Thomas Van Soelen

Thomas Van Soelen (Twitter @tvansoelen) is the president of Van Soelen & Associates. After 10 years of district leadership, Thomas now spends every day providing professional development and leadership coaching in various states. His primary areas include group facilitation, learning communities, data teams and teacher evaluation.

Articles by Thomas Van Soelen

• Students learning from Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal

  Tuesday, March 31, 2015

  Lori Hetherington at Alpharetta High School, just north of the heart of Atlanta, was in her first year teaching Advanced Placement Statistics to juniors and seniors. New to the course and new to teaching many gifted learners, she needed to complete a project as part of a gifted endorsement course sequence.

• Working effectively with parents — sometimes silently

  Wednesday, January 28, 2015

  Parents are a critical stakeholder in schools, particularly when a leader or governance group needs to make an important decision. What leaders, often times those at the central office, lack are a set of strategies to use with parents other than "let's talk about that."

• Holidays vs. standards: Which curriculum rules your school?

  Friday, October 24, 2014

  I remember that in elementary schools 30 years ago, the year was chronologically marked by holidays. We even had a display outside the classroom where we posted our stories, starting with a summer story, then a scarecrow or scary story, followed by a turkey story and ending the year with something about a snowman.

• We’re not full yet? Schools still eating their young

  Tuesday, September 23, 2014

  I know many principals who love to hire teachers that are new to the profession, teachers hungry to please and receive feedback on their performance. These leaders often do this with the best intentions, for both students and the colleagues they hope these young teachers will impact.

• Leveraging technology to determine school vision

  Friday, August 22, 2014

  Jeff Homan, principal of The Main Street Academy, a start-up K-8 charter school in College Park, Georgia, leveraged technology as the school revisited its core documents in preparation for both an accreditation visit and a re-chartering process with the local school district, both occurring every five years.

• Livening up the blasé work of mission and vision revision

  Monday, July 21, 2014

  No matter the terminology used — mission, purpose, direction, core values, belief statements — each provides an opportunity for an organization to gain clarity about what drives decision-making in the short and long term. High-reliability organizations stay "tight" to their vision and mission, aligning their work in ways that help employees build belief in the processes and products.

• School improvement requires more than just a plan

  Tuesday, June 17, 2014

  ​Plans rule our lives as educational leaders. We spend considerable time building plans for a variety of stakeholders: principals, teachers, federal and state departments of education, governing bodies, even for each other. After that first, often arduous writing of the initial draft, many leaders struggle with how to revise the plan in meaningful, engaging ways.