This week, many of us are back in school. You’ve printed the schedules and planned the lessons. It may be an exciting time for you – full of new students, new school supplies, or new studies. For others of you, this time of year may be ridden with anxiety and questions – will you get along with your colleagues? Are you up to the tasks ahead of you? In order to get organized for the school year, I usually start with a massive to do list but just writing that list is not nearly as satisfying as checking off the individual items.
Read MoreCheck back here for twice-monthly updates from AEC! We will provide you with content about current events, tips and resources, and new strategies to try in your districts, schools, and classrooms. To view ongoing and past blog series, click on the links below.
Maternity leave is, at this point, an outdated and insufficient benefit to employees. In fact, the United States is the only developed country without a law instituting paid family leave. Most women think that taking maternity leave is a risky choice for their careers and continued promotion. At this point, tech companies are leading the way in terms of far more progressive and equitable family leave policies. And, since extended, flexible, fully-funded family leaves are strongly associated with women’s career advancement, this week’s roundup offers a few resources to help education organization and leaders think about – or rethink – paid family leave.
Read MoreIf you’re anything like us, you’re already looking ahead to the new year and making your New (School) Year’s Resolutions. One of the things we’re thinking about a lot is wellness – mental, physical, relational, and intellectual. Along all dimensions, wellness is critical to improved job performance and leaders are critical to employee wellness. This week’s C-Suite recaps some best practices for maintaining your own well-being as a leader and promoting healthy practices among your faculty and colleagues.
Read MoreBack-to-school fervor has already started, believe it or not. (Full disclosure, two of us in the C-Suite teach Summer classes so we never really left school.) Even so, we are among the many educators thinking about how to retool and revamp our curricular materials for the coming year. Some questions are perennial: What activities worked or didn’t work? How will I differentiate for this year’s students? How can I enhance engagement throughout the year? Still other questions may be new or require more consideration: How do I evaluate gender bias in my curricular materials? With whom can I collaborate? How do I teach students to have critical conversations about race and privilege? The articles in this week’s roundup begin to address some of those questions so those of you who plan ahead may be interested. We also have a number of curriculum resources ready and waiting for you on our website and we’d love to talk more with you about the specific needs of your school or staff – send us a note!
Read MoreThis week, my goal in the C-Suite is to define and demystify a term that appears increasingly in educational equity literature and practice: intersectionality. We’ve referenced intersectionality a few times in AEC blogs, but this week’s deep dive is useful for two reasons: 1) We are committed to bringing cutting-edge knowledge to education leaders and 2) we believe that equipping leaders for education equity includes the exploration and application of useful theoretical frameworks. The blog that follows, then, is structured differently than previous C-Suite roundups. Instead, I offer a brief introduction to the history of intersectionality and then use the roundup portion to demonstrate how critical intersectional work is to all gender equity efforts in education leadership.
Read MoreWelcome back, have a seat, and settle in. We hope you had a great holiday! This week, the C-Suite roundup takes a look at some of the people and science supporting the integration of noncognitive skills into broader education efforts.
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