10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher

Chronic absenteeism doesn't get fixed by counting absences. It gets fixed by asking why.
Dr. Leah Marsh is Assistant Principal at Niles Middle School in Ohio and one of three finalists in the country for the National Association of Secondary School Principals Middle Level Assistant Principal of the Year. Under her leadership, Niles Middle School reduced suspensions by 32% while attendance and engagement went up. She did not relax a single standard to get there.
SPONSORED: Ellis, a program of Children's Health Council, sponsored this episode. All opinions are my own and that of the guest.
In this episode she walks through what her team actually did: pulling the absence data apart until it named real causes — a bus-driver shortage was one — building a Check & Connect mentoring program that pairs struggling students with one adult in the building who is glad to see them, and opening a room called the Dragon Den where a student can re-regulate and go back to class instead of collecting a detention.
In this episode, you'll learn:
• Why the number on your absenteeism report is the beginning of the question, not the answer
• How her team decides which students get a mentor, out of 450 to 500 kids
• What the Dragon Den is, and why it isn't just another detention room
• Why a rise in tardies can be a win when whole-day absences fall
• Her answer when someone asks whether a teacher's wake-up call is really the parent's job
Full show notes, resources, and the complete transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e974 
If this episode gave you something to try, leave a review wherever you're listening — it helps other educators find the show.

Only 18% of principals say they feel very confident about leading AI this school year — but 7 in 10 schools are already immersed in figuring it out. SPONSORED: Ellis, a program of Children's Health Council, sponsored this week's shows on the 10 Minute Teacher. All opinions are my own and that of the guest.
Ronn Nozoe, CEO of the National Principals Association, joins me to unpack a survey we ran together across his members and my Classroom Matters subscribers. What we found is more encouraging than the headline number suggests: the schools making progress with AI aren't the ones with all the answers. They're the ones where principals and teachers are figuring it out side by side.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why only 18% of principals feel "very confident" leading AI — and why overconfidence would be the real warning sign
- What 7 in 10 schools are already doing, and what the other 3 in 10 say they're waiting on
- The number one thing principals asked for in the survey — it isn't funding and it isn't tools
- What happened when Ronn convened a teacher round table as a state deputy superintendent
- The exact words to use when you want to help your principal — and why you shouldn't say them in a faculty meeting
- Why "we were supposed to be good soldiers" is the wrong model for a profession trying to grow leaders
Ronn Nozoe has been a teacher, a principal, deputy state superintendent in Hawaii, and a leader at the U.S. Department of Education. He now leads the National Principals Association, which serves about 17,000 school leaders across the country.
Full show notes, resources, and the complete transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e973 
If this episode helped you, please rate and review the show wherever you're listening — it genuinely helps other teachers find us. And share it with a teacher friend who needs to hear that nobody has this all figured out yet.

Your student has an IEP all the way through high school. Then they graduate — and it doesn't go with them. Dr. Toby Tomlinson Baker was diagnosed with a learning disability in 1987, attended six different schools between kindergarten and twelfth grade, and was told by her guidance counselors not to bother applying to college. She has a PhD. In this episode she explains what actually changes the day a student walks off a high school campus, why the accommodations you fought for don't automatically transfer, and how to teach a student to ask for what they need before anyone makes them.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- What legally changes when a student moves from high school to college — and why a university can say no
- Why self-advocacy is a skill you teach, not a personality trait a student either has or doesn't
- What Dr. Baker found when she interviewed college professors about disability law for her dissertation
- Why the accommodation that helps one student usually helps the whole class
- The one thing that predicts whether a struggling student turns a corner
Full show notes, resources, and the complete transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e972 
If this episode helped you think differently about a student, share it with a teacher who needs it.
SPONSORED: Ellis, a program of Children's Health Council, sponsored this episode. All opinions are my own and that of the guest.
Show Sponsor: Ellis, a program of Children's Health Council, sponsored this podcast episode. All opinions are my own and that of the guest. Ellis pulls from a knowledge base on content from trusted partners like CAST, CASEL, Understood and others, and gives you evidence-aligned ideas for students who are struggling with learning, behavior, or the emotional side of school (but not clinical advice). If you've got a student (or two) who you can't stop thinking about, try it and see what it brings you. No personally identifiable student information is collected, and it is a much better place to start than "brainstorming" with your general-purpose AI chat tool. Try Ellis today: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/ellis

Most teachers reaching for AI to help with a struggling student are reaching for the wrong kind of AI. General-purpose chat tools pull from the open internet, they were never trained on whether the information is accurate, and they should be nowhere near a student's personally identifiable information. Natalie Tamburello, a learning disability and education equity advocate at Children's Health Council, walks through what a teacher-facing AI built on vetted research actually looks like — and why she thinks that is where the real classroom wins are right now.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why "just ask ChatGPT" falls short when a student is struggling with behavior, learning, or the emotional side of school
- What RAG (retrieval augmented generation) is, and how pulling from a curated library of vetted nonprofit resources changes the answer you get
- Why the first question a good tool asks you is "what are this student's strengths?"
- How to describe a student situation without putting personally identifiable information into any AI
- The clear line between a classroom strategy and clinical advice — and what a teacher-facing tool should refuse to do
Ellis is a free tool for K-12 educators from Children's Health Council. It pulls from a knowledge base of content from trusted partners like CAST, CASEL, Understood and others, it gives you information rather than clinical advice, and it does not collect personally identifiable student information. Today's show was sponsored by Ellis. All opinions are my own and that of the guest. https://www.askellis.org/ 
Full show notes, links, and the complete transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e971 
Share this one with the teacher down the hall who is still thinking about that one student.

Boundaries are not a heavy conversation you need a degree to have. They are small, repeated moments — and the right words handed to a child before they need them. Ashley Bendiksen, author of A Kids Book About Boundaries, shows teachers what to say.
Ashley Bendiksen is a national speaker and abuse prevention advocate who spent years talking to teens about dating violence. Then she moved earlier. Her book for children ages five to nine teaches the skill underneath all of it: knowing you have a choice, and having the words to say so. In this conversation she shows what that looks like in an elementary classroom — the two-option choice, the "I don't like that" script, the pause to ask "did we ask first?" — none of which requires adding anything to your lesson plan.
We also talk about your boundaries, because teaching is high-burnout work and we are modeling something for kids either way.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why boundaries are emotional and social, not just physical
- The micro-moments that teach boundaries without a new lesson
- A role-play activity you can run this week
- What to say to the student who always decides what everyone plays
- Why "let's all just get along" can send the wrong message
- One small boundary to set for yourself this week
Show notes and full transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e970 
Show Sponsor: Ellis, a program of Children's Health Council, sponsored this podcast episode. All opinions are my own and that of the guest. Ellis pulls from a knowledge base on content from trusted partners like CAST, CASEL, Understood and others, and gives you evidence-aligned ideas for students who are struggling with learning, behavior, or the emotional side of school (but not clinical advice). If you've got a student (or two) who you can't stop thinking about, try it and see what it brings you. No personally identifiable student information is collected, and it is a much better place to start than "brainstorming" with your general-purpose AI chat tool. Try Ellis today: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/ellis 
★ If this show helps you, leave a rating or review wherever you're listening. It is the single thing that helps another teacher find us.