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

A researcher, Edtech expert, and PhD candidate studying the intersection of AI, learning, and human experience, Kris brings a rare combination of academic rigor and real-world application to the question every principal is quietly asking: is all this technology actually helping? His work with Play Piper puts him at the front lines of how kids interact with screens — and what happens when that interaction goes wrong. Kris has been studying and speaking about screen usage in learning environments since 2013, long before most districts had a policy on the subject.
AI policy still doesn't exist in most school districts in 2026. Meta and YouTube just lost a major court case over intentionally building products harmful to kids. And the principals who bought Edtech tools during COVID are still living with implementations they never had time to design properly.
Kris returns to the RuckusCast to name the problem clearly: technology in schools is being treated as the experience instead of a tool within the experience — and that distinction is costing students more than anyone wants to admit.
🎯 What You'll Learn
Why the Meta and YouTube court ruling matters to every principal making Edtech decisions right now
The critical difference between simulation-based learning and actual skill development
How COVID forced impossible implementation timelines that are still warping Edtech use today
Why most districts still have no AI policy in 2026 — and what to do about it
How to think about AI as a co-principal rather than a threat or a shortcut
🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules
🧰 Key Insight #1: Edtech Adoption Without Design Produces Screen Dependency, Not Learning
What's broken: Schools are purchasing and deploying Edtech based on what's new and available, not on what produces better outcomes — and the result is students staring at screens for the majority of their learning time.
The shift: Technology should be a tool within the learning experience, not the experience itself — the screen is one element of the world, not a replacement for it.
Impact: When principals reframe adoption decisions around this distinction, they stop chasing shiny tools and start evaluating whether an implementation actually extends beyond what kids are staring at.
🧰 Key Insight #2: COVID-Era Implementation Timelines Broke Edtech Design
What's broken: Transitioning a course from in-person to online properly takes months — sometimes a year — but COVID forced schools to make that shift in three to four weeks, and those broken implementations carried through.
The shift: Acknowledge that what most schools are running isn't intentional digital learning design — it's emergency triage that never got fixed.
Impact: Principals who name this legacy honestly can audit their current edtech stack against what was designed with intention versus what was deployed in crisis mode.
🧠 Key Insight #3: AI Is a Tool for Handling the Curriculum — Not for Replacing the Human Leader
What's broken: Principals are either avoiding AI entirely or offloading judgment to it — neither approach produces better schools.
The shift: Let AI handle the curriculum structure, the data, the content scaffolding — and use the human leader for exactly what AI cannot do: the relational, social, and emotionally intelligent work of building a school community.
Impact: A principal who co-leads with AI this way gets leverage on administrative and instructional tasks while protecting the irreplaceable human elements that retain teachers and engage students.
KRIS QUOTES FROM THE RUCKUSCAST
"The idea that Silicon Valley is defining how humans will interact in the future is the most perverse thing that's ever happened in the history of society."
— Kris Rockwell
"Trinity does not learn how to fly a helicopter. She learns how to simulate a helicopter. She has no idea how to fly a helicopter once she's unplugged from that experience. So in that realm, what we're doing is looking at the simulation and saying, well, this is the future of learning. But it's not."
— Kris Rockwell
"What's being put into the system directly feeds what is coming out of the system."
— Kris Rockwell
"Code is becoming philosophy rather than engineering at this point."
— Kris Rockwell
"If I'm the co principal, I'm focusing on the human elements and how to make these things functional and how to make sure that the critical thinking is there."
— Kris Rockwell
"Ensure that it is a tool and not the tool. Ensure that those things that the kids have access to extend beyond what they're staring at."
— Kris Rockwell
🧗‍♂️ Your Do School Different Challenge
Ready to implement? Start here:
Tomorrow: Audit one Edtech tool currently in use on your campus and ask whether students are staring at it for the majority of the time — if yes, identify one way it could be a gateway to an offline or physical experience instead.
This Month: Draft a one-page AI use framework for your campus that answers two questions: what will we use AI to handle, and what will remain exclusively human.
This Semester: Identify every Edtech implementation that was adopted during COVID emergency conditions and evaluate each one against the question Kris named: is this designed with intention, or are we still running triage?
⌚️ Episode Timestamps
00:00 - Silicon Valley is defining how kids learn
04:15 - Meta and YouTube court ruling unpacked
07:25 - The "new and shiny" edtech trap
09:13 - Simulation vs. actual learning (the Matrix problem)
13:03 - Why COVID broke edtech implementation
19:17 - How China vs. the West frames AI differently
28:06 - Most districts still have no AI policy in 2026
30:26 - Code is becoming philosophy, not engineering
39:21 - How to co-principal with AI
43:11 - The one thing every Ruckus Maker should remember
Connect With Chris
👩🏻‍💻 Follow Kris Rockwell:
Website: www.playpiper.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/krisrockwell
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StartWithPiper
X: https://x.com/StartWithPiper
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startwithpiper
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PlayPiperLLC
TikTok: @play.piper
🎧 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. They don't just drop off supplies — they'll help you design a STEAM Innovation center, keep multiple buildings stocked and compliant, and streamline ordering across your entire district through a single supplier with cooperative contract access. However you want to advance, they've seen it and solved it.
🔍 Visit ODPbusiness.com/education to learn more
The staffing crisis isn't over — it's just shifted. Frontline Education's 2026 K12 Lens Report found that districts with structured, targeted professional learning are nearly twice as likely to report easier hiring than those without. The data is in: professional growth that extends beyond onboarding builds the culture that retains teachers before the year even starts.
🔍 Download the full report at frontlineducation.com/leaders
IXL gives school leaders what teachers already love: an adaptive platform that handles differentiated instruction and delivers dashboards that let you drill down to individual student growth in real time. Make data-informed decisions that move the needle on student growth goals.
🔍 Get started today at ixl.com/leaders
META DESCRIPTION: AI policy is missing in most districts. Edtech is failing students. This episode breaks down why — and how principals can lead differently.

Eight years ago, Chad Weiden walked into one of South Carolina's most underperforming elementary schools — a campus so low-rated that the state took it over, failed to fix it, and handed it back to the district. He just turned it into a good school. The strategy for school turnaround he used wasn't a new curriculum, a fresh initiative, or a culture retreat. It was building beacons of excellence on every team and coaching teachers in real time, in the moment, while students were in the room.
Weiden spent nearly three decades building and leading schools across Chicago and South Carolina, including turning around Meeting Street Burns Pre-K through second grade from "unsatisfactory" to "good" on the state report card — in one of the most underserved communities in the state. He's a principal who understands that every child can learn and that the system, not the child, is what needs fixing. Find him on LinkedIn to follow his work.
School turnaround is one of the most searched and least understood challenges in school leadership. Most principals know they need to fix culture — what they don't know is which two or three instructional moves actually move the needle. This episode answers that question directly, from a principal who lived it in real time in a school the system had already given up on.
🤩 What You'll Learn
Why building one beacon teacher per team matters more than trying to develop everyone at once
How to implement real-time instructional coaching — in the moment, mid-lesson — and get teachers to crave it instead of fear it
The vulnerability framework you must unpack before jumping into a teacher's classroom
Why joy is not performative and what it actually looks like in a high-expectation school
How the paradox of high expectations and deep love for students coexist — and why low expectations are never kindness
🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules
🧠 Key Insight #1: School Turnaround Starts with One Beacon Per Team, Not Everyone at Once
What's broken: Principals in turnaround schools try to develop every teacher simultaneously and end up moving no one.
The shift: Identify and build one beacon teacher per grade-level team who sets the standard, holds the expectation, and shows colleagues what great looks like when the principal isn't in the room.
Impact: Once a beacon is in place, a second strong teacher develops faster — and within a few years, the entire team performs at a high level because the standard is visible every day.
🧠 Key Insight #2: Real-Time Coaching Builds Better Teachers Faster Than Any Post-Observation Debrief
What's broken: Most instructional feedback arrives as an autopsy — a sit-down debrief days after the lesson, long after the muscle memory has hardened.
The shift: The principal enters the classroom as a co-teacher, intervenes the moment an instructional error occurs — modeling, adjusting, coaching in real time — the same way elite athletes are corrected mid-rep, not after the game.
Impact: Teachers start craving the feedback because they feel the improvement immediately; confidence builds in the room, students re-engage, and the principal's classroom presence shifts from evaluative to transformative.
🧠 Key Insight #3: Joy in School Is Not Performance — It's the Small Moments That Make Learning Stick
What's broken: When 53% of students are disengaged, schools respond with programs, pep rallies, or initiatives — and teachers interpret any call for joy as a demand to become entertainers.
The shift: Joy lives in small moments — a student nerding out on a text, spotting an algebra pattern in geometry, owning a goal that feels meaningful — not in performative enthusiasm that burns teachers out.
Impact: Campuses that build joy into the academic experience — through growth, celebration, and belonging — create environments students don't want to leave and teachers don't want to quit.
🗣️ CHAD WEIDEN QUOTES FROM THE RUCKUSCAST
"I had to build a beacon of a teacher on each team. One beacon of what the bar should be — because when you leave, they're really holding the expectations. They're showing other people what it looks like."
— Chad Weiden
"Act like the school is your classroom. Every classroom is my classroom, and when I walk in, I'm going to co-teach with you. That's how we built really great teachers really quickly — that system of real-time coaching."
— Chad Weiden
"There's nothing better when you get feedback that helps you feel more effective or confident. You start to crave it. And once people realize this is going to make your job easier — not tomorrow, right now — they're like, okay, this is weird, but dang, that was helpful."
— Chad Weiden
"To truly love a child is to hold that child to the highest expectation possible. To not love a child is to lower the expectation. I really lived in black and white — what I've deeply changed my mind about is I embrace the paradox."
— Chad Weiden
"Joy isn't big joy. Joy is in small moments — nerding out in a text with a kid, seeing them light up over a pattern they've spotted. That's joy. It's not performative. Because performative is exhausting and you can't do it every moment of every day."
— Chad Weiden
"The system is perfectly designed to get the results that it has."
— Chad Weiden
"Let kids do the work. Teachers hold the learning, hold the modelling — we're talking too much. Let kids do the work. They're ready."
— Chad Weiden
🧗‍♂️ Your Do School Different Challenge
Ready to implement? Start here:
Tomorrow: Walk into one classroom with the explicit intention to co-teach for five minutes — not to observe, but to intervene and model in real time if you see an instructional gap.
This Month: Identify the one teacher on each grade-level team who is closest to beacon status and invest your heaviest coaching hours there first, rather than spreading yourself evenly.
This Semester: Build a vulnerability framework with your staff — naming real-time coaching as a school norm during onboarding, modelling receiving feedback publicly yourself, and making the four beliefs explicit: it's okay to fail, it's okay to not know everything, it's okay to ask for help, and we are in this together.
⌚️ Episode Timestamps
00:00 - The real lever behind student disengagement
07:18 - Chad's turnaround story in South Carolina
10:22 - The three moves that drove results
11:05 - Building a beacon teacher on every team
12:26 - Real-time coaching defined and how it works
15:18 - How to introduce real-time coaching without fear
21:06 - Why every educator should take an improv class
30:07 - Joy and growth as the engine of school turnaround
39:16 - What Chad changed his mind about in education
42:57 - Danny on firing yourself from your own organization
44:29 - Marquee message: Let kids do the work
👩🏻‍💻 Connect With Chad Weiden
Website: https://berkeleycharter.org/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chad-weiden-99a31878/
🎧 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 a supplier, they're a strategic advantage. They give districts access to negotiated cooperative contracts that maximize every education dollar, and they proved it by helping the Baldwin School District transform an entire campus while staying under budget. From essential supplies to cutting-edge technology to flexible furniture, they're your one-stop shop to do school different.
🔍 Visit ODPbusiness.com/education to get started.
Frontline Education's 2026 K12 Lens Report makes the retention argument in hard numbers: districts that manage professional growth with software are nearly twice as likely to report easier hiring — 47% versus 30%. If you're serious about building a campus where great educators want to stay, this report is the data behind the strategy.
🔍 Download the full K12 Lens Report at FrontlineEducation.com/leaders.
IXL takes the guesswork out of what teachers do next. Ready-made lesson plans aligned to textbooks and state standards, plus daily student performance insights that let teachers adjust instruction before a gap becomes a problem. It's the kind of instructional support that turns real-time coaching from a principal strategy into a school-wide system.
🔍 Start today at IXL.com/leaders.
META DESCRIPTION: School turnaround principal Chad Weiden shares the real-time coaching system and beacon teacher strategy that took a failing school to good-rated in South Carolina.

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