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

Relationship-building in secondary schools has a reputation problem. Content-focused teachers stacked with seven or eight periods a day treat connection as a nice-to-have they don't have time for. John Whalen and Doug Overton, co-founders of Ed Tomorrow, argue the opposite: teachers who invest a minute or two in connection get instructional time back, because bought-in students need less behavior management.
Whalen and Overton left stable school leadership jobs to build The First Five, a free daily email that gives teachers grade-banded ways to build connection, care, and character into the first minutes of class. They break down why kids buy into a teacher before they buy into the content, how to get a hesitant secondary staff to try it, and what they'd build if they started a school from scratch.
THINK THROUGH YOUR NEXT LEADERSHIP MOVE
https://myprincipalcoach.com — your AI-powered principal coach, available 24/7.
⌚️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Why secondary teachers resist relationship building
04:11 - John and Doug introduce Ed Tomorrow
06:19 - The phone call that led to a cross-country move
09:15 - How COVID sparked the First Five
12:45 - Winning kid buy-in starts with relevancy
14:00 - Why kids buy into you before your content
17:01 - Meeting hesitant teachers where they are
23:58 - Why middle school is the hardest band to serve
33:07 - How the First Five actually works
34:34 - The three Cs behind every First Five resource
38:56 - The message they'd put on every school marquee
41:44 - Three guiding principles for building a dream school
47:04 - The one thing to remember before you start a ruckus
CONNECT WITH JOHN WHALEN AND DOUG OVERTON
Website: edtomorrow.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/edtomorrow/100083061286304
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ed.tomorrow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/edtomorrow
Quick sign-up Form: https://www.edtomorrow.com/signup/
WHENEVER YOU ARE READY, HERE'S 3 WAYS TO HELP YOU DO SCHOOL DIFFERENT:
📬 Weekly newsletter: https://ruckusmakers.news/subscribe
📚 Monthly mini-books: https://ruckusmakers.media
🧭 Map your next 90-days: https://betterleadersbetterschools.com/principals-entry-plan/
TODAY'S RUCKUSCAST IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
IXL
IXL's adaptive platform finds every student's knowledge gaps, adjusts difficulty as they learn, and gives you a dashboard showing exactly where growth is happening.
🔎 Over 1 million teachers use it — get started at https://ixl.com/leaders
ODP BUSINESS SOLUTIONS:
ODP Business Solutions has supplied schools for 30 years — converting dead computer labs into STEAM centers, stocking multiple campuses, upgrading whiteboards to interactive displays — all from a single supplier through cooperative contracts.
🔎 Learn more at https://odpbusiness.com/education
ORCHARD
Orchard gives every student a personalized career action plan and scores readiness across 8 dimensions — a number you can take to your board. See how it works at https://betterleaders.orchard.careers/
KIDS FIRST EDUCATION
Kids First Education builds professional learning around your district's priorities, your data, and your classrooms — not pulled off a shelf — and 98% of educators walk out ready to use what they learned.
🔎 Partner with them at https://kidsfirst.llc/leaders

Teacher burnout won't be fixed with more grit. When resilience becomes the plan, schools stop redesigning the work that's draining staff.
Teacher burnout and staff wellbeing get the headlines, but school leaders are missing two quieter problems: toxic resilience and bore out. Steph Hawkins, founder of Well Well Well, brings two decades of leadership across the UK and internationally, plus postgraduate work in applied positive psychology.
She explains how "just dig deeper" became the bridge between unrealistic demands and human capability, and why it lets schools skip the real work.
She breaks wellbeing into three layers (individual, leadership, organizational) and shows why middle leaders, the connective tissue of every school, have more agency than they think.
You'll get the science of recognition that actually lands, why an overused strength starts to drain you, and how appreciative inquiry beats fixing weaknesses in school improvement planning.Depletion isn't a mark of dedication. Design for people and performance follows.
THINK THROUGH YOUR NEXT LEADERSHIP MOVE:
https://myprincipalcoach.com — your AI-powered principal coach, available 24/7.
⌚️ TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Toxic resilience and unrealistic demands
03:58 - Bore out, burnout's overlooked twin
07:36 - The three layers of staff wellbeing
10:08 - Why toxic resilience blocks system change
12:17 - Middle leaders as the school's connective tissue
14:25 - Staff recognition that actually lands
18:30 - When your strengths start to drain you
21:28 - Appreciative inquiry for school improvement
22:58 - How opposite strengths create team conflict
31:22 - Work design exposes hidden strain
33:47 - The connections every new educator needs
36:35 - Marquee message and dream school principles
🔗 CONNECT WITH STEPH HAWKINS:
🌎 Website: https://www.wellwellwell.work/
👩🏻‍💻 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steph-hawkins-mapp/
🫶 WHENEVER YOU ARE READY, HERE'S 3 WAYS TO HELP YOU DO SCHOOL DIFFERENT:
📬 Weekly newsletter: https://ruckusmakers.news/subscribe
📚 Monthly mini-books: https://ruckusmakers.media
🧭 Map your next 90-days: https://betterleadersbetterschools.com/principals-entry-plan/
🤝 TODAY'S RUCKUSCAST IN PARTNERSHIP WITH:
IXL:
IXL's adaptive platform finds every student's knowledge gaps, adjusts difficulty as they learn, and gives you a dashboard showing exactly where growth is happening.
🔎 Over 1 million teachers use it — get started at https://ixl.com/leaders
ODP BUSINESS SOLUTIONS:
ODP Business Solutions has supplied schools for 30 years — converting dead computer labs into STEAM centers, stocking multiple campuses, upgrading whiteboards to interactive displays — all from a single supplier through cooperative contracts.
🔎 Learn more at https://odpbusiness.com/education
ORCHARD:
Orchard gives every student a personalized career action plan and scores readiness across 8 dimensions — a number you can take to your board.
🔎 See how it works at https://betterleaders.orchard.careers/
KIDS FIRST EDUCATION:
Kids First Education builds professional learning around your district's priorities, your data, and your classrooms — not pulled off a shelf — and 98% of educators walk out ready to use what they learned.
🔎 Partner with them at https://kidsfirst.llc/leaders

Leads education and innovation at Big Bad Boo Studios, where she builds multicultural animated content that helps kids navigate conflict, identity, and belonging. Rachael Thrash has spent 25 years designing curriculum and student leadership systems in international and public schools, from Helsinki to Portland, Maine. Her book, Let the Learners Lead, gives school leaders a field-tested toolkit for turning students from passengers into co-owners of their school culture.
Most classroom management strategies treat student behaviour as something adults control, not something students share responsibility for. Rachael Thrash, author of Let the Learners Lead, spent 25 years testing what happens when schools flip that assumption — inviting quiet, disconnected, and overlooked students into real leadership instead of asking them to earn it first. The results reshape how you think about culture, norms, and who actually gets to lead in your building.
💟 What You'll Learn
How to identify and invite the students your leadership programs usually overlook.
Why revisiting classroom and student leadership norms all year — not just in week one — protects culture.
How to build an authentic audience for student work so learning doesn't end at a grade.
Why peer acknowledgment does more for student engagement than teacher praise.
How the same student-voice protocols that work with kids also fix disengaged faculty.
🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules
🩵 Key Insight #1: Student Leadership Programs Recruit the Wrong Students
What's broken: Most student leadership retreats and councils only pull in kids who've already proven themselves as leaders.
The shift: Rachael intentionally invites students who haven't participated much, because they're the ones with the sharpest observations about what isn't working.
Impact: A withdrawn ninth grader who'd never spoken up built a BIPOC listening circle and presented on student leadership at international conferences within two years.
🚀 Key Insight #2: Classroom Norms Set in Week One Don't Survive the Year
What's broken: Teachers build classroom norms during the first week of school, when every student is on their best behavior, then never revisit them.
The shift: Norms have to be revisited regularly — when something goes wrong, the conversation returns to "how is this contributing to our classroom," not a rule violation.
Impact: Teachers who build in regular norm check-ins see students take ownership of classroom culture instead of waiting to be corrected.
🧠 Key Insight #3: Peer Acknowledgment Beats Teacher Praise
What's broken: Schools treat teacher approval as the primary motivator for good behavior and engagement, especially as students hit adolescence.
The shift: Coaching students to recognize and acknowledge each other's contributions builds a stronger, more durable motivator than adult praise alone.
Impact: Students who get peer recognition repeat the behavior that earned it — without an adult having to prompt them.
🤩 RACHAEL THRASH QUOTES FROM THE RUCKUSCAST
"If you're looking at me to regulate your behavior, then you're not taking responsibility for yourself."
— Rachael Thrash
"If the supermarket line breaks into chaos, it's because each one of those people let it happen."
— Rachael Thrash
"Teacher acknowledgement is great. Peer acknowledgement is the holy grail."
— Rachael Thrash
"Who's the treasurer, who's the secretary — who cares is what I'm saying. What I care about is how you're treating each other and what we're doing collectively in this space."
— Rachael Thrash
"I am an AI optimist because I think that it's finally showing us that drill and kill is the most ridiculous thing ever."
— Rachael Thrash
"Every learner shapes this community. It has unique potential, and when each one of us contributes, we can create something beautiful."
— Rachael Thrash
🏃‍♀️Your Do School Different Challenge
Ready to implement? Start here:
Tomorrow: Pull aside one student who has never volunteered for a leadership role and ask what isn't working at school.
This Month: Rebuild one faculty or student leadership meeting around a real question — "what would make this better for everyone?" — instead of a status update.
This Semester: Set a recurring check-in to revisit your classroom and student leadership norms instead of leaving them posted and forgotten from week one.
🕰️ Episode Timestamps
00:00 - Why managing students differs from mobilizing them
05:11 - The quiet student who became a campus leader
10:23 - What the World Happiness Report reveals about isolation
11:58 - Helping English learners find voice through soccer
14:53 - Applying student leadership tools to disconnected teachers
17:02 - Using cartoons to teach kids digital citizenship
24:58 - Why classroom norms need revisiting all year
27:25 - Why peer acknowledgment beats teacher praise
33:41 - Giving student work a real audience
37:57 - Why AI makes memorization obsolete in schools
40:00 - Shared responsibility over classroom control
42:48 - Three principles for building a dream campus
45:20 - The one thing every Ruckus Maker should remember
Connect With Rachael Thrash
📝 Read Transcript: here
🌎 Website: Bigbadboo.com/education
🔗 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rachael-thrash-9688091b
📚 Book Page: https://www.routledge.com/Let-the-Learners-Lead-Empowering-Student-Voice-to-Co-Create-School-Culture/Thrash/p/book/9781041155713
🎧 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 in Partnership With
IXL
IXL's adaptive platform finds every student's knowledge gaps, adjusts difficulty as they learn, and gives you a dashboard showing exactly where growth is happening. Over 1 million teachers use it
💟 Get started at https://ixl.com/leaders
ODP Business Solutions
ODP Business Solutions has supplied schools for 30 years — converting dead computer labs into STEAM centers, stocking multiple campuses, upgrading whiteboards to interactive displays — all from a single supplier through cooperative contracts.
💟 Learn more at https://odpbusiness.com/education
Orchard
Orchard gives every student a personalized career action plan and scores readiness across 8 dimensions — a number you can take to your board.
💟 See how it works at https://betterleaders.orchard.careers/
Kids First Education
Kids First Education builds professional learning around your district's priorities, your data, and your classrooms — not pulled off a shelf — and 98% of educators walk out ready to use what they learned.
💟 Partner with them at https://kidsfirst.llc/leaders

Creativity in schools isn't about talent, it's a system. Budget cuts and constraints make your team more creative, not less.Creativity in schools gets treated like an elective — something reserved for art class and cut the moment budgets tighten.
Creativity researcher and author Susan Riley joins the show to make the case that creativity is a trainable system every school leader can build, not a talent some people have and others don't. Susan breaks creativity into four branches — creative skills, creative application, creative thinking, and creative expression — and explains why most schools only ever touch one or two of them.
She also unpacks why AI is raising the stakes on creative and critical thinking, how daily habits build creative capacity over time, and why a constraint like a 20% budget cut can sharpen a team's creative response instead of shutting it down. If you're a school leader trying to build a campus experience that doesn't run on autopilot, this conversation gives you a framework and a set of practices to start with tomorrow.
THINK THROUGH YOUR NEXT LEADERSHIP MOVE:
https://myprincipalcoach.com — your AI-powered principal coach, available 24/7.
⌚️ TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - How schools kill creativity while fearing AI
05:40 - The Super Soaker story on unplanned creativity
06:56 - Can creativity actually be trained
09:10 - Susan's morning habit for daily creativity
12:16 - How creativity differs for teachers versus leaders
14:57 - The four branches of creativity explained
18:34 - Why creativity is the human edge over AI
22:46 - Creative moments versus creative systems
31:42 - The Dr. Seuss story on creative constraints
35:39 - Improv games that build hard fun
39:27 - Designing environments that support creativity
42:52 - The see-think-wonder walk exercise
45:26 - Three principles for building your dream school
🔗 CONNECT WITH SUSAN RILEY:
🌎 Website: https://susanmriley.com
Facebook: Facebook.com/artsintedu
Instagram: Instagram.com/artsintedu
LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/susanmriley81
WHENEVER YOU ARE READY, HERE'S 3 WAYS TO HELP YOU DO SCHOOL DIFFERENT:
📬 Weekly newsletter: https://ruckusmakers.news/subscribe
📚 Monthly mini-books: https://ruckusmakers.media
🧭 Map your next 90-days: https://betterleadersbetterschools.com/principals-entry-plan/
💟 TODAY'S RUCKUSCAST IN PARTNERSHIP WITH:
IXL:
IXL's adaptive platform finds every student's knowledge gaps, adjusts difficulty as they learn, and gives you a dashboard showing exactly where growth is happening.
🔎Over 1 million teachers use it — get started at https://ixl.com/leaders
ODP BUSINESS SOLUTIONS:
ODP Business Solutions has supplied schools for 30 years — converting dead computer labs into STEAM centers, stocking multiple campuses, upgrading whiteboards to interactive displays — all from a single supplier through cooperative contracts.
🔎 Learn more at https://odpbusiness.com/education
ORCHARD:
Orchard gives every student a personalized career action plan and scores readiness across 8 dimensions — a number you can take to your board.
🔎 See how it works at https://betterleaders.orchard.careers/
KIDS FIRST EDUCATION:
Kids First Education builds professional learning around your district's priorities, your data, and your classrooms — not pulled off a shelf — and 98% of educators walk out ready to use what they learned.
🔎 Partner with them at https://kidsfirst.llc/leaders

Delegating feels impossible when you run a school alone — until you turn what's stuck in your head into a playbook someone else can run. Delegation is the hardest skill for a principal running a school without an assistant principal — every checklist, process, and judgment call lives in one head, and that head is exhausted.
Kati Cahill, Head of School at Humanex Academy, a small private school for neurodivergent students south of Denver, walks through how she's been using an AI thought partner to pull her admissions process and scheduling system out of her head and into playbooks her team can actually run.
She also breaks down how the same backward-planning conversation turned her 90-day entry plan into four owned workstreams — communication, academics, culture, and operations — instead of a document that sits in a folder, and how she built a reusable "wins" template that turns a year of staff stories into an instant morale boost when energy dips. This one's a real look at what sustainable school leadership looks like when you're the entire admin team.
⌚️ Episode Timestamps
00:00 - Turning the systems in your head into playbooks
04:13 - Leading a school with no assistant principal
07:05 - A solo retreat that led to staying
13:36 - Inside the Mastermind hot seat and book study
21:16 - Using Digital Danny to stop overthinking
24:08 - Building a 90-day entry plan by department
33:38 - Turning staff wins into a shareable template
37:03 - Defining one belief to repeat all year
42:34 - Why Digital Danny stays open as a tab
48:00 - The takeaway on making the job sustainable
🧔🏻‍♂️ 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
🚀 Whenever you are Ready, here's 3 Ways to Help you Do School Different:
📬 Weekly newsletter: https://ruckusmakers.news/subscribe
📚 Monthly mini-books: https://ruckusmakers.media
🧭 Map your next 90-days: https://betterleadersbetterschools.com/principals-entry-plan/
🫶 Today's RuckusCast in Partnership With:
IXL
IXL's adaptive platform finds every student's knowledge gaps, adjusts difficulty as they learn, and gives you a dashboard showing exactly where growth is happening.
🔎 Over 1 million teachers use it — get started at https://ixl.com/leaders
ODP Business Solutions
ODP Business Solutions has supplied schools for 30 years — converting dead computer labs into STEAM centers, stocking multiple campuses, upgrading whiteboards to interactive displays — all from a single supplier through cooperative contracts.
🔎 Learn more at https://odpbusiness.com/education
Orchard
Orchard gives every student a personalized career action plan and scores readiness across 8 dimensions — a number you can take to your board.
🔎 See how it works at https://betterleaders.orchard.careers/
Kids First Education
Kids First Education builds professional learning around your district's priorities, your data, and your classrooms — not pulled off a shelf — and 98% of educators walk out ready to use what they learned.
🔎 Partner with them at https://kidsfirst.llc/leaders