Hacking Leadership: 10 Ways Great Leaders Inspire Learning That Teachers, Students, and Parents Love

by Joe Sanfelippo, Tony Sinanis

Overview

The best leaders lead from the middle

When school leaders join teachers, students, and parents in a collaborative effort to improve teaching and learning, achievement soars and schools turn into vibrant communities, filled with enthusiastic members.

Teaching and learning feel too much like work

With constant emphasis on higher test scores and teacher accountability, it's easy for schools to become places filled with stress and despair, making teachers dread going to work and students disdain lessons and activities.

It's time to bring fun back to school

In Hacking Leadership, award-winning school administrators Joe Sanfelippo and Tony Sinanis demonstrate how to increase learning by leaving the office and engaging directly with all teachers and learners. They identify 10 problems with school leadership and provide dynamic, right-now solutions. During this exciting journey toward change, you learn how to:

• Transform yourself from leader to Lead Learner
• Amplify individual staff needs while maintaining a collaborative vision
• Employ unique strategies to break down the walls between home and school
• Empower students and staff to own their space
• Create a culture where "Yes" and "Trust" are the default
• Eliminate initiative overload while encouraging teachers to lead, as well
• Broadcast student voice
• Bring passion into your school
• Embrace technology and social channels in ways rarely considered in education
• Eradicate your deficit mindset

What makes Hacking Leadership different?

Sanfelippo and Sinanis present leadership strategies in ways few people have ever seen. These experienced, thoughtful, decisive leaders, share amazing, real anecdotes that make you feel like you're listening to trusted friends sitting in your living room. Then, they provide progressive, courageous, and practical solutions that you and all stakeholders will love, using the popular Hack Learning formula:

• The Problem (a single leadership issue that needs a Hacker's mentality)
• The Hack (a surprisingly easy solution that you've likely never considered)
• What You Can Do Tomorrow (no waiting necessary; you can lead from the middle immediately)
• Blueprint for Full Implementation (a step-by-step action plan for capacity building)
• The Hack in Action (yes, people have actually done this)

Are you ready to Hack Leadership

Grab your copy today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780986104947
Publisher:	Times 10 Publications
Publication date:	06/11/2016
Series:	Hack Learning , #5
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	168
Sales rank:	224,298
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Dr. Joe Sanfelippo is the Superintendent of the Fall Creek School District in Fall Creek, WI. Joe holds a BA in Elementary and Early Childhood Education from St. Norbert College, a MS in Educational Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a MS in Educational Leadership, and a PhD in Leadership, Learning, and Service from Cardinal Stritch University. Joe is also an adjunct professor in the Educational Leadership Department at Viterbo University. Joe has taught Kindergarten, 2nd Grade, and 5th Grade. He was also a school counselor and coach prior to taking on an elementary principalship in 2005. He has been the Superintendent in Fall Creek since 2011. Joe co-hosts the Successful Schools Podcast, and co-authored The Power of Branding-Telling Your School's Story and Principal Professional Development: Leading Learning in a Digital Age. He was selected as one of 117 Future Ready Superintendents in 2014 by the US Department of Education and attended a summit at the White House. Joe has been a featured speaker in multiple states in the areas of Advancing the Use of Social Media in School Districts, Creating a Culture of Yes, Professional Growth for Staff, and Organizational and Systems Change. Go Crickets!

Tony Sinanis is currently a Lead Learner at Cantiague Elementary School in Jericho, New York. Cantiague was named a 2012 National Blue Ribbon School. Tony received the national 2013 Bammy Award for Elementary School Principal of the Year and the 2014 New York State Elementary Principal of the Year Award. As part of his doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Tony studied the relationship between active participation on Twitter and the professional development of principals. Tony is active on Twitter (@TonySinanis) and serves as the founder and co-moderator of #NYedchat. Tony is also the co-host of the Successful Schools podcast with Dr. Joe Sanfelippo. Finally, Tony has co-authored two books for Corwin Press with Joe Sanfelippo: The Power ofBranding: Telling Your School's Story and Principal Professional Development: Leading Learning in the Digital Age.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Publisher's Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
A better way
Hack 1: Be Present and Engaged . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Lead learners are visible
Hack 2: Create C.U.L.T.U.R.E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Start with school leaders
Hack 3: Build Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Connect with intentionality
Hack 4: Flatten the Walls of Your School . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Create partnership with the community
Hack 5: Broadcast Student Voices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Appeal to your audience to generate support
Hack 6: Center School Around the Children . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Create schools that work for kids
Hack 7: Hire Superstars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Develop a team of exceptional educators
Hack 8: Passion Projects for Adults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Empower teachers to control their own learning
Hack 9: Collaborate and Learn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119
Facilitate collective professional development
Hack 10: Change the Mindset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Eradicate deficit thinking
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Be like water
Other Books in the Hack Learning Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Editorial Reviews

"Many conversations that I hear from administrators focus on how to deal with educators, yet often don't focus on reflecting what they can do different. The authors do a beautiful job of helping leaders focus inward, instead of outward. This book by Joe and Tony, grounded in the importance of empowered relationships with the entire school community, provides some amazing ideas on how to develop learner-centred schools (learners meaning students and educators) in ways that could be implemented immediately. This is an essential read for leaders who are, or want to lead, learner-centred schools."

- George Couros ~ Author of "The Innovator's Mindset", and Innovative Leadership and Learning Consultant

"As the Director of Innovation for Future Ready Schools, I've had the opportunity to work closely with over 3,000 school administrators and over 500 school districts over the past year. Across the United States, I've witnessed firsthand how school leaders are searching tirelessly to find innovative ways to create schools that better work for kids. Grounded in research and evident in today's most successful schools, school leadership and culture lay the groundwork for systemic transformation. In Hacking Leadership, Sanfelippo and Sinanis, two highly successful practitioners, provide a blueprint for school leaders to build strong relationships, shift mindsets, and create dynamic school cultures with opportunities for all. Unlike many education books written today, Hacking Leadership, provides concrete steps to remove traditional roadblocks and shift the mindset of naysayers, both short and long term. If you're a school leader working to create a future ready school, you will find this book to be one of your best resources in your journey moving forward."

- Thomas C. Murray, Director of Innovation, Future Ready Schools, Alliance for Excellent Education, Washington, DC

From the Publisher