Introduction: Recently, two blogs were written in regards to choosing conferences that I found helpful for Christian school leaders. CACE Fellow, Paul Neal, wrote a blog entitled Thinking about Conferences? as he reflected on conferences he attended this past year while our friends at Sevenstar recently published a blog entitled A Guide to the Premier Events for Christian Schools this … Read More
Leadership Encouragement for 2017
Ten years ago, at the age of 31, I was entrusted by a bold superintendent and school board with an opportunity to lead a school. At this school, 2006 was known as the “Year of Shock and Awe” because a data dive discovered that the school was having a negative demographic impact on the education of its students, which is … Read More
Letter to Education Graduates and Future Christian Educators
Student-teaching is complete, graduation is quickly approaching, the job search has commenced and for some of you lucky few been completed, and you are filled with a combination of conflicting emotions. At the end of Matthew 28, Jesus gathers the 11 remaining disciples and gives them the “Great Commission” to go make disciples. As your professors and student-teaching mentors send … Read More
A Look Back and a Look Ahead 2017
As 2017 begins I took a look back at our blogs since we started CACE to see what resonated with the CACE network. I have highlighted a few of the more popular blogs below as they are worth another read as we begin 2017. A Letter to my Daughter on Her Graduation from High School: This is a timeless piece … Read More
Building an Engaged School: Management Matters
“Hire good people who hire good people, and let them do their job.” Tom Ricketts A World Series and Organizational Change: In six seasons, Tom Ricketts was able to lead the transformation of the most dismal or unlucky professional baseball team depending upon your view of the prior 100 years. Much analysis will be done on the Chicago Cubs as … Read More
Building an Engaged School: Get a Leader
In a blog from April I laid out that “Engagement Matters” throughout an organization for long-term success as well as short-term fulfillment. Gallup continues to do research on employee engagement as they seek to understand the combination of personal enjoyment in work as well as business success overall, and they stated earlier this year: “Though companies and leaders worldwide recognize … Read More
Engagement Matters: An Introduction
According to Gallup’s weekly survey only 33% of employees are actively engaged in their work while another 25% are actively disengaged. The data regarding teacher and student engagement is equally as discouraging with engagement rates that have plummeted in the past ten years to levels not seen since the early 1980s. As I work in a school, work with other … Read More
Finish Your Final Assessment Now: A Professional Thank You to Grant Wiggins
As an educator, I love the summers not only for the vacation time and opportunity to go to baseball games, but more so for the opportunity to reflect on the past year and prepare for the upcoming year. There are not many professions that afford such opportunities for significant reflection, revision, and development, but too often we find ourselves in … Read More
Three Steps for Recruiting Talent
In my prior blog, “School Buses, Lord of the Flies, and The Right People”, I received comments and questions about my own experience riding school buses, how to develop exciting non-bus orientated analogies, and what dispositions I look for in candidates; however, the most significant interest and conversation revolved around the following comment: Recruit Talent: No offense to those that … Read More
School Buses, Lord of the Flies, and “The Right People”
In his blog from April “The Right People in the Right Seats” Tim Van Soelen encourages Christian schools to attract talent into their school through the lens of Collins’ research on Good to Great businesses. This sparked a question from a number of friends who were in the midst of hiring for next school year, which was: How do we … Read More