity beats judgment.

She helps principals stop surviving their schools and start leading them. Michelle Sloan is an educator, author, and leadership coach who spent seven years building a school from the ground up — which gave her something rare: "firsthand proof that mission-driven leadership isn't a feel-good concept, it's a survival strategy." Her book The Purpose Driven Principal is the framework she wishes she'd had in year one.
School leadership burnout is not a willpower problem. It's a systems problem. A principal walks in energized, writes down what matters, and by 6pm hasn't touched a single item on the list. This episode is about diagnosing that drift — and building the structure to stop it from swallowing another year.
📚 What You'll Learn
Why your open door policy is actively damaging your relationships (not protecting them).
How the four pillars of a purpose-driven school — people, pedagogy, processes, and personal growth — create a filter for every decision.
The Assess, Design, Align cycle and how to use it to get back to mission-driven work.
Why what's predictable is preventable, and what that actually looks like in practice.
The one calendar change that breaks the reactive leadership cycle.
🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules
✅ Key Insight #1: Principal Burnout Is a Symptom of Missing Purpose Filters
What's broken: Principals measure their days by how busy they are, not by whether they're moving toward their mission.
The shift: Define the school's mission, vision, and core values first — then use them as a filter for every demand, program, and shiny new thing that shows up.
Impact: A principal who knows why their school exists can say no to the college prep program that works down the street but doesn't fit their community — and feel confident doing it.
✅ Key Insight #2: Processes Are a Leadership Superpower, Not an Administrative Chore
What's broken: Every knock on the principal's door is treated as an individual problem to solve, so the same problems return every day.
The shift: Treat every repeated interruption as a signal that a system is missing — then build the process that makes you unnecessary for that question.
Impact: When processes are in place, teachers stop waiting until 5:30 to ask questions only you can answer, and you get to do the work that actually requires you.
✅ Key Insight #3: The Open Door Policy Is a False Virtue
What's broken: Principals equate constant accessibility with relational leadership — and end up half-present for everyone, including their families.
The shift: Set published hours for availability, protect deep work time with the same seriousness that teacher planning periods are protected, and be 100% present when you are present.
Impact: Principals who define when they are available stop the low-grade distraction that makes a 12-hour day feel like zero progress.
🎙️ MICHELLE SLOAN QUOTES FROM THE RUCKUSCAST
"A good principal is in their office solving problems. But a great principal is out in the classrooms preventing them."
— Michelle Sloan
"What's predictable is preventable."
— Michelle Sloan
"If you never get out of that cycle, you can never be intentional about fulfilling your purpose in your mission. You're just in that cycle of whatever the day brings."
— Michelle Sloan
"You shouldn't lose yourself in the process because you stepped into leadership."
— Michelle Sloan
"There's a difference between perfection and being excellent. Do and just loving your people."
— Michelle Sloan
"You get out of alignment when you don't know who you are and why you exist."
— Michelle Sloan
"You were created on purpose and for a purpose. You have unique gifts and talents that only you have and the world needs."
— Michelle Sloan
🧗‍♂️ Your Do School Different Challenge
Ready to implement? Start here:
Tomorrow: Block two hours on your calendar this week and mark it as off-campus — then use that time to highlight in yellow every unplanned interruption from yesterday and ask who else could have handled it.
This Month: Write or revisit your school's mission statement and use it to evaluate one program, initiative, or meeting you're currently running that might not actually align.
This Semester: Publish your availability hours to your staff and hold them — identify one admin or team member who can serve as the first stop for your three most common interruptions.
⌚️ Episode Timestamps
00:00 - Why principals burn out — it's not weakness
01:52 - Sponsor break
03:34 - Michelle Sloan joins the show
06:21 - What a school looks like when purpose is gone
09:53 - The four pillars of a purpose-driven school
13:55 - The most neglected pillar and its cost
19:12 - How to diagnose when you've drifted from purpose
21:21 - Two hours, twice a week: the proactive leader's calendar
27:34 - Why open door policies are a leadership trap
30:49 - What principals owe themselves (and their families)
36:19 - The Assess, Design, Align cycle explained
39:42 - The first step back to alignment
41:31 - How to work with Michelle Sloan
🔗 Connect With Michelle Sloan
👩🏻‍💻 Website: Sloan Leadership Solutions
🔗 Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn
📕 Book: Purpose-Driven Principal Book
🗞️ Purpose-Driven Principal Weekly Newsletter
🎧 Listen & Subscribe
Listen to Better Leaders Better Schools on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts. If today's episode moved you, leave a review — it helps more Ruckus Makers find the show.
🧔🏻‍♂️ Your Selfmentorship Guide
Meet Digital Danny — your Selfmentorship guide. Always available, never forgets, and evolves with you. Think through your next leadership move at myprincipalcoach.com
🎙️ Today's Ruckuscast Partners
ODP Business Solutions has 30 years of experience helping school districts build spaces where learning actually happens. They helped Belago Academy go from ordinary classrooms to collaborative environments so engaging that students forgot to check their phones — through tech integration, flexible furniture, and sustainable design, all from a single supplier that keeps your purchasing compliant and your budget sane.
🔍 Visit ODPbusiness.com/education to see what's possible.
Frontline Education's 2026 K–12 Lens Report exists because staffing, student support, operations, and technology aren't separate problems — they're the same pressure showing up in different forms. Built from insights across more than 1,000 school leaders, this report gives you the clearest available picture of how districts are adapting right now.
🔍 Get the full report at FrontlineEducation.com/leaders
IXL takes differentiated instruction from aspiration to 20-minute reality. Its universal screener identifies which students need intervention fast, and its adaptive learning platform then adjusts difficulty for each individual student as they work — so one teacher can actually reach every kid in the room. Over a million teachers are already using it.
🔍 Get started at IXL.com/leaders

The principal drive home test: if you can't name one thing that mattered today, you're in reactive mode. Here's the fix.
Principal burnout doesn't start in a crisis. It starts in the car at 6pm, when you've done a lot but moved nothing forward — the instructional leadership, the culture work, the long game stuff that actually changes outcomes never got touched. That's not a productivity problem. It's an access problem.
This episode introduces selfmentorship — the practice of being your own first coach instead of waiting for permission-based PD, the right mentor, or the right conference to land in your lap. You'll hear how Elaine, an AVID coordinator stepping into a brand new school, used 90 minutes of clear thinking to walk in day one with a real plan instead of firefighting her way through week six.
Then you'll hear how to join the next Selfmentorship Sprint on Thursday, May 28 at 7pm Eastern — a live one-hour training plus 90 days of Digital Danny access for $100. Reserve your seat: https://ruckusmakers.news/sprint

A professor at San Diego's High Tech High Graduate School of Education and co-author of PLC+: Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design, Nancy Frey has spent decades studying how teachers actually collaborate — and why most of it doesn't work. Her research-backed PLC+ framework is the difference between a Wednesday morning ritual and a genuine engine of collective efficacy. She teaches full-time at a high school that runs every student through a real-world internship program, so her frameworks aren't theoretical — they're road-tested. Find her work at hightechhigh.org.
Professional learning communities were supposed to fix teacher isolation. Instead, most schools turned them into a weekly meeting where teachers explain why students failed. If your PLCs feel like compliance theater, this episode of the Ruckuscast is the reset you need — Nancy Frey breaks down the PLC+ model and the exact questions that shift a team from admiring problems to solving them.
🌟 What You'll Learn
Why 85% of PLC conversations focus on student deficits — and the research that proves it.
The single wrong question most schools are asking in PLCs (and the right one to replace it).
How to organize collaborative teams around common challenges instead of grade level.
What "the plus" in PLC+ actually means and why it's the antidote to teacher burnout.
How one San Diego high school built a healthcare internship program that sends students into the field every week starting in ninth grade.
🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules
🧠 Key Insight #1: PLCs Have Become Problem-Admiring Sessions, Not Problem-Solving Ones
What's broken: Research shows that 85% of PLC conversations focus on student deficits — language barriers, behaviour, home life, or suspected disabilities — rather than instructional changes.
The shift: Name a specific, solvable common challenge your team can actually affect, then spend PLC time designing and evaluating actions toward that challenge.
Impact: Teams move from collective helplessness to collective efficacy — and teachers stop feeling like they're carrying student achievement alone.
🧠 Key Insight #2: Organizing PLCs by Grade Level Locks Out the Most Valuable Collaboration
What's broken: Grade-level and department groupings leave singleton teachers — art, PE, music — without a collaborative home and trap everyone else with the same colleagues year after year.
The shift: Organize teams around a shared common challenge, letting staff self-select based on what's genuinely perplexing them right now, regardless of content area.
Impact: Teachers encounter new practices, new contexts, and new colleagues — what Nancy calls a more "vivid" way to experience school as a professional.
🧠 Key Insight #3: The Wrong Question Is Driving Every PLC in America
What's broken: Schools open PLCs by asking "how do we raise reading scores?" — a question so broad it guarantees vague answers and no accountability.
The shift: Drill down to a problem statement specific enough to act on, like "our multilingual learners struggle to answer questions about details from an audio presentation of an academic topic."
Impact: When the problem is scoped correctly, teams can design targeted actions, measure impact, and actually see what's working — instead of chasing a metric nobody controls.
🎙️ NANCY FREY QUOTES FROM THE RUCKUSCAST
"It's not problem solving, it's admiring the problem."
— Nancy Frey
"85% of the time, one of four approaches was used when data were shared — and none of them were about what to do differently instructionally."
— Nancy Frey
"The plus is us. There's a collective responsibility and a collective efficacy to what it is that we do."
— Nancy Frey
"When teams don't understand their collective wherewithal to be able to impact in a positive way, and they're left with going, I don't know what else to do — you can either say it's on me or it's on them. And it honestly is kind of easier to say it's on them."
— Nancy Frey
"They are your top, your advanced students. They already knew it and they did not benefit from what it was that you taught. Because your pre and your post information looks exactly the same. Those students are also hiding in plain sight."
— Nancy Frey
"Nothing is lonelier than feeling like you are the only person taking on all of these challenges."
— Nancy Frey
🧩 Your Do School Different Challenge
Ready to implement? Start here:
Tomorrow: Pull your next PLC agenda and replace any open-ended "how do we raise scores" question with a specific, scoped challenge statement your team can investigate and act on.
This Month: Audit your current PLC structure — identify which teachers have no natural collaborative home and design one cross-content team organized around a shared common challenge.
This Semester: Implement the PLC+ "who is benefiting and who is not" question as a standing agenda item for every data conversation, and document what instructional changes result.
⏳ Episode Timestamps
00:00 - Teachers wildly underestimate their students
01:55 - Why PLCs became a compliance checkbox
05:04 - What teachers predicted vs. what students actually scored
07:46 - Old PLC models schools are still running
10:06 - Collaboration isn't just Wednesday mornings
11:11 - Why standards debates still waste PLC time
13:39 - Organizing PLCs around common challenges instead of grade level
14:57 - How PLCs drive deficit thinking — the research
20:01 - The wrong question most schools ask
22:53 - What strength-based PLC conversations sound like
24:34 - What the "plus" means in PLC+
30:20 - Building student internship partnerships with healthcare
33:05 - Advice for Ruckus Makers who want to start internship programs
🔗 Connect With Nancy Frey
👩🏻‍💻 Website: https://fisherandfrey.com/
https://x.com/NancyFrey
https://www.facebook.com/nancy.frey1/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancyfreysdsu/
🎧 Listen & Subscribe
Listen to Better Leaders Better Schools on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts. If today's episode moved you, leave a review — it helps more Ruckus Makers find the show.
🧔🏻‍♂️ Your SelfMentorship Guide
Meet Digital Danny — your Selfmentorship guide. Always available, never forgets, and evolves with you. Think through your next leadership move at myprincipalcoach.com
🎙️ Today's Ruckuscast Partners
ODP Business Solutions has been a strategic partner for schools for 30 years — from designing STEAM innovation centers to keeping eight campuses stocked from a single supplier with cooperative contract compliance built in. Whether you're upgrading from whiteboards to interactive displays or building out a new learning space from scratch, they handle the full process.
🔍 Visit ODPbusiness.com/education to learn more.
Frontline Education's 2026 K–12 Lens Report makes the staffing case for structured professional learning: districts with targeted, individualized PD report easier hiring at nearly twice the rate of those without it. The data shows that summer is when the culture work starts — and this report shows exactly how.
🔍 Download it at frontlineeducation.com/leaders
IXL gives classroom teachers an adaptive platform that makes differentiated instruction genuinely manageable — and gives you dashboards that show growth at the individual student level so you're never guessing. Customize your reports to surface the data that actually drives your decisions.
🔍 Get started at ixl.com/leaders
META DESCRIPTION: PLCs in most schools spend 85% of time on student deficits. Nancy Frey's PLC+ framework shows principals how to fix that — fast.

Her career started in Philadelphia public schools in the 90s, full of idealism and a master's in counseling psychology. A decade later, she was coaching executives in global corporations.
Now Sage Hobbs coaches school principals and superintendents on the skill that drives everything else — the ability to have conversations that actually matter. She is the author of Naked Communication: Courageously Create the Relationships You Really Want and the host of the Principal Pep Talks podcast.
School leadership research points to strategy, curriculum, data, and policy as the levers that move outcomes. Sage Hobbs will tell you those are all downstream of something simpler: the conversations principals are avoiding.
If you've ever softened a message that needed to land hard, or left a difficult conversation for "another time" that never came, this episode is the diagnosis.
🤩 What You'll Learn
Why certainty is confused with competence — and what that costs you as a leader.
How hard conversations drive change in ways checklists and management systems never can.
What "lead with curiosity" actually looks like when a parent is angry or a teacher is underperforming.
Why schools that prioritize community above all else outperform schools that prioritize programs.
The one reframe that makes difficult conversations feel less like conflict and more like leadership.
🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules
🧰 Key Insight #1: Hard Conversations Are a Leadership Tool, Not a Soft Skill
What's broken: Most principals treat difficult conversations as a last resort — something you escalate to HR or delay until the situation forces your hand.
The shift: Conversations are the currency your school runs on; every one is an opportunity for connection, and the willingness to have hard ones is what separates management from leadership.
Impact: Teachers feel heard, trust builds faster, and change actually sticks — because the real issue got named instead of managed around.
🧰 Key Insight #2: Certainty Is Rewarded, But Curiosity Is What Works
What's broken: The system trains leaders to have answers — uncertainty reads as incompetence, so principals perform confidence even when it costs them the truth.
The shift: To lead is to risk; staying curious when someone pushes back, asking "I wonder what's actually going on here" instead of defending a position, is the higher-skill move.
Impact: Parents who felt dismissed become collaborators, teachers who seemed resistant reveal skill deficits that coaching can actually fix, and the leader stops fighting fires that curiosity would have prevented.
🧰 Key Insight #3: Community Is Not a Program — It Has to Be Built in Conversation
What's broken: Schools bolt community on through assemblies, newsletters, and culture initiatives that live in binders and die in staff meetings.
The shift: Community is built through listening — and listening builds trust quickly enough that it actually changes how people show up, especially when things get hard.
Impact: In a climate where the anger is "right there, like a live wire," as Sage describes it, principals who lead with genuine curiosity create the only real buffer between a school community and its fracture points.
🎙️ SAGE HOBBS QUOTES FROM THE RUCKUSCAST
"Conversations are currency — every conversation is an opportunity for connection, and they're highly effective for building trust and collaboration. And they're free."
— Sage Hobbs
"To lead is to risk. You can't please everyone. You don't always know the best next steps. You have to be willing to learn and pivot and be wrong — and that runs counter to everything, because you get rewarded for knowing the answers."
— Sage Hobbs
"Leadership and management are not the same thing, and they're both important. But leadership requires hard conversations, and that's really where change often happens."
— Sage Hobbs
"Can we lead with curiosity as opposed to assuming that person is incompetent or wrong? I wonder what's going on there. I wonder why they see it that way. I wonder if it's a skill deficit versus an actual incompetency."
— Sage Hobbs
"If you don't believe that community and connection is central to an organization running well, this book probably isn't for you. I'm not there to build the case for that — I'm here to tell you how to do that part better."
— Sage Hobbs
"Schools should be community hubs — a real sense of belonging and connection happening there. Make friends, learn cool stuff, and feel cared for."
— Sage Hobbs
🧗‍♂️ Your Do School Different Challenge
Ready to implement? Start here:
Tomorrow: Identify one conversation you've been postponing and schedule it for this week with a clear intention: lead with curiosity, not conclusions.
This Month: In your next two difficult conversations — with a struggling teacher, an angry parent, or a resistant staff member — open with a genuine question instead of a position, and notice what changes.
This Semester: Build one structural habit that treats conversation as a leadership tool: a regular one-on-one format, a listening protocol for parent concerns, or a staff feedback loop that surfaces what's actually being felt on your campus.
⌚️ Episode Timestamps
00:00 - Why leaders avoid the hardest conversations
00:55 - What "Naked Communication" means for school leaders
04:00 - Sage's origin story in Philadelphia public schools
07:00 - Why she left education — and came back to it
10:43 - What changed in the book's revised edition
13:29 - Leading through polarization and community anger
22:52 - How to keep conversations focused on kids
25:49 - Every conversation is an opportunity for connection
31:22 - Dream school: community, nature, experiential learning
👩🏻‍💻 Connect With Sage Hobbs
Website: sagebhobbs.com,
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sagebhobbs
Book: https://www.amazon.ca/Naked-Communication-Courageously-Create-Relationships/dp/099817131X
🎙️ Listen & Subscribe
Listen to Better Leaders Better Schools on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts. If today's episode moved you, leave a review — it helps more Ruckus Makers find the show.
🧔🏻‍♂️ Your Selfmentorship Guide
Meet Digital Danny — your Selfmentorship guide. Always available, never forgets, and evolves with you. Think through your next leadership move at myprincipalcoach.com
Today's Ruckuscast Partners
ODP Business Solutions has been transforming school learning spaces for 30 years — from smart boards to flexible furniture to sustainable solutions that free you from managing five different suppliers. They help you design dynamic environments that make students excited to show up, and their cooperative contracts keep you compliant without the procurement headache.
👉 Visit ODPbusiness.com/education to see what's possible.
Frontline Education's 2026 K-12 Lens Report is built from insights gathered from over 1,000 school leaders across the country — giving you a clear picture of where staffing pressures are easing, where they aren't, and how districts are making decisions that hold. If you're navigating operations, student support, or personnel decisions this year, this is the context you need.
👉 Get the full report at frontlineeducation.com/leaders
IXL's adaptive platform automatically identifies knowledge gaps for every student and hands teachers a personalized growth plan before the bell rings — so no one walks into a classroom guessing what their students know. Over one million teachers use it because it makes differentiated instruction actionable, not aspirational.
👉 Get started at ixl.com/leaders
META DESCRIPTION: Hard conversations are the most underused leadership tool principals have. Sage Hobbs explains why curiosity — not certainty — is what builds trust and drives real change.