Evan Robb is a middle school Principal in Virginia, USA. Prior to this, he was an English teacher, department chair, assistant principal, and a junior high school principal. Evan completed administrative training at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA, and an MBA at Shenandoah University, Winchester VA. A TEDx Speaker, Evan offers inspirational keynotes, workshops, webinars, and on-going professional learning opportunities on leadership, mindset, culture, impactful change, and how to improve literacy in schools. Evan has shared his ideas with thousands of educators at dozens of workshops across the United States and in other countries. Evan is a recipient of the Horace Mann Educator of the Year Award. In addition, the NCTE Commission on Reading selected him to serve on its national board. Evan has written articles for major publications and has been interviewed on dozens of podcasts and on television, all focused on leadership and literacy. In the Fall of 2007, Scholastic published Evan’s first book titled, The Principal’s Leadership Sourcebook:
Practices, Tools, and Strategies for Building a Thriving School Community Corwin published his next book in May 2019 The Ten- Minute Principal, popular in the U.S. and a best seller in Australia. Evan and his mother Laura Robb collaborated with Dave Burgess Publishing to write Team Makers, published in August of 2019 and named by Book Authority as a top 10 Education Book for 2020. In addition, Evan partnered with Laura Robb to write, A School Full of Readers, with Benchmark Education, published in January 2020. Evan has also been named one of the top 25 educational leaders to follow on Twitter. Scholastic EDU named Evan one of the 10 educators to follow on Twitter.
Collaboration Equals Innovation
When asked to describe in one word, he called himself as Collaborator, Evan as a school principal and public educator has distinct academic solutions and USP. He works with a motivated team of teachers to provide targeted and high quality learning experiences that meet the diverse needs of every student. Through his tenure as a school leader, he has had opportunities to work with staff and students to create specific instructional and organizational goals resulting in effective change. These goals have improved learning for all students and based on various evaluation metrics, students’ performance is consistently high
Challenges Are Opportunities
Equity, access, and meeting the needs of students are challenges he has faced and will continue to face. This year he faced with a new challenge, one he did not foresee: leading during a pandemic. America and the world are experiencing a time of significant change, a time of great challenges. Educators, with little to no warning have had to transition learning and instruction to an online environment for millions of children. In tandem with shifting teaching and learning to the online world, they also face the challenge of preserving their schools’ cultures during periods of online learning. This shift creates an opportunity: If the culture of schools and divisions will need to exist online, then they have a collective responsibility to sustain their schools’ cultures by keeping them alive and maintaining their vitality. This will require leadership and embracing the belief that challenges are opportunities to focus on mission, vision, and re-conceptualizing how we do what we do.
The Six Pillars Of Leadership
He believes schools and principals benefit from teacher leadership in really powerful ways. For this to occur, teachers need to be encouraged, empowered, inspired and offered opportunities to lead. In his book, The Ten-Minute Principal, he urges principals to free up time to focus on leadership and share the construct that follows. Integrating the six pillars into daily school life can help administrators and teachers increase their leadership capacity. The Six Pillars of Leadership: vision, relationships, trust, efficacy, a student-centered environment, and instructional knowledge form the foundation needed to develop creative and innovative school cultures. Whether you’re a principal or teacher, it’s helpful to reflect on each pillar and how you might integrate it into every aspect of school life. The pillars work in concert to form a solid and lasting foundation for principal and teacher leadership. They are guideposts and enable you to develop a positive school culture that values taking risks, showing kindness, building relationships, raising questions, collaborating, and communicating.
The Driving Force
Evan values and practices the power of team, servant leadership, trust, passion, communication, collaboration, partnerships, and an understanding that everyone is better than anyone. Making a difference, helping others, and a focus on equity drives him to continue his journey to reach others through speaking, writing, and teaching. He has found that motivation to make a positive difference can lead to other new and exciting opportunities
The Future Ahead
He remains optimistic that schools will be led by leaders who have purpose, passion and commitment to meeting the needs of all students. He will continue speaking, writing, and doing my part to improve leadership, literacy and quality instruction for all students.
“ALL”- A Message For All
The end goal in education is always present; it can be summed up with the word “all.” A simple three-letter word that forces us to look at everything we do: evaluate, adjust, and refocus to achieve high-quality education for everyone, everywhere. Educators find their best when there is a collective focus and belief in success for all students. In the future, students will serve as corporate leaders, lawyers, and teachers, anchor the evening news, and maybe even lead a country. Believe that in front of you every day is students who can achieve. When we work together, there is no challenge that we cannot meet! Students deserve the absolute best.
