On August 15, 2016, I welcomed  60+ educators back from summer break to begin a new school year.  This time, my role was not at the district level, but as the building principal of a high school.  This is my second time to be a head principal but first time to be at the high school level.  After completing my first semester at Andover High School, I am implementing all of the lessons I have learned so far in education.  I have been to countless trainings about leadership and really want to be the best leader I can for the staff at Andover High School.  I am always the first to admit that I am far from perfect and I make plenty of mistakes, but I have always learned from those mistakes.  I prefer to say that I will find a way to “fail forward”.  I have made a commitment to myself that if I know better, then I need to do better.  Therefore, any lesson, good or bad, is tucked away for me to draw upon as I lead.

I have always been interested in blogging, but never really had the confidence to do so.  I know that I will be expecting teachers to step outside their comfort zones and try new things, so I also need to expect that from myself.  Blogging is completely outside my comfort zone, but I believe blogging can  be very powerful both from a self reflective and communication standpoint.

I am a huge supporter of twitter and all that it has to offer for my professional learning.  I was thrilled to come across this information.  http://theedublogger.edublogs.org/2016/11/30/join-the-edublogs-blogging-club-weekly-prompts-delivered-to-your-email/

By joining this club, I will actually receive weekly prompts every week about topics in education.  I was always so worried about trying to blog because I wasn’t actually sure what to write.  I’m so excited someone had the idea to send writing prompts to begin 2017!  I have no more excuses not to blog any longer.  I keep trying to think of questions to ask right now, but I don’t know what I don’t know.  I am nervous but excited because I always know that my largest learning growth happens when I take myself out of my comfort zone.

I do not follow a lot of blogs, but hope to read and learn about more of them as I create my own.  These are the current blogs I follow and am excited to add to this list.  I finally figured out how to subscribe to them so I get them sent directly to my email. (remember, I’m a very inexperienced blogger)

• https://momsasprincipals.wordpress.com/
• http://karawelty.com
• http://bloglovin.com
• http://davidguerin.com
• http://justintarte.com

My goal is to blog once a month, possibly more and to stay relevant and current about what I am doing as a leader and what might be of interest to our staff, students and stakeholders.

I chose #oneword for my new year instead of a resolution.  My word is #commitment.  There are many things I want to stay committed to and this blog is one of them.  The blog prompts help keep me accountable and intentional.  It’s exciting now, but being intentional will come after a few weeks!

Here’s to my 2017 blogging adventure.

Dr. K