It has been a busy year here at Wallace. But don’t just take our word for it. Let’s look at a few numbers. Since January 1, 2022, we’ve:
- Launched a new five-year arts initiative with 18 arts organizations of color
- Received more than 1,700 submissions for a new funding opportunity focused on adolescents
- Continued working with eight large school districts to explore how to build pipelines that can produce school leaders capable of advancing their own district’s vision of equity
- Published more than 50 reports and articles, including the last of three “knowledge syntheses” examining what recent research says about important topics in school leadership
- Launched two podcast series
- Hosted several webinars and events, some with thousands of attendees
Much of this work has been captured by our editorial staff and guest authors on The Wallace Blog, as you'll see in our annual Top Ten Blog Posts. We think the list gives a good sense of the breadth of our work while highlighting common themes, such as how people working in education and the arts are still experiencing effects from the pandemic, and how everyone is craving conversation (online or, thankfully this year, sometimes in person) with experts and their peers along with data and research.
We hope you enjoy revisiting these stories, and we hope you learn something new!
10. Focusing on Principal Wellness: 6 Questions for School Leaders: Four principals—who, together, have more than 30 years of experience as school leaders—discuss what inspired them to become principals, how they deal with burnout and the impact of the pandemic, among other topics.
9. How Can Music Organizations Be More Inclusive? In a Chamber Music America podcast episode, Slover Linett researcher Melody Buyukozer Dawkins highlights several insights from a recent study exploring 50 Black Americans’ perception of the arts. She also gives a few key takeaways for ensemble music professionals to use in their own work.
8. Three Districts, One Principal Pipeline: In this deep-dive into a sparsely populated section of rural Nebraska, we see how three small districts pooled their talent and resources to implement systemic improvements to the preparation, hiring, support and management of principals.
7. How Can Arts and Culture Organizations Be More Welcoming? Slover Linett researchers hit our Top 10 list twice this year, this time in a conversation upon the release of their report exploring Black Americans’ perspectives on arts and culture. The report also delves into how organizations can better support Black communities and work to earn their trust and make them feel welcome.
6. Five Takeaways for Developing High-Quality Principals: Two reports released in 2022 show how states, districts and universities all have a role to play in improving the quality of principal preparation. Authors from the two research teams presented highlights from their work, along with a panel of experts to help dig into the findings. This blog post recaps five key takeaways from that conversation.
5. Why Afterschool Programs Need Social and Emotional Learning Now: Read highlights from a webinar jointly hosted by The Afterschool Alliance, Every Hour Counts and the Forum for Youth Investment, which emphasizes how afterschool programs have used SEL strategies to help children throughout the pandemic.
4. Social and Emotional Learning in the Spotlight: This post breaks down our three-part podcast series, Let’s Talk Social and Emotional Learning, into short video clips in which Harvard’s Stephanie Jones highlights key topics in Navigating SEL From the Inside Out.
3. Helping Arts Workers Navigate Pandemic-Induced Burnout: Arts organizations offer up a slew of resources and ideas to support health and wellness for people working in the arts.
2. Two Summer Programs Inch Towards Normal as Covid Subsides: What can summer do to help overcome the havoc Covid-19 has wreaked on young people’s lives? A fair bit, according to the parents, kids and staff we interviewed at two summer programs in New York and New Jersey. In the number two blog post of the year, they talk about their experiences, how the programs had to adapt due to the pandemic and what their plans are for the future.
1. New Research Points to a Looming Principal Shortage: Teacher burnout and shortages have been hot topics all year in the news. But what about principals? In the most viewed blog post of 2022, school leaders discuss how the principal role is changing, why four in ten principals surveyed said they might soon leave the profession and what to do about it.
