How a High School Principal Starts the School Year on a Strong Note

How Principal Joseph Blasher Built a 6-Week System That Actually Works (And Why Some Schools Start Wrong)

Everything feels like a priority when you're running a school. Your teachers are drowning in initiatives. Parents want answers you don't have.

You've got fifteen different "urgent" projects competing for attention. Meanwhile, your students are slipping through the cracks. Sound familiar?

Joseph Blasher gets it. As principal of Castlemont High School in Oakland, he faced the same chaos. Then he built something different.

The Problem With Starting Strong (Spoiler: Some Schools Don't)

Picture this: It's mid-August. Teachers shuffle into their first meeting looking like survivors of a nine-month marathon. You're about to dump another seventeen priorities on their plates.

At Castlemont, they serve 800 students in deep East Oakland. These kids face everything from gentrification to poverty to trauma. The school can't afford to wing the first six weeks.

Most schools try to tackle everything at once. Reading goals. Math interventions. Social-emotional learning. Parent engagement. Technology rollouts.

The result? Nothing gets done well.

Enter the Six-Week System (That Actually Makes Sense)

Blasher's solution sounds almost too simple: Pick three big priorities. Map them out for six weeks. Execute ruthlessly.

Here's what makes it brilliant: It aligns with Oakland's marking periods. Six weeks equals one grading cycle. By week six, classes are set, teachers know their students, and you can actually measure progress.

The Three Priority Framework

Blasher's team focuses on just three things:

1. Attendance and engagement - Getting kids in the door and keeping them there
2. Literacy - Making sure every student reads at grade level (because "it's a fundamental human right")
3. School culture - Creating an environment where families and students actually want to be

That's it. No fourth priority. No exceptions.

But here's the kicker: You got multiple chances to figure it out.

The Magic Document That Changes Everything

Most schools have mission statements nobody reads. Blasher created something different: a six-week grid that actually gets used.

Picture a simple table. Weeks 0-6 down the left side. Three columns across the top: Staff, Families, Students.

Each cell contains specific actions for that week. Not vague goals. Actual tasks.

Week 1 for staff? Go over cell phone policy norms. Week 2? Launch the afterschool program. Week 4? Review expectations again (because kids forget).

It's accountability made visible. No confusion about who does what when.

The Data Detective Approach (Without the Overwhelm)

Here's where Blasher separates himself from other principals: He doesn't drown teachers in spreadsheets.

Instead, he uses what he calls "empathy interviews" - a qualitative data technique most schools ignore.

When students get D's and F's after the first marking period, teachers don't just look at numbers. They sit down with struggling kids and ask: What's really going on?

Sometimes it's academic. Often it's not.

One year, empathy interviews revealed something surprising. Students weren't participating not because they didn't understand - they were afraid of being wrong.

The solution wasn't better teaching strategies. It was creating psychological safety.

The Farming Mindset

Blasher thinks like a farmer (he actually worked on a farm in Hawaii). Schools are ecosystems, not factories.

This mindset shows up everywhere. When attendance dips in April, they don't panic. They run an attendance challenge with donated gift cards.

When reading groups aren't launching fast enough, they adjust the timeline. When teachers struggle with classroom management, they assign coaches.

It's responsive, not reactive.

The Course-Correction System That Actually Works

Six weeks doesn't mean six weeks of flying blind. Blasher built multiple feedback loops:

Weekly department meetings - English teachers meet every Wednesday for professional development

Grade-level teams - Ninth graders' teachers share a prep period and meet weekly

Monthly staff meetings - Whole school check-ins on the big three priorities

Walkthrough data - Coaches observe classrooms and give immediate feedback

If only three out of ten teachers are greeting students at the door during week two? That gets addressed at the next grade-level meeting. No waiting until October.

The Real Results (Numbers That Matter)

Castlemont isn't perfect. Their chronic absenteeism goal is 15-20% - "not great," Blasher admits, "but a huge improvement for us as a school."

Their literacy goal? Get 75% of students who are multiple years below grade level to make two-plus years of growth. It's ambitious but realistic.

For math, they're shooting for 25% proficiency - again, not the 80-90% they want long-term, but progress from where they started.

"We created this in tandem with our math department," Blasher emphasizes. Buy-in matters more than perfect metrics.

The Simplicity Secret

The biggest insight from Blasher's approach? Simplicity wins.

Two documents run his entire school:

1. The annual priorities sheet (the big rocks)
2. The six-week implementation plan (the tactical breakdown)

That's it. No binders full of initiatives. No competing frameworks. Just clear priorities executed well.

What You Can Steal Tomorrow

For principals:

• Pick three priorities max for your school year
• Create a six-week grid with specific actions for each stakeholder group
• Build weekly feedback loops within your existing meeting structure
• Train teachers on empathy interviews for struggling students

For teachers:

• Use the DF protocol after each marking period (analyze who's getting D's and F's, then interview those students)
• Focus classroom changes on one of three buckets: engagement, learning, or culture
• Ask for specific documentation from admin - what exactly should you be doing each week?

For district leaders:

• Stop adding new initiatives mid-year unless they clearly support existing priorities
• Require schools to document their three main focuses before approving additional programs
• Measure coherence, not just compliance

The Reality Check

Most schools fail because they try to do everything. Blasher succeeds because he does three things really well.

The six-week system isn't magic. It's discipline. It's saying no to good ideas so you can say yes to great execution.

Start with three priorities. Map six weeks. Execute ruthlessly. Your students deserve nothing less.