Free Resources to Support Your Work

Yesterday, I joined former Illinois Superintendent Dr. Greg Goins, on the Reimagine Schools Podcast. You can listen to the podcast episode here: If you listen to the podcast, you’ll hear Greg and I discuss a variety of resources such as Future Ready Schools and Digital Learning Day, issues that we are all facing, ways to advocate for some of our children most in need, and the work of my home organization, The Alliance for Excellent Education, each of which I share below. To support your work, I wanted to compile the resources we discussed in one place to make them easy for you to access. So, here you go! 1. Future Ready Schools – Lead by the Alliance for Excellent Education, Future Ready Schools supports school and district leaders to empower leadership and create the school culture that our students need to thrive. In collaboration with over 60 other national and regional partner organizations, Future Ready Schools provides free events, a planning dashboard, ongoing professional learning opportunities, and is practitioner lead. Future Ready Schools is broken down to support five leadership strands including: District Leadership Principals Librarians Technology Leaders Instructional Coaches With a focus on equity, each strand is lead by innovative educators that are helping to push the education landscape forward today. 2. The Future Ready Film Fest – The Empower Future Ready Students Film Festival is a brand new project within the FRS network that seeks to capture, showcase, and celebrate the values, opportunities, and great things happening in schools and districts that embody the FRS framework, growth mindset, and spirit of collaborative leadership. Submissions are due by February 10th, and winners will be announced live from Washington, D.C. on Digital Learning Day 2019. 3. Digital Learning Day 2019 – What’s become a well-known celebration each year, Digital Learning Day seeks to highlight great things that happen every day in schools and classrooms throughout the country. So, save the date! This year’s DLD is on Thursday, February 28th. Add your celebration to the national map, use the #DLDay hashtag to highlight the great things happening in your school or classroom! Speaking of all things digital, here’s a list of 300+ Digital Tools curated by over 500 teachers that I shared a few months back. 4. Superintendents – Have you signed on to the letter? Every day of the recent government shutdown puts the funding for the National School Lunch Program and Breakfast Program a day closer to being at risk. To be clear, millions of students rely on these funds for their well-being throughout the school year. At Future Ready Schools and the Alliance for Excellent Education, we’re advocating to ensure schools receive these vital funds and as such, a letter will be sent to President Trump, Senate Minority Leader Schumer, and Senate Majority Leader McConnell on January 28th. Encourage the Superintendents you know to sign on here to this bipartisan letter to support some of our nation’s neediest children and the schools in which they attend. (The deadline to sign on is Friday, January 25th.) 5. The Alliance for Excellent Education – Although I’ve referenced it many times in the past, the Alliance for Excellent Education (All4Ed) is my home organization and is a national, bipartisan non-profit in Washington D.C. It’s the organization that oversees of all the resources and events listed above. Besides Future Ready Schools and Digital Learning Day, All4Ed is home to work surrounding the Science of Adolescent Learning (SAL), projects such as the Graduation Effect, and is a highly-respected Federal and State policy organization, all working together to provide the needed educational experiences for all students, particularly those that are traditionally underserved, as we are an equity-empowered organization. (Check out some of the free webinars, publications, etc., to support the work in your school or district.) Simply put, I’m proud to call this place my home! As a side note, earlier this week, All4Ed announced that Deb Delisle, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Elementary and Secondary Education, Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction, and long-time school and district leader, will succeed current President, Gov. Bob Wise. Governor Wise has been an incredible visionary leader and I’ll be sad to see him leave. However, we are ecstatic to have a tremendous leader coming in, with experience that ranges the full education gamut. Under Deb’s leadership, we will continue to work to support school and district leaders, while doing all that we can for the children of our country. I hope that you found this most recent podcast informative and helpful, and leave with a bank of tools, resources, and ways to get involved. Together, we can do this! All for the kids we serve,