When the network works, nobody notices. No one emails the superintendent to say the Wi-Fi held during state testing. No teacher posts a thank-you because rosters synced overnight. The bell rang, the Chromebooks opened, the doors unlocked on schedule. A normal day. The Silence After the Classroom When I moved from the classroom into the…
For my first few years as a technology director, my right eye started twitching about a week before school started. It kept going until sometime in October. I want to tell you I found that alarming, but I didn’t. I found it normal, almost expected. August was hard, everybody knew August was hard, and my…
And why that invisibility is actually a leadership risk Last week was spring break. Which means this week, every system gets tested. Devices reconnect. Passwords are forgotten. Tickets spike. The quiet hum of operations either holds…or it doesn’t. And most senior leaders don’t realize: When everything works, no one notices. When one thing breaks, everyone…
In K–12 leadership, we work with a lot of vendors. Some are responsive. Some are innovative. Some are persistent. But very few are true partners. And in this moment, the difference matters more than ever. District leaders are navigating AI, cybersecurity, interoperability, enrollment shifts, staffing shortages, board politics, and community trust, often all at once….
There’s a moment I still think about. I was standing in front of our school board. Slides ready. Data polished. Language precise. Huge, impactful initiative ready to share. I said the word interoperability, and I watched the room go still. Not confused. Disconnected. In that moment, I realized something uncomfortable: It wasn’t that they disagreed…
Every conference sends you home with two suitcases. One holds what you’re taking forward. The other holds what you’re finally willing to set down. After this year’s Future of Educational Technology Conference, I’m reflecting less on what inspired me and more on what earned its way back into my leadership practice. Because inspiration is easy…
Was I resting… or just managing another system? That question caught me off guard last week, somewhere between coordinating Christmas traditions, managing holiday logistics, and making sure everyone else experienced ease. The week of Christmas is supposed to feel like a break. The calendar clears. The inbox quiets. The pace slows (at least on paper)….
When I first started teaching, I was the one sneaking new tools into the classroom. The early adopter, the “let’s try it and see what happens” teacher who saw technology not as a distraction but as a bridge: a bridge to creativity, collaboration, and the kind of engagement that made learning come alive. Fast-forward to…
It’s easy to think of attendance as a number. Percentages. Tardies. Absence codes. Thresholds. But when you sit where district leaders sit, you quickly learn: chronic absenteeism isn’t just an attendance problem. It’s a reflection of belonging, access, and often, unseen barriers that stand between a student and the classroom. Every absence has a story,…
How to turn strategy into stories and complexity into connection, no matter your role When people hear I started my career as a French teacher, they often raise an eyebrow. “How did you end up in district leadership?” they ask. But the leap from teaching a world language to leading operations and technology at the…
