Episode 113 Interview with former teacher, current principal, leadership coach, author: and creator of the Principalnerd, Ms. Katrina Riley

The Principal Entrepreneur

7/2/2018 Interview with former teacher, current principal, leadership coach, author: and creator of the Principalnerd, Ms. Katrina Riley
This week’s blog is a summary of my conversation with Ms. Katrina Riley. Ms. Riley has 20 years of experience in education. She’s been a teacher, is a leadership coach, and principal. She’s seen education and how education systems works from a number of different states including Florida, Louisiana and Maryland. She earned her bachelor's in English from Florida State University, her Masters in Ed leadership from Nova Southeastern University and completed the New Leaders for New Schools Principal Residency program in New Orleans.
Not only has she brought her skills and passion to various states she also has worked in public, charter and non profit educational settings at both the school and district level. In other words she has seen education from every angle and brings those insights to her newest passion the Principalnerd. You can get even more in depth by going to her website www.principalnerd.com.
Not only do we talk about how the principalnerd supports educational leaders we delve into her educational journey.
She describes how a poor leader inspired her to the principalship. The importance of mentorship and how her own mentor influenced and guided her development. We also talk about her toughest challenge AND the process she used to overcome it.
In this conversation you’ll learn how each of her experiences lead to the creation of the Principalnerd.
Some of my top takeaways from her educational journey included:
Three lessons she learned
Hire quality teachers to begin with. (which isn’t as easy as you think in an urban school district and she describes how she works through that challenge as well)
Reflect and gut check yourself to make sure you’re making the right decisions.
Find the right pace to make the decision, neither to fast or too slow.
Three things she looks sees in great teachers
great relationship builders
strong forward thinkers
Data driven instruction
Three things she looks for in hiring a new teacher.
demonstrated learners
flexible mindset
excitement and enthusiasm
As her passion for coaching developed so too did the idea of the Principalnerd. She describes her untraditional path to ed leadership and how that created empathy for those, like her, who are looking for training. She also touches on how the needs of newer administrators around her and their frequently asked questions helped guide her development and creation of tools that would support them.
A couple of the tools she mentioned that support new leaders included, 1st and 2nd interview support and once you get the job, support for the first 90 days.
As mentioned before you can find all this information at www.principalnerd.com, and for the most up to date tools you can go to www.principalnerd.com/hey.
Two books that she recommended as we wrapped up our conversation were What Great Leaders do Differently:18 things that matter most by Todd Whitaker and Driven by Data: A practical guide to improve instruction by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo.
Share your thoughts on the interview with Ms. Katrina Riley in the comment section below. If you found this entertaining, educational or cause for reflection, please follow me and click share so your friends and colleagues can benefit as well.
For more short articles and tips that support educational leaders check out my blog at the www.howtobeagreatprincpal.com and/or order my newest book How To Be A Great Principal: 36 Shared Leadership Success Strategies. You can also get a monthly email that delivers the most valuable blogs as voted by readers by joining the Principals’ Prep Minute. You can register right on the website. If you’re interested in principal swag that speaks to our #principallife you can take a look here.
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