Spotlight 4 Success
We're shining a light on education success stories and talking about current trends and topics of importance to the education community. Join us in conversation!
Episodes
216 episodes
Chromebooks Break and Dreams Don’t
The best teacher pipeline might already be sitting in the school library. We’re recording from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina at the SCABSE conference, and our guest Eboni Amaker makes a powerful case for why school support roles like media clerk...
JAG And Life After Graduation
A lot of schools talk about “college and career readiness,” but what does that actually look like on a Tuesday morning with real students who have real barriers? From the SCABSE conference in Myrtle Beach, we sit down with Latonya Jackson from ...
Unlock Your Greatness
The kids who get labeled “trouble” are often the ones carrying the most untold story, and they’re also the ones schools struggle to reach with typical discipline cycles. From the SCABS conference in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, we talk with Co...
Breakouts, Leadership, And What’s Next
Professional development can be either a box to check or a lever that changes schools. From the SCABSE conference in Myrtle Beach, I sit down with Brian Edward, principal of Louisville Middle School in Chester County and president-elect of SCAB...
A Principal’s Playbook For Diversity And AI
AI is already in your students’ hands, so the real question is whether schools will pretend it isn’t there or learn how to use it well. From the SCASBE conference in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, we sit down with Dr. Felicia Williams, principal...
A Mentor Saw The Teacher In Me Before I Did
A lot of people show up to an education conference hunting for a single magic strategy. We show up looking for something better: ideas that actually fit real classrooms and real kids. From sunny Myrtle Beach, South Carolina at the SCABSE 2026 C...
How To Turn “At-Risk” Into “On Track”
A 98.6% graduation rate with students who arrive not on track to graduate doesn’t happen by accident, and it definitely doesn’t happen by labeling kids and hoping for the best. From the SCAPSE conference in Myrtle Beach, we sit down with Cedric...
ABC Testimonial | Syeda Williams | NCASA 2026
A single preview copy can be the difference between guessing and gaining. We sit down with a teacher who shares how American Book Company (ABC) books went from “something I tried once” to a repeatable system for better classroom instruction, st...
ABC Testimonial | Rochelle Brown | NCASA 2026
A missed question should not be a dead end, it should be a map. We dig into what makes standards-based textbooks and assessments feel genuinely helpful for students and sustainable for teachers, using American Book Company resources as the jump...
What Happens When Tutoring Becomes A Relationship
We’re recording from the NCASA conference in Wilmington, North Carolina, and we keep hearing the same challenge from school and district leaders: students need more support, but schedules and staffing are already stretched thin. So we sat down ...
Leading With Learning
A single conference hallway can tell you a lot about what educators are carrying and what they still hope to build. From the NCASA conference in Wilmington, North Carolina, we sit down with Rochelle Brown, a CMS biology teacher with 26 years in...
How Schools Get Real Support
We’re recording from the NCASA conference in North Carolina, and we sit down with Taylor Simmons, Director of Creative Design at Achievable Dream Urban Learning Leadership Center (AADULLC). If you’ve ever wondered what real school improvement l...
Who Do You Become When You Lead?
We’re recording from the NCASA Conference in Wellington, North Carolina, and we sit down with Ashley, a fifth grade teacher from Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools who’s stepping into a new season of education leadership. After 14 years in the c...
Future-Ready School Leadership
Leadership doesn’t start the day you get the title. It starts in the rooms where you admit what you still need to learn, then go get it. From the NCASA conference in Wilmington, North Carolina, I sit down with Tyneka and Toni, two Wake County P...
How To Turn Pressure Into A Diamond
A surprise meetup at NCASA turns into a deep dive on what values based leadership looks like when you actually practice it every day. We sit down with Gina Watts, VP of U.S. Student Transformation at Growing Leaders, and Molly from the student ...
Paid Principal Residency, Real Leadership
A paid principal residency sounds almost too good to be true, but North Carolina is doing it and doing it with real rigor. From the floor of the NCASA Conference in Wellington, we sit down with Lauren, director of the North Carolina Principal F...
Relationships That Raise Scores
A conference hallway can be louder than a classroom, but it can also reveal what great school leadership sounds like. From the NCASA conference in Wilmington, North Carolina, we sit down with Saida, principal of East Lawn Elementary, to talk ab...
When Recognition Becomes Instant
A student prevents a fight before it starts, and a principal turns it into a moment the whole class will remember. That’s the kind of fast, specific recognition that can shift school culture, and it’s the heart of our conversation from the NCAS...
Leading Through Educational Technology
Educational leadership can feel like a mystery from the outside, so we wanted to make it concrete. We talk with Jessica, a vice president in a statewide education technology organization, about what her role looks like day to day, what she’s le...
3D Printing In Elementary Schools
You can feel it in the hallway conversations at KAST: schools are not asking whether technology belongs in the classroom anymore. The real question is how to make it matter. From Louisville, Kentucky, I sit down with digital learning coaches Er...
Why K-12 Districts Choose Byte Speed PCs
A school device rollout can look perfect on paper and still fail in the real world if support is slow, warranties are short, and deployment is a slog. That’s why we sat down with Garrett, an account manager at Byte Speed, to talk about what act...
The Tiny Box That Ends HDMI Chaos
A classroom should not feel like a different tech puzzle every time you walk into a new room, yet that’s the reality in many schools with a mix of projectors, older monitors, and newer interactive flat panels. From the KAST conference in Louisv...
How Schools Can Stretch Their Chromebooks
Chromebooks are everywhere in K 12, but keeping them working is the part no one advertises. From the CAST Conference in Louisville 2026, we sit down with Kendal Shomura from Vivacity Tech to talk about what it really takes to keep devices in st...
What If Student Choice Is The Missing Link In Literacy Growth
Reading growth doesn’t always come from a brand-new curriculum. Sometimes it comes from one small shift: letting students have real choice in what they read. From the floor of the NCRA conference in North Carolina, we sit down with Emmie and Sh...
