We are one of only eight Arizona schools to move from an F to a C or higher in 2025–26. What happens when a school accomplishes something extraordinary while losing the very resources that made its success possible? Behind the celebration is a less visible reality of turnaround: mounting compliance demands, staffing shortages, exhausted educators, and the fear that hard-earned progress may be impossible to sustain without meaningful support.

Years ago, the car company, Lexus, came up with the slogan The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection. When I first heard it, I was captivated and immediately thought of my decades of work involved in the school improvement process. To me, the slogan perfectly captured what great schools are trying to do. As a slogan, I would imagine each word was carefully selected. Take the word pursuit. This implies more than just a movement towards. Pursuit implies a level of “focus” and “inten

There is a moment every spring break when the noise finally quiets. The bells stop. The emails slow down. The constant urgency softens just enough to hear your own thinking again.

In middle school, where identities are forming and narratives about capability are still fragile, disciplined clarity may be the most caring leadership move we can make. Turnaround is unscripted, but the path to rigor is clear if we are willing to practice it relentlessly.

In many high-need middle schools, the challenge isn’t just academics. It’s doing emotionally complex, relationship-driven work with too few adults, core classes of 38–40 students, and fewer student support roles than ever. When counselor positions are cut and staffing is stretched, prevention turns into triage. Turnaround work is still possible, but it cannot be built on minimal staffing. Adolescents need support systems, not just systems on paper.

In middle school turnaround work quiet is not the same as healthy and compliant is not the same as cared for. In my latest Turnaround Unscripted post, I dig into emerging research and lived leadership experience to make the case that PBIS often centers surveillance and normalization, while restorative practices build voice, accountability, and real behavioral growth. If we want transformation instead of performance, we have to choose restoration over compliance.

In turnaround spaces, especially in communities where dropping out of high school is common and disengagement starts early, we cannot afford to treat engagement as fluff. High interest electives are not schedule decorations. They are attendance strategies. They are relationship builders. They are identity shapers. They are often the first place a student feels competent, needed, and successful.

“Where were you this morning? If you’re not out here, we’re gonna fight.” That sentence stays with you. Because it says everything about turnaround work that data never will. It says that presence matters. It says that being visible matters. It says that showing up can be the difference between chaos and calm, between a fight and a moment of pause, between a bad decision and a better one. Turnaround does not start with programs. It starts with people. It starts with adults

What if discipline conversations started with relationships, not rules? That simple shift in thinking is redefining what effective leadership looks like in schools today. As educational leaders are called into classrooms to coach through challenging behaviors, the real question isn’t which new program to adopt, but rather how to think differently about the work of leadership itself. The most effective leaders are not layering on new systems. They are making intentional shifts

Some of the strongest teachers don’t have the longest resumes. They have the right mindset, the right heart, and the willingness to learn. That’s who changes schools. #Coachability #TeacherLeadership #TurnaroundWork

Turnaround work is exhausting and requires constant focus with no room to disengage. This post compares leading a turnaround school with a team of two to driving a crowded freeway filled with merges, exits, and unexpected obstacles. It reflects on the mental toll of the work, the importance of systems and trust, and what keeps leaders and teachers moving forward when the road feels long and heavy.

There is no pause button in turnaround work. On the first day back from break, we gathered a small group of teachers to focus on classroom management, relationships, and long-term growth over short-term compliance.

On the last Friday of winter break, a quiet walk through empty classrooms revealed something powerful. Anchor charts with purpose. Student work displayed with pride. In a turnaround school, these small moments signal big change. Sometimes progress isn’t loud—it’s visible in the walls, the culture, and the realization that what once felt impossible is becoming normal.

In a school where chronic absenteeism had taken root as a growing challenge, we made a bold decision: attendance would no longer be treated as a routine task. It would become a shared goal. From day one, we committed to transforming how students, staff, and families think about being present. Not through pressure. Not through penalties. But through purpose, partnership, and people. Starting with Staff: Knowledge First We began the year by investing in the one group best posit

When most students are minimally proficient, intervention systems are not the solution. That reality is hard to say out loud in turnaround work, but it matters. Tier 2 cannot carry what Tier 1 has not yet stabilized. Until core instruction is consistently aligned, rigorous, and coherent across classrooms, intervention will continue to do work it was never designed to do.

We changed our master schedule because what we were doing was not working. Daily intervention time created the appearance of support, but without focus, content expertise, or instructional alignment, it rarely delivered meaningful impact. Moving to longer, content specific Tier 2 blocks was not about efficiency. It was about honesty. In turnaround work, schedules are not logistical tools. They are instructional systems.

There is a certain clarity that arrives when someone names out loud what you have quietly known.

Sometimes the most meaningful leadership moments are the quiet ones. This post captures the day the data finally caught up to the work affirming a year spent rebuilding trust, restoring joy, and preparing a school to grow. It’s a reflection on resilience, criticism, and why people must come before metrics.