Educational Leadership with Principal JL
Principal JL is an educational leader who explores various topics facing educational leaders today! The Mission of this podcast is to inform and inspire other Educational Leaders on how to be their best for their Schools by honing their skills and talents so they may impact their teachers, staff members, students, parents/guardians, and community members positively for their School District! Come with a Growth Mindset as we journey through Educational Leadership!
Episodes
The biggest leadership wins in schools rarely look big in the moment. They show up as a quick hallway check-in, a follow-up after a hard day, or a decision made with a child’s future in mind. We sit down with Michelle Pourchot, a veteran educator who served 29 years in Title I schools and spent 20 years as an elementary principal, to get honest about what actually moves a campus forward.
We t...
Every leader leaves an imprint, but the uncomfortable truth is that we’re doing it whether we mean to or not. So I’m putting a name to the daily work of educational leadership: LeadPrinting. Your LeadPrint is the impact you leave on your staff, students, teams, and school culture. LeadPrinting is the intentional process that creates that impact through the choices and behaviors you repeat ever...
Leadership doesn’t fail because educators don’t care. It fails when we bury people under noise, overthinking, and systems no one can carry into a tough hallway moment. I sit down with Jove Stickle, a former social studies teacher, multi-sport coach, and middle school principal who now mentors and coaches other leaders, to talk about what actually holds up when the job gets heavy.
We dig...
One frustrated moment with a parent turned into a leadership habit that lasted for years: Todd Bloomer walked out of his office, sat on a literal red bench, and finally had space to breathe. That small reset became a bigger idea about sustainable educational leadership and it eventually became his new book, Finding Your Red Bench. We’re catching up with Todd after his first year as Director of Schoo...
School leaders spend all year pushing professional development, coaching cycles, and growth plans but the hardest mirror to face is our own. We dig into what it really means to “Be The Change” as educational leaders: not with slogans, but with daily behaviors that shape school culture, protect staff morale, and influence how the community experiences education.
We start with the reality...
Can you be a public school principal and openly follow Jesus without crossing the line into pushing beliefs on others? We’ve been sitting with that tension for a long time, because public school leadership demands fairness, trust, and service for everyone, including students, staff, and families with completely different faiths or no faith at all. What we’ve learned is simple but challenging: ...
Most educators have felt it: you walk into a conference excited, sit through a few great moments, then go home with so many notes you can’t tell what to do first. Robert Hinchliffe and I get honest about why conferences are often hit or miss, how we keep them from turning into information overload, and what “good PD” looks like when you’re responsible for real results in a real sch...
Two rival high schools can share a zip code and still feel like different worlds. When consolidation finally becomes real, leaders inherit decades of pride, fear, and unfinished arguments, and the smallest decision can feel personal. We sit down with Derek Cantrell, principal of Alleghany High School in Covington, Virginia, recently named the 2026 Virginia Outstanding High School Principal, to unpack how ...
The fastest way to damage trust as a school leader is to make a big decision before you truly listen. Kendall Terry joins us for part two and gets honest about the leadership lesson he had to learn the hard way: slow down, gather more perspectives, and ask one more question before you drop the hammer. We also talk about what he’s most proud of, creating the kind of environment where teachers feel su...
What would you change if you could design a high school from the ground up and actually make it real? Kendall Terry has lived that challenge, moving from high school science teacher to department chair to STEM coordinator, and then into schoolwide leadership at Clayton Bradley Academy in Tennessee. We swap stories that are fun on the surface, but quickly turn into the deeper work of educational leadership...
Two principals sit down with no script and compare the real, messy, meaningful work of educational leadership. Robert Hinchliffe, Nevada Elementary Principal of the Year, brings the metro elementary lens from Las Vegas. Principal JL brings the rural secondary lens from a comprehensive high school. Different contexts, same mission: help adults grow so students win.
We start with what it takes to set...
The conversation you keep delaying is probably the one shaping your school culture right now. We talk with superintendent Erika Bare and instructional leadership coach and former principal Tiffany Burns about how educational leaders can handle tough conversations with students, staff, and caregivers without slipping into power struggles, mixed messages, or avoidance.
We dig into what “caring ...
Your to-do list is not the job, and it definitely isn’t leadership. Principal Mo is back, and our catch-up turns into a real blueprint for how educational leaders can protect their time, build stronger systems, and still show up for kids and staff with energy.
We talk about how Principal Mo went from a conference connection to co-hosting The Rules To Engagement, a live education show produced...
PLCs can be strong and MTSS can be strong, and schools can still feel like they are missing the connector that turns good work into a coherent system. That “missing piece” is what Kurtis Hewson calls the collaborative team meeting, a simple but highly intentional structure designed to bring classroom practice and student supports into the same conversation.
In this episode, we talk about why ed...
A lot of leaders feel pressure to be polished, serious, and unshakable. I do not buy that, and neither does Nick Holtvluwer, Principal of Mammoth Heights Elementary in Parker, Colorado, who somehow manages to lead a school for a decade, build a huge online following, and still find time to do stand up comedy at Comedy Works in Denver.
Nick shares his nontraditional path from television production i...
Thirteen hires by April. Internal transfers that “go over like a turd in a punch bowl.” Schools trying to keep construction, CNA, phlebotomy, and dual enrollment alive while staffing gets tighter. If you’re leading a building right now, you know the feeling: everything matters at once, and spring turns the pressure up.
We sit down for an unscripted conversation with co-host Robert...
Your leadership isn’t defined by your intentions, it’s defined by what your week actually looks like. We sit down with Dr. Joseph Jones, superintendent of Newcastle County Vocational and Technical School District, and Dr. TJ Vari, former deputy superintendent and senior director of product strategy at MaiaLearning, to get brutally practical about what strong educational leadership takes right ...
Some schools don’t need a new program, they need a leader whose voice actually lands. I sit down with Principal Baruti Kafele, a nationally recognized turnaround principal, author, and longtime educator, to unpack what transformational educational leadership looks like when the work is real and the stakes are high.
We trace his path from teaching fifth grade to leading schools in highly urban...
If leadership feels like you’re carrying the whole school alone, the problem might not be your work ethic. It might be the model you’re using. We get real about how easy it is for principals and school leaders to slip into command and control leadership and why that approach often creates compliance, not commitment.
I’m reflecting on key ideas from Trust and Inspire by Steph...
Hiring in education isn’t just “hard” right now, it’s faster, noisier, and far less forgiving than it used to be. If you’re still waiting to collect a perfect candidate pool before you act, you’re probably watching your best applicants accept offers somewhere else. We talk candidly about what the 2026 hiring cycle looks like from the principal’s chair, including c...
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