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One Superintendent’s Take on School District Planning

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When I interviewed for my current position as the superintendent in Northport-East Northport in the fall of 2023, I scoured the website for information on the district’s Strategic Plan. What I found was a site dedicated to a Strategic Plan that was adopted in 2017. The site had some of the goals that were developed and approved and links to Board presentations that led to the plan’s adoption. The Mission, Vision and Board Beliefs remained in various printed materials since its adoption, and the mission did largely take root as a driver of the district’s belief system. However, there were no subsequent presentations or updates that I could find, nor were there established benchmarks or agreed upon monitoring systems in place. The district did not set annual goals and the schools, while identifying broad annual goals, had no consistent expectations related to school improvement plans. This phenomenon is not in any way uncommon in districts and schools across the country. Districts an...
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Administrative Restructuring in Times of Decline

Many schools are facing declining enrollment on top of budgetary pressures due to inflation, increased school choice, uncertainty at the Federal level, and flat or declining state aid. Often, this necessitates staff reductions. My article in the May 2026 edition of School Administrator includes my thoughts on strategies for approaching administrative reductions and reorganization. You can access it by clicking here:  https://www.aasa.org/resources/resource/administrative-restructuring-in-times-of-decline.
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Not Sure Where to Start? When in Doubt, Consider Learning Targets

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A principal or superintendent may enter a new situation and identify that improvement is necessary to better support student learning. However, they may be unsure which approach makes the most sense to launch the effort, support improvement, or ultimately yield the desired outcomes. Of course, there are many factors that could potentially be in play, and there is no one right answer. However, in my opinion, when in doubt start with learning targets. One practical reason to start with learning targets when looking for instructional improvement is that although some degree of pushback on anything "new" is to be expected, learning targets are something that any teacher can realistically do. Secondly, one can start at a fairly rudimentary level and still experience some benefits while they grow in their ability to use learning targets more effectively. The primary reason that I think that learning targets are a great entry point for most priority areas is their ability to leverag...
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Authentic Community Engagement Essential for Today's Schools

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While it has always been true that authentic community engagement is essential for school districts, it has arguably never been truer than it is today. Declining enrollment across the country, teacher shortages in many areas of the country, a bifurcated public, uncertainty at the Federal level, and the increasingly complex learning needs of our children are just some of the contemporary challenges facing schools. Having come off of two recent comprehensive and successful community engagement efforts in previous districts, resulting in the successful passage of $168.5 and $179.6M referenda, I was asked to facilitate a roundtable discussion this past fall at the RTM Conference in Baltimore. I titled the presentation Comprehensive Community Engagement Strategies to Support Long-Range Planning and Systematic Decision-Making . My current district, Northport-East Northport on Long Island, has partnered with the St. Louis firm Discovery Works for this purpose. Northport-East Northport has fou...
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Seven Helpful Constructs for Building a Coherent Future-Focused School System

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Whether it is the World Economic Forum's Top 10 Job Skills, the McKinsey White Paper Defining the Skills Citizens Need in the Future World of Work (Dondi, et. al., 2021), Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation , or the explosion of generative AI, it is clear that schools must redesign their systems to ensure that they support whole child growth and development and prioritize learning experiences that foster the development of transferable skills in addition to mastery of traditional academic standards. My first Superintendent's Conference Day Keynote Address in the Northport-East Northport School District Union Free School District last April was titled Caring for the Present, Enabling the Future . The point of the presentation was to acknowledge and honor the outstanding opportunities available to our students due to the hard work of our staff and the tremendous support of our community. It also introduced some concepts for future-focused thinking that I believed we need...
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Personalized Learning the Focus of Eric Sheninger's Latest Book with Nicki Slaugh

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Personalize:  Meeting the Needs of ALL Learners by Eric Sheninger and Nicki Slaugh is a fitting follow up to Sheninger's excellent 2021 book, Disruptive Thinking in Our Classrooms .  Disruptive Thinking in Our Classrooms dedicates Chapter Five to the topic, which introduces a model based on student voice, choice, path, pace, and place.   Personalize  builds on Sheninger's experience working with teachers in thousands of classrooms around the world and Slaugh's innovative leadership as a secondary principal and award-winning teacher in Utah to move from theory to action and provide teachers with practical strategies to support them in making the shift from traditional instruction to true personalized learning. To this superintendent, Personalize is a welcome resource.  For years educators have talked about personalizing learning for students, but in far too many classrooms across the country, this is not the reality.  In my doctoral studies as far ba...
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Building Life Ready Graduates through a Culture of Service to Others

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Recently, a team from my new district, Northport-East Northport, located on Long Island, had the privilege of presenting at the Future-Focused Schools Conference in Washington, D.C.  The presentation was entitled When Schools Have No Walls:  Building Life Ready Graduates through a Culture of Service to Others .  I started as the district's superintendent in January 2024.  I was looking forward to taking a team to the conference to build a foundation for our future work together.  Being new, I had no intention of submitting a proposal to present.  However, as I learned more about the district, I could not believe how deeply rooted the ethos of service is in the culture of Northport-East Northport.  It was on display everywhere I turned.  It is truly part of the district's DNA, and I wanted to celebrate this commitment with my team.  In doing so, I had hoped that their story might also inspire others. It Starts Young, and It Starts with Tier I ...
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