Dr. Dave Wiedlich, principal of Radnor Middle School, was named Pennsylvania's 2026 Principal of the Year and a National Finalist for Middle Level Principal of the Year by NASSP. In this conversation, he traces a servant-leadership path that began with his parents in Wilkes-Barre and runs through every role he has held since.Dave shares his grandmother's advice about two ears and one mouth, and how listening shaped his first years as a principal. He explains why he treats curriculum like the Waze app: a set starting point and ending point, with room for teachers to find the route. We talk about the question a superintendent once asked that he couldn't answer, why the first slide he shows students and families every year says "fail," and how his school built new electives from student feedback. For listeners without deep resources, Dave offers a practical path: reach out to universities, anchor new courses in standards, keep them cost neutral, and pilot first.This is a conversation about building a school where adults and students feel safe enough to take risks.Connect with Dave via LInkedIn.

Most teachers spend a career never seeing a colleague teach.Vicki Wilson, a former Michigan principal and author of "Lead with Instructional Rounds," set out to change that. In this episode, she and Krista unpack a deliberately non-evaluative, strength-based version of instructional rounds: short ten-minute visits, doors left open, and conversations that name what is working rather than what is wrong.Vicki shares how she traded her evaluator hat for a facilitator hat, why she starts every round with agreements and an "admiration, not comparison" mindset, and how validating note cards tied to real impact build both self-efficacy and collective teacher efficacy. She tells the story of a young-fives teacher who watched a fourth-grade math lesson and reinvented it for four-year-olds, proof of what happens when educators finally get to learn from each other across grades and content.If your school feels siloed, this conversation is a concrete map from isolation to collaboration.Connect with Vicki via LinkedIn and her website.

Senior leaders often arrive ambitious and passionate, then quietly slide into what Courtney Joly-Lowdermilk calls "role blur," where the all-hands-on-deck approach erases job boundaries, and burnout sets in. As CEO of REACH Leadership, Courtney helps educational and nonprofit leaders bring clarity back to their roles and organizations.In this episode, she walks Krista through the REACH method: Recognizing the ambiguity, Evening the power differentials, Acknowledging expertise, Collaborating, and Healing, and explains why she treats "values in action" as concrete, observable verbs rather than posters on a wall. They dig into the healing step (owning your part in a rupture and inviting, not forcing, repair), why the physical environment either echoes or contradicts a school's values, and why the real decision makers in student-facing work should include students themselves.A grounding conversation for any leader who senses something is choppier than it needs to be.Connect with Courtney via her website and LinkedIn.

We keep treating stalled initiatives as a knowledge problem. Dr. Amanda March says that's rarely what's actually going on."Knowledge and skills are not enough to do the good work."In this conversation, the school psychologist and systems consultant introduces the KASAB model, Knowledge, Attitudes, Skills, Aspirations, Behaviors, from Joellen Killian and Learning Forward, and zeroes in on the two A's most leaders skip: attitudes and aspirations. She shares why two veteran colleagues resisted the same change for opposite reasons, how values misalignment quietly drives turnover, and the signal she listens for that change is sticking: when it spreads horizontally between peers rather than top-down.One practical shift for leaders: stop asking, "What strategy did you try today?" and start asking, "What value were you able to personify today?"Connect with Dr. Amanda March via LinkedIn and her website.

Restorative practices often show up only after something has gone wrong. Erika Schwanbeck, a restorative practice coach, and Stephanie Clinise, a secondary ELA teacher, argue that the real work happens long before any conflict. Both talk with Krista about what restorative practice looks and sounds like day to day, woven into content rather than bolted on as a discipline.They get concrete: the 80/20 principle (80 percent proactive, 20 percent responsive), fair process and its three E's of engagement, explanation, and expectation clarity, and the engagement window that keeps support and accountability high. Stephanie shares how shared language turns a Romeo and Juliet circle into a lesson about real choices, and Erika unpacks why a relational consequence outweighs a punitive one.If you have ever wondered whether student voice and teacher authority can coexist, this conversation offers a practical, relationship-first answer.Connect with them on Instagram: Stephanie and Erika

When Brenda Do watched her young nephew drop a container of leftovers and instantly call himself "so stupid," it broke her heart and sparked a question she couldn't put down. A copywriter by trade, Brenda went down a research rabbit hole into Carol Dweck's work on mindset, her own experience growing up where perfection was the baseline, and why children learn to fear getting things wrong. The result is her picture book "It's Okay Not to Know."In this conversation, Brenda and Krista talk about mistakes as a gift, choosing curiosity over self-judgment, and why "staying in your lane" quietly shrinks a child's sense of what is possible. They also make the case that picture books belong with older students, not just K-2, as a doorway into voice, worth, and taking bold risks.If you have ever mistaken not knowing for not being capable, this one is for you and your students. Connect with Brenda via her website.

Dr. Michele Ogden has spent her career in California schools as a teacher and principal, but some of her most meaningful work happens outside of them: eight years as a CASA, a court-appointed special advocate for youth in foster care. In this episode, Michele explains what the role actually involves, from ramen outings and first train rides to the one-page court reports a judge reads before every hearing. She shares how she built trust with a teenager who couldn’t believe a volunteer would keep showing up (“They don’t pay you?”), and how the work reshaped her classroom... the way she welcomes students who arrive late, and how she talks about weekends and vacations now that she knows home isn’t a soft place to land for every child. She also covers the practical side: the training, the time commitment, and why educators’ skills translate so naturally to advocacy. If you’ve been looking for a way to be one caring, consistent adult in a child’s life, this conversation shows what that looks and sounds like in practice.

In part four of the To Be Continued series, Krista sits down again with Thom Stecher, an educational consultant who has spent more than four decades mentoring students, teachers, and school leaders. Perspective, possibility, and passion led him here: to purpose.Thom describes purpose as a North Star and, more surprisingly, as a discipline. Passion moves us, he says, but purpose is what channels that energy into work that lasts. He and Krista trace where purpose comes from and how it shifts across a life, from the dinner table where his father put down his fork and said he wanted to make a difference, to the cornfield where his grandfather taught him that as long as you are breathing, there is work to do.Along the way, they get honest about ego, humility, and the daily practices that keep us on track. This is a conversation for any educator wondering whether purpose is something you find once, or something you keep refining.

What does it mean to truly prepare students for life?In episode 98 of SELinEDU, I sit down with Dr. De'Shawn Washington, 2024 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year and founder of Cultivating Changemakers, for a conversation that weaves together three things every student deserves: the ability to read, the knowledge to manage money, and the freedom to learn with joy.We dig into why over 60% of Massachusetts third graders are reading below grade level, why less than 10% of students are getting financial literacy education, and why neither of those things can be fixed without joy at the center of how we teach.Dr. Washington reminds us that joy is not a reward for academic success. It lives within us, and it is our job as educators to help students find it, name it, and keep it.This one is worth your full attention.Connect with Dr. Washington via his website and LinkedIn!

In this episode of SEL in EDU, high school educator Stephanie Clinise discusses how AI can be a supportive tool in classrooms, fostering student voice, agency, and meaningful learning. She and Krista explore practical strategies, the importance of authenticity, and the future of technology in education.Main Topics:Integrating AI in the classroom without replacing routinesUsing AI to support student voice, agency, and process-based learningThe role of social-emotional learning in tech-enabled environmentsStrategies for personalized and differentiated instruction with AI toolsThe importance of teacher authenticity and creating safe spaces for studentsPerspectives on AI and younger students: elementary to high schoolBuilding teacher-student relationships through shared experiences and transparencyThe significance of relevant, contextual learning and student passionsNavigating the evolving digital landscape and nurturing critical digital literacy