Welcome to 2025!
Community, agencies, icebreakers, scouting, MindShifting, and Idaho sounds like a spy novel or a Giant Operation. Nope, it's just this month's ELEVATE New Year edition.
⚡️Happy New Year
It’s that time when we dust off our gym memberships, stock up on kale, and resolve to tackle that junk drawer finally. But beyond the resolutions and fresh starts, the new year also means we’ve all officially completed another trip around the sun—so, happy birthday to us all (cue confetti)!
Speaking of aging gracefully, I recently caught this clip of Jane Fonda on CBS Mornings, and she shared a gem that’s been buzzing in my brain ever since. According to science—and Jane—one of the secrets to living a longer, happier life isn’t found in kale smoothies (thankfully) but in something much sweeter:
🧗🏽Community 🎭
Studies show that when we have a connection and community, people report that our lives are more fulfilled, and ultimately, we live longer. In other words, community = longer and healthier lives.
So, as we step into this new year, let’s resolve to lean into our connections and build stronger communities—whether in our classrooms, schools or beyond. In this edition of ELEVATE, we will share ways we are building community and offer some tips and inspiration to help you build stronger communities, spark collaboration, and make 2025 a more full-filling year. Cheers to a bright and connected year ahead!
📢 What’s happening
🚍 Association of Educational Service Agencies (AESA) 🚍
In December, we went to the Association of Educational Service Agencies (AESA) in Orlando and engaged with Regional Service Agencies nationwide. It was a great way to meet new people in the field and continue learning about emerging needs for schools and leaders across the United States. As we continue to develop professional learning networks for regions and states, we align our offerings and new learnings to bridge research and implementation gaps and elevate the promising practices from schools and districts nationally.
👀 Scouting for Leading Schools SLC 👀
Last week, our team visited Salt Lake City to scout for spaces for our Leading Schools Summit in the Summer of 2025. We will engage school leaders in a design thinking and creativity process amplified through experiential learning in unique spaces and through engaging with the stories of developing powerful organizational cultures in private and public sector businesses. We visited many spaces each year to design this event; this year, we explored the Leonardo, Salt Lake Community College at Herriman Campus, Crumbl Cookies, Ari Bikes, and Kiln co-working space.
🗣️ Join Us in Boise at IETA 🗣️
Darren and Nancy will present at IETA in Boise, ID, February 5-7. If you are at the conference, we would love to catch up with you!
📚 Resources for Leaders
📖 Read & Write ✍🏽
This is a toolbar you add to your Chrome browser, and it has an incredible array of features: highlight any text and hear it read aloud at different speeds, have your speech transcribed into text, find the right word with a word prediction tool, listen to a talking dictionary, view a picture dictionary and more. The tool is available for Windows, Mac, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, iPad and Android. Teachers and students can use Read&Write on their laptops, tablets, or Chromebooks.
❄️ Icebreakers and Bell Ringer Prompts 🛎️
Here are some ideas to help you build community and connection among your colleagues or classroom.
Highs & Lows
What has been a highlight for you this week? What are you feeling good or confident about?
What has been a low for you this week? What has been challenging or frustrating for you?
Energy Levels
What has been draining your energy this week?
What has been energizing you this week?
Emoji Meter
Which emoji best describes how you are feeling today? Feel free to use the emoji kitchen to help describe your feelings.
Song of the Day
What song best describes how you are feeling today? Why did you select that song?
“I AM FROM”
Use this poem template with students, as part of a staff meeting, or as part of a professional learning experience to build understanding and trust. We have used it several times, and the conversations that result from people sharing their poems have been influential in breaking down walls and forging connections.
Survive, Belong, & Become
If you want to learn more about building better relationships as a leader, read this short article, an excerpt from a Leading With Emotional Intelligence course.
📖 A Book Recommendation
MindShifting: Stop Your Brain From Sabotaging Your Happiness and Success
This book is an excellent resource for education leaders and classroom teachers. Mitch weaves neuroscience, psychology, sociology, and other fields to provide immediately actionable insights. Whether focused on self-awareness and improvement or struggling with engagement with others, this book can help you unlock strategies that lead to immediate shifts in behavior and outcomes without requiring long, drawn-out exercises. Whether you work explicitly with adults or both adults and students, this is a must-read to maximize your brain’s potential. We have taken three of Mitch’s courses, begun integrating this content into leadership development sessions, and look forward to the upcoming volumes in this series.
💬 Partner With Us
Are you interested in learning more about how to bring an event like one of these 👆🏼 to your organization? We would love to partner with you to design a custom learning experience for your school, district, region, or state. From workshops and keynotes to communities of practice, we work alongside partners to understand their specific needs and propose customized solutions to fit those needs. Each unique learning experience is engaging, evidence-based, and targeted to drive the changes your team envisions. Our current topics of interest include AI, social-emotional well-being, and leadership development. Contact us if you want to brainstorm how we might partner with you.
We hope you have a wonderful 2025!
Nancy, Theresa, and Darren
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