In This Issue:

  1. What is the role of brick-and-mortar schools in the years ahead?

  2. A parent worries about AI in her children’s classrooms

  3. Jim Knight on fast-track instructional coaching

  4. Telltale signs that a principal is micromanaging teachers

  5. How to prevent tearful last-minute pleas for grade changes

  6. Dealing with kids’ withdrawal symptoms after playing addictive games

  7. Getting the most out of small erasable whiteboards

  8. Talking so parents understand

  9. A teacher’s end-of-year to-do list

10. Complainers and builders

 

Quotes of the Week

“Status and respect are to a young person what food and sleep are to a baby – core needs that, when satisfied, can unlock better motivation and behavior.”

            Eric Hudson in “Academic Integrity Is a Practice, Not a Policy” in Learning on 

Purpose, April 26, 2026

 

“The skills that matter most for healthy relationships – asking for help, navigating conflict, sitting with discomfort, being vulnerable – develop only through practice with other people. AI now offers young people a way to rehearse those moments, or skip them entirely. What happens to the muscle of human connection when it can be outsourced to a tool that always responds, never judges, and asks nothing in return?”

            The Rithm Project in “What Don’t We Know?”, April 21, 2026 

 

“If AI can deliver the lecture and YouTube can deliver the demonstration, then the classroom should be doing the one thing those media can’t: the live, messy, high-bandwidth work of reasoning together. That means projects where students have to make something real. Debates where they have to defend a position against a live opponent and change their mind when the evidence turns. Experiential learning where the feedback comes from the world, not from a rubric. Cross-disciplinary work where history talks to biology and economics talks to literature, because that’s how actual problems show up outside of school.” 

            Stefan Bauschard (see item #1)

 

“In every classroom – at every grade level – a quiet tension exists between correction and encouragement. As educators, we find ourselves navigating the delicate balance between offering constructive criticism and celebrating effort.”

            Dave Eberwein, Canadian superintendent, in “The Power of Why” January 29, 2026

 

“The job is hard. Fundamentally hard. Not because kids are terrible. Not because the content is impossible. Or any one of the other million problems with education. It’s hard because every class period is a live performance. You’re making decisions constantly – what to emphasize, what to skip, when to push, when to back off. You’re reading the room, adjusting on the fly, trying to keep thirty different minds moving in roughly the same direction. It’s thinking, and feeling, and performing, all at once. It keeps your brain young, vital, and flexible.” 

            Matt Brady in “Why You Should Become a Teacher” in Teacher, Teacher, April 1, 

2026

            

“If you’re leading a school with experienced, professional educators and staff, give them room to be good at their jobs.” 

            Crystal Frommert (see item #4)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. What Is the Role of Brick-and-Mortar Schools in the Years Ahead?

            In this Education Disrupted article, researcher Stefan Bauschard says that when he went to school, “there was mostly just school” – teachers, textbooks, classes, supplemented by family and, in his case, a summer debate camp. “If you wanted to go deeper on a subject, your options were narrow and slow. A motivated kid could get ahead of their class, but only by a little, and only in the directions the available books happened to point.” Things are quite different now:

-   Any student can read and find free material on any subject by searching the internet.

-   AI can explain pretty much everything.

-   Local peer networks have been leapfrogged by global online communities.

-   Entire courses and learning modules are available on YouTube, TikTok, and platforms like Stitch, all designed to be highly engaging. 

-   High-school students can take classes at universities online.

“The ceiling has moved,” says Bauschard. “The floor has not.” That means there will be three types of students in the years ahead:

-   Students who master only the canon provided by physical schools.

-   Students who master that canon and take advantage of the new online offerings.

-   Students who get the minimum of the canon, dabble in AI, and do little more.

Life options for the third kind of student are not promising. True, there will always be jobs for people who are content to work for others and not push past what school provides them. But there will be fewer and fewer of those jobs. “Entrepreneurship and agency will matter the most,” says Bauschard. “The workplace increasingly rewards things that don’t fit neatly into a textbook – creativity, problem-solving, the ability to adapt, the habit of teaching yourself something new when the situation demands it. Exams don’t test those well. Degrees signal you finished a course of study; they don’t signal how good you actually are in the real world… We also don’t know which parts of the traditional canon will remain relevant in the AI economy.”

            Bauschard believes the second group of students above – those who master the canon and take full advantage of virtual offerings and AI – will have a huge advantage in the 21^st century. So the challenge for schools is threefold:

• Delivering and nimbly updating the canon while exposing students to other high-quality ways of learning;

• Developing student agency by empowering students to make real choices about what they study, how they study it, and what they do with what they learn. “A student shouldn’t leave high school” he says, “without knowing how to evaluate an online course, work productively with an AI tutor, find the real experts in a field they care about, and navigate a subject on their own when nobody has assigned it to them. Those are skills, and they can be taught.”

• Doing the one thing schools are uniquely equipped to offer: live, in-person interaction. “If AI can deliver the lecture and YouTube can deliver the demonstration, then the classroom should be doing the one thing those media can’t,” says Bauschard: “the live, messy, high-bandwidth work of reasoning together. 

“That means projects where students have to make something real. Debates where they have to defend a position against a live opponent and change their mind when the evidence turns. Experiential learning where the feedback comes from the world, not from a rubric. Cross-disciplinary work where history talks to biology and economics talks to literature, because that’s how actual problems show up outside of school. 

“These are the forms of learning that are hardest to replicate online, and they are exactly the forms that build the capacities – judgment, real-time reasoning, ethical deliberation, the ability to hold your ground and the wisdom to yield – that the rest of life actually rewards.” 

Bauschard  concludes: “The school of the future isn’t a worse version of the school I went to. It’s a different thing entirely: a place that knows it’s no longer the only source of knowledge, and that leans into what it can uniquely do – assemble human beings in a room and let something happen between them.” 

 

“School is A Place Students Learn” by Stefan Bauschard in Education Disrupted, April 19, 2026

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2. A Parent Worries About AI in Her Children’s Classrooms

            In this New Yorker article, Jessica Winter says she’s raising her children to distrust AI, treating it like “a creepy neighbor who lives down the block: avoid eye contact, cross the street when you walk past his house, and, when in doubt, call on a trusted adult.” So Winter was not pleased when her children’s Massachusetts elementary and middle schools started using AI in classrooms. Her sixth-grade daughter began writing an essay on her school-issued Chromebook, and Gemini chimed in with an offer to help. When she worked on a PowerPoint presentation, it offered to beautify this slide. And the chatbot is there if the girl wants to talk. 

“She shoos away these interruptions, but they persist,” says Winter. “So many times, so many times, I warned her about the creepy neighbor. Now he reads her poems and knows her passwords. He’s always watching through the screen.” 

No single company has a monopoly on AI in schools, but Gemini has a big competitive advantage because Chromebooks were purchased by so many schools during the pandemic. AI is here to stay, say its proponents, making these arguments (among others):

-   Early exposure will foster media literacy, preparing students for an AI-infused world.

-   AI tools can adjust to a student’s level and help deliver individualized instruction.

-   Teachers can save time grading papers and use data to deliver personalized instruction. 

But Winter is one of a growing number of parents and educators with major concerns about the cognitive and socio-emotional risks. Here are three:

            • An AI tool in classrooms privileges “the most efficient route to the correct answer,” says Winter, “the crispest thesis statement, or the neatest drawing over the messier and less quantifiable process of building a thinking, feeling person.” This short-circuits the necessarily non-linear process of learning complex ideas and developing knowledge and social skills.

            • “Large language models encourage cognitive offloading,” says Winter, “before kids have done much cognitive onloading… If these tools cause atrophy of thought in adults, then we can scarcely overestimate the potential effects on a brain that has not developed those cognitive muscles in the first place.” 

            • AI chatbots, by mimicking emotional intimacy, can “warp how children forge their selfhood and relationships,” says Winter. At around 10 or 11 years old, kids develop more-sophisticated relationships and social hierarchies. They want to bond with their peers, and when they get positive feedback, brain chemicals make them feel good. But if a fawning chatbot is in their ear day and night, they won’t spend as much time with human friends and will miss out on practicing skills they’ll need for the rest of their lives. 

            As an experiment, Winter asked her daughter to retrieve a slide presentation on the history of the printing press that she created on her own as a fifth grader. They fed it into Gemini and in 30 seconds, it scrubbed and buffed the captions, shuffled the pictures, added a bunch of new illustrations, changed the typography to resemble 15^th-century moveable type, and created a background of aged vellum. Mom was proud when her daughter said, “I like mine better, because it’s original and I worked really hard on it. I like mine better because it didn’t take thirty seconds.” 

            Creating a classroom presentation like this, or writing an essay, is the point, not the finished product. AI tools are designed to “abbreviate or obviate that experience,” says Winter. “With their prettifying intrusions and impatient, lurking presence, they block and reroute a young person’s natural, gradual progression toward cognitive maturity.” It’s like telling the parents of an eight-month-old baby not to encourage them to crawl because that’s a useless skill.

 

“What Will It Take to Get AI Out of Schools?” by Jessica Winter in The New Yorker, April 23, 2026

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3. Jim Knight on Fast-Track Instructional Coaching

(Originally titled “How to Coach When Time Is Short”)

            In this Educational Leadership article, Jim Knight (Instructional Coaching Group) describes the work he and his colleagues do when they partner with a teacher: analyze current reality; set goals; identify and explain teaching strategies to meet those goals; and provide support until goals are met. Knight then shares seven precepts for instructional coaches:

-   Treat teachers as professionals, not unskilled laborers (as PD often does).

-   Frame coaching goals based on what each teacher’s students need.

-   Essential to goal-setting is helping teachers get a clear picture of classroom reality.

-   Goals should meet PEERS criteria: powerful, easy as possible, emotionally compelling, reachable, student-focused.

-   “Coaches need expertise,” says Knight, “but they shouldn’t act like experts.” They should be good at analyzing classroom data and know high-impact teaching strategies.

-   Effective coaches observe well, listen deeply, ask good questions, expand teachers’ awareness, support goal-setting, and guide planning and execution.

-   Coaching conversations are guided by the impact cycle: Identify, Learn, Improve.

For schools that don’t have time for the usual 6-8-week process, Knight and his colleagues have developed a shortened coaching cycle of four <1-hour meetings: 

            • Conversation #1: Contracting – Coach and teacher agree on meeting times, the coach’s role, the impact cycle (identify, learn, improve), what the next three meetings will look like, and arrange for the teacher to make a video of a lesson and analyze it to get a clearer picture of classroom reality.

            • Conversation #2: Identifying the goal – The coach guides the teacher in setting a PEERS goal by asking (a) where students are now, (b) where the teacher wants them to be, and (c) how the teacher will help get them there. Often these questions draw on insights from the classroom video, perhaps having the teacher rate the lesson from 1 to 10, explain the rating they gave, and think about what it would take to make the lesson a 10. “Motivation for change,” says Knight, “comes from noticing the gap between where we are and where we want to be.”

            • Conversation #3: Learning – The coach provides a model of what the desired teaching strategy looks like, often using classroom videos, shares a checklist for implementation, engages in a back-and-forth with the teacher to make necessary adaptations, and emphasizes that success is measured by student learning results, not compliance with the checklist. 

            • Conversation #4: Improving – 1-3 weeks later, after the teacher has tried the strategy, coach and teacher review student data and progress toward the goal, what’s gone well, ways to move closer to the goal, next steps, and how the teacher can continue as an independent, reflective practitioner, informally staying in touch with the coach. A possible question for the teacher: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how committed are you to your goal?”

 

“How to Coach When Time Is Short” by Jim Knight in Educational Leadership, May 2026 (Vol. 83, #8, pp. 14-20)

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4. Telltale Signs That a Principal is Micromanaging Teachers

            In this Edutopia article, New York City math teacher Crystal Frommert describes how, early in her career, a principal demanded detailed lesson plans for the week. “I felt that I was wasting time on this paperwork that I felt I could have used to actually plan rich, engaging lessons or provide feedback on student work,” she says, “– and I later found out that she never even read the lesson plans that we teachers turned in.” That memory got Frommert thinking about micromanagement, and she has five questions for school leaders who might have that tendency:

            • Do you need to know everything all the time? Principals who ask for too much information send the message that they lack confidence in teachers’ professionalism. There are definitely things school leaders should be informed about – a parent challenging a student’s grade – but there are many others that aren’t worth the time – a minor discipline issue that was handled in a classroom. 

            • Are you a bottleneck? If a principal insists on approving stipends, expense reimbursements, and PD funds, the daily demands of school leadership can result in things getting backlogged and students and teachers missing out on opportunities. A degree of delegation is necessary so financial paperwork is always handled in a timely manner.

            • Do you ask for suggestions knowing you’ll do things your way? “If a manager asks their team to share ideas but has no intention of using those ideas,” says Frommert, “– a problem called pseudo voice – this frustrates employees and decreases morale over time.” Some issues need to be decided by the principal and that’s okay, but say so up front.

            • Do you get over-involved in details that don’t actually matter? Frommert gives examples from her own experience: a principal asking for documentation of every parent conversation; not letting teachers leave a minute before contractual time; changing the font on a PowerPoint presentation. Micromanaging like this is demeaning and a waste of time, she says. 

            • Do you e-mail or text colleagues in the evening and on weekends? How principals use their time is their business, says Frommert, but e-mails sent in off hours can be taken as a requirement to respond immediately. “Consider ‘schedule send’ when composing an e-mail outside of work hours,” she says. “Or e-mail yourself, so the message is sitting unread in your inbox to serve as a reminder for you to send it at an appropriate time.” It’s also good to have a schoolwide protocol for how to use different channels – for example, using e-mail during the day, after-hours texting only for urgent matters, and a phone conversation for anything sensitive. 

            “Micromanaging can sneak up on you fast,” concludes Frommert. “It shows up masked as diligence, as caring, as wanting things done right. When you feel the urge to jump in, rewrite, or check in one more time, I’ve learned to pause and ask myself, Do I trust the people I hired?... If you’re leading a school with experienced, professional educators and staff, give them room to be good at their jobs.” 

 

“Are You Micromanaging?” by Crystal Frommert in Edutopia, May 1, 2026

 

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5. How to Prevent Tearful Last-Minute Pleas for Grade Changes 

            In this article in Principal Leadership, Marck Abraham (MEA Consulting) and Anita Champagne (Superintendent, Morris County Vocational School District, NJ) describe an all-too-common late-May or early-June scene: a parent or student pleading for a grade change that will make it possible for the student to take part in graduation. “These conversations pull at a principal’s heartstrings,” say Abraham and Champagne, but it’s important to maintain the integrity of grading. 

But how? They suggest that principals take three steps starting at the beginning of each school year:

            • Clear expectations – On Day One, “boldly communicate that students will graduate, attend regularly, pass their classes, and be prepared for college, career, or the military.” Communicated with urgency and conviction, this creates a culture where good performance “is expected, not negotiated at the last minute.”

            • Early and ongoing monitoring – Teachers need to update grades each week, and at the 5- and 10-week mark of each semester, report student performance within grade bands: 0-10%, 51-60%, 61-69%, etc. This identifies students who are in danger of failing and triggers early interventions – tutoring, counseling, parent notification.

            • Mobilizing teams – As part of the MTSS process, it’s standard practice for teachers, counselors, social workers, and parents to work together implementing a plan for each struggling student. 

            • Building student efficacy and self-monitoring – High-school students need help seeing the big picture – that they are preparing for success and self-sufficiency after school. This support involves guidance in setting goals, making a plan, and continuously reviewing attendance, class work, and interpersonal skills. Students’ plans should be revisited at least twice a year starting in 9^th grade. 

            Doing all this allows a principal to say to the parent of a high-school senior pleading for a last-minute grade change, “We monitored your child’s progress, communicated with you throughout the year, provided tutoring options, sent progress reports, held conferences, and offered multiple supports. The grade your child received will not be changed – not because we lack sympathy, but because we have done everything humanly possible to support their success, and ultimately your child made choices about their effort.” 

 

“‘Please Change My Grade’” by Marck Abraham and Anita Champagne in Principal Leadership, May 2026 (Vol. 26, #9, pp. 20-21)

 

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6. Dealing with Kids’ Withdrawal Symptoms After Playing Addictive Games

            In this Communiqué article, school psychologist Leigh Rust says there are positive aspects to kids playing digital games: creativity, community, and connection. But teachers and parents report examples of irritable, even explosive behavior right after kids play Roblox, Fortnite, or other highly stimulating digital games – sometimes yelling, slamming doors, or crying uncontrollably, only to apologize later. What’s going on?

Rust says these games are designed to deliver dopamine surges via “like” points, streaks, achievements, and social feedback. Engagement is so intense that when young people stop playing, dopamine levels drop sharply, leaving their brain temporarily under-stimulated. This can produce the extreme behaviors we’re seeing – basically a dopamine withdrawal response. It’s especially common among students with ADHD, who are drawn to the characteristics of these games. 

“Recognizing this pattern,” says Rust, “fundamentally changed how I approached these situations with families and school teams. Rather than framing behaviors as discipline problems, I began explaining them as neurobiological responses. This reframing immediately shifted the tone of many conversations.” Here are her suggestions for responding “with empathy and structure rather than frustration and blame”:

-   Establishing predictable limits on game time;

-   Giving time alerts so kids can anticipate transitions; 

-   Modeling emotional steadiness.

-   Supporting and reinforcing calm transitions;

-   Offering immediate alternative reinforcers – for example, sports, music, social engagement, and structured responsibilities.

“Compassionate limits today,” concludes Rust, “build the foundation for independence and balance tomorrow.” 

 

“What I Learned About Brain Rot Games” by Leigh Rust in Communiqué, May 2026 (Vol.54, #7, p. 6)

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7. Getting the Most Out of Small Erasable Whiteboards

            In this Scientists in the Making article, Marcie Samayoa says mini-whiteboards can be an excellent way to check for understanding with every student in a class – and use real-time data to adjust instruction accordingly. But in her high-school science classes, Samayoa noticed a problem:

-   She explained a concept and gave a worked example.

-   She gave students a new problem and they solved it on their whiteboards.

-   When the whiteboards were held up, half the class had incorrect answers.

-   She explained it again, addressing the error she saw on the boards.

-   But when students tried a new problem, half the class still got wrong answers.

What was going on? Samayoa believes it was because “despite the teacher providing students feedback on their answers, students are not applying the feedback to their own work.”

            It took her a while to figure out a solution, but she finally found it in Tick-Trick, a system for getting students to apply feedback to their mini-whiteboard responses. Here’s how it works:

-   Students solve a problem on their whiteboards.

-   The teacher scans the responses, visibly craning to see all whiteboards.

-   The teacher refrains from providing individual feedback (Angela, you really understand this.).

-   The teacher goes over the solution, telling students to put a checkmark by each part they have correct, which gets students applying feedback to their work in real time.

-   In her class, Samoya reports hearing a lot of “Ohhhhhhhs” as students do this.

-   Students write their number of checkmarks in the top corner of their whiteboards.

-   Students hold up their whiteboards again for accountability.

-   If some students are faking their checkmarks, Samayoa spots them and follows up individually.

 

“The Missing Piece to Mini Whiteboards” by Marcie Samayoa in Scientists in the Making, May 6, 2026; Samayoa can be reached at [email protected]; her previous article on mini-whiteboards is here.

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8. Talking So Parents Understand

            In this article in Principal, Windy Lopez-Aflitto (Learning Heroes) says the words educators use can confuse or worry parents. Some examples and suggested alternatives:

What we say: self-regulation

What parents hear: This sounds like my child is going through some kind of therapy.

Try this: self-control

What we say: grit

What parents hear: dirt, difficulty, something hard

Try this: taking on challenges, pushing yourself, learning from mistakes and effort

What we say: growth mindset

What parents hear: The ability of child’s mind to expand and grow increases over time.

Try this: learning from mistakes, hard work pays off, it’s all in the effort

What we say: executive function

What parents hear: Is this going to the bathroom?

Try this: organizational skills, setting goals, ability to focus, managing time well

What we say: resilience, perseverance, persistence

            What parents hear: Their child is unhappy or struggling.

            Try this: bouncing back, sticking with it, learning from mistakes, overcoming obstacles

 

“The Power of School-Home Partnerships” by Windy Lopez-Aflitto in Principal, May/June 2026; the full report is Developing Life Skills in Children: A Road Map for Communicating with Parents, 2018

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9. A Teacher’s End-of-Year To-Do List

            In this online article, fifth-grade teacher Adrian Neibauer shares the five things he’s doing as the school year winds down and he prepares for 2026-27:

            • Update the end-of-year student feedback questionnaire. He prefaces his survey thus: “I am always looking to improve myself as a teacher. Your answers are anonymous, so please be honest.” Among the questions:

-   How well do you feel that I met your needs as a learner?

-   What types of things do you wish we had done in 5^th grade?

-   What is one thing you will remember most about being in Mr. Neibauer’s class?

“While it is always nice to receive kind and affirming messages from my students,” he says, “I concentrate most on feedback that helps me improve.”

            • Take pictures of my classroom. These show the reality at the end of the school year, and are interesting to look at compared to those he takes in September. He can see what pieces of furniture were moved, which seating options students are using at this point, and the traffic flow.

            • Flip through my plan book. Looking through how he’s planned during the year, Neibauer jots notes in two columns: positive and negative learning experiences – units that were “total failures” and those that went really well. Most important: things not to do next year.

            • Write a letter to myself. Neibauer always has his students write letters to be unsealed by the next year’s fifth graders, sharing advice, tips, and reassurance. Recently he started writing an end-of-year letter to his August 2026 self. By then he’ll have forgotten what he wrote in May and be curious to see what he had to say.

            • Journaling about reflections, intentions, and “freedom dreaming.” Among the prompts, drawing on his foundational values: What went well this year? What will I do differently next year? How can I tweak this learning experience for next year? What about my thinking, learning, or teaching this year brought me the most satisfaction? Why? What was the most frustrating thing this school year? How can I better deal with that frustration next year? 

 

“Adrian’s Top Five” by Adrian Neibauer in Adrian’s Newsletter, May 4, 2026

 

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10. Complainers and Builders

            In this Leadership Freak article, Dan Rockwell describes five kinds of workplace complainers:

-   Stone-throwers – They criticize from a distance and don’t offer anything constructive.

-   Chronic drainers – They complain about everything and drain energy.

-   Victims – Life happens to them, they are not responsible, and they track every slight.

-   Perfectionists – Nothing is good enough and progress stalls with their constant griping.

-   Fire-starters – They rally others with complaints and spread dissatisfaction. 

Rockwell suggests how to verbally challenge complainers:

-   What are you prepared to do about this?

-   What have you tried?

-   What part of this is yours?

-   What do you need from me?

-   What do you want?

-   What will you do if this doesn’t change?

Rockwell’s suggestions for neutralizing and working around complainers:

-   Reward “builders” – positive colleagues – praising ownership and positive behaviors.

-   Normalize solution-focused conversations: “What’s the next step?”

-   Ignore theatrics; stay calm and expect positive action. 

-   Assign ownership, either to yourself or others.

-   Marginalize complainers by reducing their air time and narrowing their influence. 

 

“5 Kinds of Complainers” by Dan Rockwell in Leadership Freak, May 6, 2026; Rockwell can be reached at [email protected].

 

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