People often ask what it's like to attend education conferences. The answer is usually the same. You come home with pages of notes, a suitcase full of ideas, and enough inspiration to carry you into the next school year. This year was different. I came home with something even more valuable. Validation. Over the past two weeks, Dr. Stephanie Nardi and I have traveled thousands of miles, beginning at the Innovative Schools Summit in Las Vegas, where we had the privilege of pre

Waiting for state assessment scores feels a lot like walking across a frozen lake. Which is a ridiculous metaphor because I live in Arizona, it's June, and it's 108 degrees outside. The signs are encouraging, but we still wait for the full picture. A reflection on leadership, culture, and anticipation in turnaround work. #TurnaroundUnscripted

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.

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.

Turnaround work is full of storms that test even the strongest leaders. One moment with an eighth grade student reminded me that sometimes the most powerful leadership begins with a simple question: “Are you okay?”

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.

Turnaround work does not stop just because the calendar says break. On Christmas Eve, after encouraging my staff to unplug and be fully present with their families, I open my laptop to rebalance schedules, shift student placements, and answer emails that never seem to respect office hours. This is the messy middle of school improvement, after crisis and before consistency, where progress is fragile and momentum depends on quiet, unseen decisions. It is exhausting work, but it