Jessica Cabeen

A must-have guide to succeeding at school leadership without sacrificing personal balance

Reports of burnout, stress, and compassion fatigue are on the rise. These issues push many out of the profession, leading to high turnover and sub-optimal student outcomes. How can school leaders combat these problems? Leaders can manager their own wellness and priorities. Healthy leaders who learn balance can create motivation, confidence, quality collaboration, and enthusiasm among staff and other stakeholders. Principal in Balance offers principals strategies and tools to take more ownership of their lives at work and home, so everyone in the K–12 educational community can thrive.

Nationally Distinguished Principal and four-time author Jessica Cabeen shows you how to navigate leading at work and having a fulfilling life. Throughout the book, you gain actionable points to help you set achievable goals, find time in the day to accomplish them, and have time to enjoy rest at home. You’ll learn to better meet the needs of your administration, staff, parents, and students using intentional and creative actions without sacrificing yourself.

• Learn to balance work and life to create higher productivity
• Gain proven tips for successful goal setting, staff retention, and student learning
• Discover lead-to-win strategies that can help you improve your leadership in all areas
• Make intentional space in your daily life for self-care and permission to rest

Principal in Balance offers a practical, timely approach by a school leader for school leaders to cultivate work/life balance. This book is an essential companion for K–12 school leaders and administrators, aspiring school leaders, and teacher trainers.

Today’s educational leaders are working with more resources, more research, and more stakeholders – all within the same, limited time in a day as we had a decade ago. Author Jessica M. Cabeen takes readers through an intentional journey of current trends and buzzwords, helping leaders understand how social media is a tool for connection, collaboration, and learning. This exciting book explores the importance of care and collaboration with all members of the educational community – students, teachers, staff, families, and community partners. Each chapter highlights examples of leaders that have made positive change in their schools, and provides key actionable strategies that can be implemented at a pace that is sustainable and tailored to fit your needs. You will discover a deeper understanding of the critical importance of your role in:

Elevating the student’s experience

Building a strong school culture

Creating small ways to make big impacts with families

Advocating a clear message with community partners and legislative leaders

Creating time for self-care

Filled with practical examples, tools, and strategies, Unconventional Leadership is a resource school leaders can pick up today and implement tomorrow.

Why do even great leadership books leave out the soft skills?

Probably because soft skills are not flashy. But soft skills are critical to graceful leadership, and you will find the stories and strategies to hone them and to empower people around you, inside this book. National Distinguished Principal and leadership advisor Jessica Cabeen understands the soft skills better than most.

In Lead with Grace Cabeen shows you how to seamlessly integrate authenticity, empathy, integrity, and the power of vulnerability into your daily work, turning you into someone who is leading young minds with grace and someone who will empower people around you.

Using frameworks and insightful leadership advice, Cabeen provides insightful leadership advice in an informative leadership memoir style. She helps you nurture relationships, enhance communication, manage boundaries, and provide the grace you need to effectively lean into your work, at school, home, or the office.

Leaning into the soft skills of leadership will help you:

• Find ways to confront negative workplace behaviors.
• Leverage opportunities that help people interact in healthier ways.
• Create a workplace culture that supports risk-taking, while amplifying individual voices.
• Enhance social media interactions to empower all stakeholders.
• Implement habits that make grace an intentional practice in your personal and work life.

Great leaders, teachers, parents, and are typically good at the hard skills: organization, guidelines, and management. Very few, though, are great at the soft skills. And even fewer really understand how to lead with grace. Now, you can be a great and graceful leader, who understands and leads with soft skills.

Grab Lead with Grace today, and integrate authenticity, vulnerability, empathy, and integrity into your work immediately. Under your graceful leadership, staff, students, and co-workers will perform like never before.

“I just can’t get it all done.”

“I’m crazy busy.”

“I never have time to enjoy life.”

If you relate to those sentiments, you know that in today’s 24/7, always-on culture, life feels busier than ever before. That hectic pace combined with the constant demands that come with being an educator create the perfect conditions for burnout. But life doesn’t have to be that way.

Balance Like a Pirate, a Lead Like a PIRATE Guide, was written by educators for educators with a focus on helping you create a lifestyle that allows you to break free from “shoulds” and “have tos.” Educational leaders Jessica Cabeen, Jessica Johnson, and Sarah Johnson equip you with practical strategies and tools to thrive in every area of life.

Balance is a myth, but living with purpose, passion, and priorities is within your reach.

What if we raise the bar on early learning?

School readiness, closing achievement gaps, partnering with families, and innovative learning are just a few of the reasons the early learning years are the most critical years in a child’s life. In what ways have schools lost the critical components of early learning -- teaching preschool through third grade -- and how can we intentionally bring those ideas and instructional strategies back?

In Hacking Early Learning, Kindergarten school leader, early childhood education specialist, and Minnesota State Principal of the Year Jessica Cabeen provides strategies for teachers, principals, and district administrators in best practices for preschool teachers and leaders, kindergarten teachers, teaching first grade, teaching second grade, and teaching third grade, including connecting these strategies to all grade levels.

It's What You Can Do Tomorrow

Using the popular Hack Learning Series problem-solving formula, Cabeen brings educators a simple guide for making the early years more meaningful, engaging, and full of intentional learning experiences. Cabeen shows all stakeholders how to:

• Create learning environments that are conducive to play, technology integration, and movement
• Provide a clear understanding for ALL staff members of what we want students to learn
• Give parents detailed, timely information about what their children are learning and how they can support teachers and learners at home
• Bridge the gap between early learning and K-12
• Create innovative professional growth for pre-K-3 educators
• Grant access to research-based practices and give teachers time to reflect on their teaching with others, in order to learn the best strategies for ALL children -- Pre-K-3 and beyond -- to succeed

Experts gush over Jessica Cabeen and Hacking Early Learning

"Hacking Early Learning gets to both the heart and mind of our youngest learners. The practical strategies allow the reader to set up an environment that works for everyone in the learning community. If you work with kids, or adults who work with kids, Hacking Early Learning is an essential component to your leadership toolbox.”

-Joe Sanfelippo, Superintendent, Fall Creek Schools, Co-author of Hacking Leadership

“Jessica Cabeen is not afraid to say she’s learned from her mistakes and misconceptions. But it is those mistakes and misconceptions that qualify her to write this book, with its wonderfully user-friendly format. For each problem specified, there is a hack and actionable advice presented as “What You Can Do Tomorrow” and “A Blueprint for Full Implementation.” Jessica’s leadership is informed by both head and heart and, because of that, her wisdom will be of value to those who wish to teach and lead in the early childhood field.”

-Rae Pica, Early Childhood Education Keynote Speaker and author of What If Everybody Understood Child Development?

"Jessica’s amazing successes as a school leader give credibility and weight to her shared knowledge so that the readers feel empowered and confident in turn-keying these strategies into a plan of action to be successful at their schools. You’re going to love reading this book and want to share it with others!”

-Andy Jacks, Award-winning principal and Co-founder of #DadsAsPrincipals

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