G Andrews

@DeKalbSchools @DeKalbSchools Unity Fest 2026 was a blast! What a gorgeous day to celebrate the rich mosaic of diversity exuding our community. Thank you @dcsdfamilyenga1 & Indian Creek ES for facilitating & hosting! Our student performers, vendors, & volunteers all showed out! @nancy_pritchett

A formal evaluation should never be your first visit to a classroom. If it is, skip the evaluation. Leave a Post-it of Praise note instead. Notice something good. Name something specific. Let the teacher know you saw the work, the heart, and the effort before you ever try to score it. Because trust has to be built before feedback is ever received.

Too often, we blame #duallanguage programs when we don’t see immediate student academic success. But, how can we expect to see the promised outcomes of DL if we don’t fully prepare school and district leaders to collaboratively guide the work? Free Resource: bit.ly/4by2m42

@JoseMedinaJr89 @JoseMedinaJr89 is on point regarding the success of some DLI programs. The district/school has to be "all in" for program/student success (culture, support, pd, etc.). Without these, we cannot blame the program and state "DLI didn't work."

Confusion is the enemy of language development. When instruction is unclear and students are left to piece things together on their own, multilingual learners often struggle to access both the content and the language of the lesson. Instead of focusing on learning, they spend their energy trying to figure out what the task is, what the teacher expects, and what success looks like. Effective instruction does the opposite. It provides clarity from beginning to end. The lesson is intentionally organized. Students know what they are learning, why they are learning it, and how they will learn it. Expectations are transparent. The language they need is modeled and supported. And students understand how they will know if they are successful. When clarity is present, multilingual learners can devote their cognitive energy to making meaning, participating in discussions, and developing language alongside content. Clarity doesn’t simplify learning. It removes unnecessary barriers so students can fully engage with complex ideas. #languagelearning #teaching

Leadership sets the ceiling.

@MelK_Ed Is this elementary, middle, or high school? Was this recently or during the pandemic?

Here I am with 40+ students. It made the news! I can say with 💯 certainty no child k-8 should be in a class with more than 25-28 students max. Under 25 is ideal.

Think not of the books you’ve bought as a “to be read” pile. Instead, think of your bookcase as a wine cellar. You collect books to be read at the right time, the right place, and the right mood. — Luc van Donkersgoed

Yes, but I’m an ESL teacher I teach English learners. Why should I use any other language than English? I get this question a lot. Do you?? tiktok.com/t/ZThba351b/

Language does not develop in a vacuum. It grows in relationship. In conversation. Through meaningful use. With real people, for real purposes. Students don’t “pick up” language just by sitting in a classroom. They develop it when they are: 🧠Talking 🧠Thinking 🧠 Reading 🧠Writing 🧠Problem-solving 🧠Connecting ideas to their lives If we want strong language development, we have to design learning environments rich with interaction, context, and purpose not silence, worksheets, and isolation, #languagelearning #bilingual #teaching #ESLteacher

@ValentinaESL Congratulations!!!

I believe in education. I believe we should never stop being learners, being curious. On Thursday I successfully defended my dissertation! tiktok.com/t/ZThqJF3an/

@JoseMedinaJr89 Angrily, this is the entire point- the creation of fear for children and adults. It's not about crime. It never was.

Children in NJ running back to their apartments, originally waiting for their school bus, when they see ICE. THIS IS NOT NORMAL.

@JoshPhillipsPhD @SDLBACK As a 20-year elementary educator, I can tell you that schools moved away from Balanced Literacy and more towards teacher led instruction and Science of Reading. Secondly, books cost money. Handouts, not so much. Old school tchrs like novels. The new ones just easy, fast lessons.

Kids should read entire books in school. Let’s be done with the excerpts and passages.

@gtmom Yep!! And don't forget that if your school is not providing quality Tier I instruction in a nurturing environment built around developing and growing all learners, you won't produce/cultivate many students who would qualify as "gifted."

Missouri: requires schools to run a gifted program if they have > 3% of students qualifying as "gifted" Also Missouri: didn't require any gifted identification in the first place 🙃

@eduleadership VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION-- All educators must carefully analyze any outputs generated by ChatGPT, Microsoft CoPilot, etc. These platforms are useful for accomplishing specific tasks. But they draw their info from the internet. They also make errors- sometimes big ones.

Your daily reminder that ChatGPT should not be trusted to write lesson plans. It’s been trained on plenty of discredited practices.

@MissyPurcell They do the same thing for Multilingual Learners/English Learners. Many districts/schools still operate "sink or swim" as if it were 1967 or 1975.

I’m so grateful to see a reporter so committed to spotlighting the stories of families who are being systematically failed in my state. This is occurring in districts all over Georgia. Systemic issues require us to take a hard look at who at the top of all these districts is rubber stamping these violations. Thank you @AndyPierrotti for your amazing investigative reporting!

Wisdom Wednesday 💡 "Bilingual education gives ELL students the opportunity to learn grade-level academic skills in their native language until they have acquired enough language to achieve academically in English, too." Learn more: buff.ly/tE0JPfQ

@JoseMedinaJr89 We are living in perilous times. Many educators are experiencing the same dilemma. We get up everyday and give our best to the schools we serve. But we wonder are we doing enough to advocate for them and our country. As with advocacy, we do what we can, with what we can do.

#MedinaMondayMessage: Educators, are you okay? With all that is happening in our country and beyond, we are living parallel lives. If you are having trouble breathing and making sense of the violence around us, you are not alone. #duallanguage #immigrant

@eduleadership Good points. The idea of chooce boards sounds good. But this can be a little tricky to implement effectively. Even with AI (Chatgpt, Microsoft Co-Pilot, etc.), you have to define the criteria carefully in order to ensure rigor and attention to learning outcomes.

Choice menus double the workload for teachers, while making it less likely that students will learn what they need to learn. Students need us to decide on the best learning activities. ##education##teachersoftiktok##learning##achievementscience

@PrincipalKafele Although the concept of diversity is important to personally and professionally, I have always considered you to be an "expert" in educational leadership. Ed leadership is universal. It applies to any school or district. Regardless of makeup, north, south, east, or west.

MY BRIEF END OF YEAR MESSAGE TO THE FAM - As we close out this rather strange, challenging, difficult, tumultuous year, I want to encourage someone. Check this out...I left my principalship to become an entrepreneur (speaker / consultant) in 2011. Life was VERY GOOD from 2011 - 2024 and then in 2025 happened. I saw the wheels start to fall off. I had built an entire career on so-called DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) going back to the speech I am delivering in the picture in 1987. It was the foundation upon which I stand. It is STILL the foundation upon which I stand. The challenge for 2025 however was that America elected a president who did not agree with my foundation and was consequently hell-bent on destroying it, abolishing it and rendering it as illegal. I lost a ton of business! What was I to do? Although I'm 65 now, I still wanted to work. I had to make adjustments...shifts...pivots so that I can continue to do the work that I love to do. Toward avoiding writing a super long post with the specificity of my adjustments, I will simply say that my adjustment was comprised of highlighting other aspects of my essence...my skills that I didn't always highlight in the past. In other words, my core is my core, but I have other skills and talents that I suppressed for years. In the new political climate, I accentuated them which kept me afloat during these tumultuous times. What am I saying to you? Simply that we are all multi-talented, multi-dimensional and multi-skilled but sometimes or even too often-time, we fail to realize what we have and then when the obstacles appear, our default in far too many cases is sadness, anger, depression, frustration, discouragement, etc...or even quitting NO! You, me, we are amazing, phenomenal and extraordinary. We have everything we need to live our visions....but we've got to sit still from time to time to tap into what we already possess. In other words, unplug...disconnect...shut all those devices down. You can't find, locate or identify your true essence if you're always plugged in and ingesting this unending stimuli. You stifle your own growth and development. We think we know who we are but when we disconnect from all those devices, we discover things about ourselves that we had no idea we had. The key though is you must be intentional about it. So much more to say but this post is getting longer than I want it to be. 2026 promises to be another challenging year, but you got this. Don't resist making adjustments. How you moved in 2024 might not work in 2026 as it may not have worked in 2025. As I move in 2026, best believe I will be moving with a 2026 mindset...not a 2024 mindset. That world no longer exists. You must adjust...shift...pivot. That is all...for now. See you on the other side of midnight. Peace.