GAEL UnscriptED Podcast

Your literacy plan can be strong and still feel impossibly hard if the system around it is misaligned. We sit down with Georgia Department of Education leaders Dr. April Aldridge and Amy Denty, joined by curriculum and instruction director Felicia Purdy, to show how small shifts in alignment create real relief for leaders and real […]

Your ELA standards aren’t “new” anymore, but the way they show up in classrooms still depends on leadership choices made every week. We sit down with Georgia DOE leaders Amy Denty and April Aldridge (with support from Dr. Sarah Welch in the chat) to get brutally practical about how to move from page to practice […]

Most leadership problems don’t need a faster answer. They need a better conversation. We sit down with Cindy Flesher, Kerensa Wing, and Wanda Law from GAEL to get practical about leadership coaching and why it’s becoming a must-have skill for principals, assistant principals, district leaders, and anyone supporting others in schools. If you’ve ever left […]

Teacher retention is often treated like a staffing puzzle, but we keep coming back to a tougher truth: educators stay or leave based on the daily experience of working in a school. That experience is shaped, minute by minute, by leadership. We sit down with Jennie Welch and Leslie Hazel Bussey from GLISI to unpack […]

The laws that hit Georgia classrooms rarely start as clean, simple ideas. They start as priorities, get reshaped by amendments and late-night negotiations, and land in districts with real staffing, scheduling, and budget consequences. We sit down with GSSA leaders Josh Hooper, Rob Brown, and Mike McGowan for a detailed Georgia education legislative recap that […]

The fastest way to stall school improvement is to treat leadership like a set of tips you can download. Real change asks something harder: adults have to be willing to learn, unlearn, and look in the mirror. We sit down with Leslie Hazel Bussey (CEO and Executive Director of GLISI), Jennie Welch (Chief Strategy and […]

Turnover doesn’t just drain a district’s budget, it drains trust, momentum, and student support. We talk with Lisa Steele and Dr. Brian Keefer from Fulton County Schools about a different way to approach the problem: build a clear, incentive-based professional learning pathway that helps people see a future inside the organization. We walk through Level […]

The first year as a superintendent can feel like drinking from a firehose, and the pressure to prove yourself fast is real. We sit down with Dr. Robbie Hooker (Retired from Clarke County Schools) and Dr. Philip Brown (Jackson County Schools) to talk honestly about what makes that first year work: humility, visibility, and the […]

You can feel it in every school building right now: the pace is relentless, the stakes are high, and even great people can slide into survival mode. We bring in Leslie Hazle Bussey and Jennie Welch from GLISI, the Georgia Leadership Institute for School Improvement, to talk about a different path, one built on leadership […]

Leadership in public education can feel lonely until you find the right people in your corner. We’re joined by former GAEL executive director, Dr. Jimmy Stokes and GAEL COO, Dusty Smith for a fast-moving conversation on how Georgia’s education leaders build community, preserve the best traditions, and show up as advocates when public schools need […]