My organization has been given an incredible opportunity to do some youth empowerment coaching at a middle school this school year. In doing this important work, I have been spending the last couple months building relationships with select students who are struggling with behavior, grades, attendance, and success in general. Case in point, an eleven year old boy named Nathan. Nathan has been blowing out of many of his classes, cussing teachers out, kicking classroom doors,

Sometimes it takes big acts to get us to stop and realize there are things from the past that, despite having fully dealt with them to the best of our ability at the time, resurface and need our immediate attention again. I call these "big acts" (and sometimes they're relatively small acts) emotional land mines. What counts as an emotional land mine? Anything that causes us to go back in time and relive painful experiences; the trigger can be as simple as a sight, smell, t

Before I became a Vice Principal, I was terrified of the aspect of being an administrator where you had to "put down the hammer." Meaning, my thing has ALWAYS been building relationships with my students, and I wondered how possible that was going to be when I had to discipline them on a more severe level - suspension, expulsion, etc. One thing I learned was that there WAS a way to have those difficult conversations with students while also having and building a good, solid

Have you ever been bullied? Either during your school years or in your adult life? My guess is that at some point your answer would be "yes." I am incredibly fortunate to be working with a group students this year on what I call "lost skills." In this work, one of my students came in one day looking sad. I asked her what was wrong and she said she had been bullied earlier in the day. This got me thinking about all of the instances I dealt with last year as a vice princi

My apologies for the delayed blog - getting back in the swing of things at the beginning of the year can be tough to manage. I'm finally getting into a groove and am super excited to announce that I have my first guest blog by Science teacher, Nicholas Russo. I have never been the guy that steps up and introduces himself. I like to wait until other people extend their hand and introduce themselves or a mutual acquaintance does the job for us. You might be able to imagine m

Students who are at risk for doing something drastic like committing a school shooting often exhibit warning signs LONG before they actually carry out such a horrific act. I am proud to announce that I am partnering with Sandy Hook Promise in an effort to proactively prevent gun violence before it starts. According to their "Know the Signs" guide, there are several things to look out for with students to help prevent tragic consequences: A strong fascination or obsession wit

going through massive life changes sometimes inspires us to look at the past and analyze our experiences to make decisions about where we want our future to go. i've done this at multiple points in my life, but of note are the following circumstances: *my first year in college at UCSC - i was nearing the end of my freshman year in college and trying to figure out what i wanted my major to be. i enrolled and was accepted in the "undeclared/undecided" major. i was 18 at the