About: Jon Konen

Jon Konen is a high school principal and freelance writer in Columbia Falls, Montana. He has been a superintendent and has taught most all grade levels K-6, and has been an instructional coach. In addition, he has been an elementary and middle principal. As a 5th grade teacher, in 2010 he won the Presidential Award for Elementary Math and Science Teaching (PAEMST). As a principal, his school won the 2012 Blue Ribbon Award. In 2018, he won the National Distinguished Principal Award (NDP). In 2019 he won the National No Kid Hungry Breakfast Hero Award. He is the author of three guides published on teacher.org: An Educator's Guide to Combat Bullying & Bully Prevention; Teacher Evaluation: A Transition Guide to Exemplary Performance; and You are the Wild Card: Infusing Fun Back into Curriculum. He has authored a children's picture book that was released January 2019 titled Benjamin’s Visit to Principal Reads Office…again! (available at www.archwaypublishing.com)

Recent Posts by Jon Konen

Why Technology Is Important in Schools: 4 Arguments

Boy at a laptop with a giraffe and tiger coming out of the screen, framed by floating math and science symbols
Why technology is important in schools comes down to two things: students already live digitally, and digital skills are important in many occupations. Good instruction still comes first. The argument here is that device access and coding belong alongside solid teaching, not in place of it, and that schools have been slow to adjust. [xyz_feat_school]…
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5 Teacher Professional Development Trends From a Principal

Smiling woman in glasses holding a tablet in front of a blue chalkboard with chalk-drawn flexed arms behind her
Principal Jon Konen identifies five teacher professional development trends from his own schools: bottom-up edcamps, teacher leaders, school culture, problem-solving, and multiple delivery formats. Each one, in his experience, shifts some control toward the staff doing the learning rather than the office scheduling it. [xyz_feat_school] In my experience, professional development of a teaching staff is…
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212 Degrees of Customer Service in Education

Group of elementary students crowded together in a classroom, smiling and giving thumbs-up to the camera
Customer service in education is how everyone in a school treats the students, families, and colleagues who walk through the door. Watching five interactions gives you an initial impression of a building's temperature: student to student, teacher to student, teacher to staff, administration to teachers, and administration to families. [xyz_feat_school] Dr. Bill Daggett preaches, “Culture…
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5 Strategies to Teach Children Patience That My Dad Taught Me

Can you teach patience? I think you can! Having an amazing dad that is the epitome of patience has taught me a lot. Staff members wonder why I don’t get rattled when a kid yells, screams, or even tries to throw stuff at me when they are frustrated. It goes back to fishing on Otter…
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Not 400:1, But 400 1:1s – 21 Tips to Form Strong Kid Relationships

Ratios can be valuable pieces of data, if used correctly. Math gets in our way sometimes of seeing what truly is meaningful in education. We track assessment data, individual education plans, and even formative data on how students respond in science classes.  The data we can’t track are the intangibles, like the relationships we have…
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Sleep vs. ADHD: 21 Questions to Ask

As a teacher or parent have you ever sat and watched a kid buzz around like a bubble bee and wonder where that kid gets all his energy? I think about all the renewable resources our state of Montana is trying to tap: wind, solar, water, and more. How can we hook up a turbine…
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Buddy Classroom Activities: 19 Ideas for Cross-Grade Pairs

Two elementary-age students smiling and clasping hands in a buddy handshake
Buddy classroom activities pair an older class with a younger one for regular sessions built around a shared task: reading, art, science, or school routines. The 19 ideas below run from no-prep partner reading to school-wide fundraising. Most work best when the same two classes meet on a fixed schedule. [xyz_feat_school] Back to the main…
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7 De-Escalation Phrases for Students: The “Double Scoop”

Hand holding up a two-scoop ice cream cone against a pale blue sky
De-escalation phrases for students work best when they name the emotion and offer a choice instead of a command. Seven short lines cover most classroom flare-ups: acknowledge what you see, ask for more, offer a break, give two acceptable options, or change the subject entirely. The behavior usually isn't about you. [xyz_feat_school] The students who…
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Can a Kindness Campaign Truly Change Your School?

"Lincoln's Tree" bulletin board covered in colorful paper handprints recording students' acts of kindness
Yes, a school kindness campaign can measurably change culture: office referrals fell from 418 to 192 in one year after we shifted our daily focus from discipline referrals to public recognition of kindness, a drop of roughly 54%, without making new rules or consequences the focus of the campaign. [xyz_feat_school] After years of digging through…
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