Meet Our Speaker
Meet Our Speaker
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A highly-regarded urban educator in New Jersey for over twenty years, Principal Baruti Kafele distinguished himself as a master teacher and a transformational school leader. As an elementary school teacher in East Orange, NJ, he was selected as the East Orange School District and Essex County Public Schools Teacher of the Year and New Jersey State Teacher of the Year finalist.
As a middle and high school principal, Principal Kafele emerged as a turnaround school leader which included the turnaround of "The Mighty" Newark Tech, that went from a low-performing school in need of improvement to national recognition, including U.S. News and World Report Magazine recognizing it three times as one of America's best high schools. This culminated in Principal Kafele receiving the coveted Milken Educator Award for his leadership.
One of the most sought-after school leadership and classroom equity presenters in America, Principal Kafele is impacting America’s schools. For over 35 years, he has delivered more than 3000 conference and program keynotes, professional development workshops, parenting seminars and student assemblies. In addition to writing several professional articles for popular education journals, he has authored fourteen books, including seven ASCD best sellers. His newest book, What Is My Value INSTRUCTIONALLY to the Teachers I Supervise? was recently released.
Principal Kafele is the creator and host of the popular AP & New Principals Academy, streamed live every Saturday morning on his AP & New Principals Academy YouTube channel. He is the recipient of over 150 educational, professional and community awards which include the prestigious Milken Educator Award, the National Alliance of Black School Educators Hall of Fame Award, the East Orange, NJ Hall of Fame Award, recognition as one of the World’s Top 30 Education Professionals for six consecutive years (2020 – 2025) by Global Gurus Top 30, recognition for creating one of the world's top school leadership training programs by Global Training (2025), and the City of Dickinson, Texas proclaiming February 8, 1998 as Baruti Kafele Day.
Listen to Principal Kafele speak about his book,
Listen to Principal Kafele speak about his book,
What Is My Value Instructionally to the Teachers I Supervise?
What Is My Value Instructionally to the Teachers I Supervise?
Bestselling author and award-winning educator Baruti K. Kafele is known for his insight into leadership practices and his focus on deep reflection as a way to become a more effective school leader. In this thought-provoking book, he turns his attention to instructional leadership—a crucial, complex, and sometimes neglected facet of leading a school.
Kafele contends that the primary purpose of supervising teachers is to help them continue to improve in the classroom so that all students have the support and skills they need to succeed. For principals and assistant principals, in particular, it is easy to be so inundated by the noninstructional aspects of the work that the instructional side—including instructional coaching—suffers. This has an adverse effect on the entire school. Just as the quality of teaching directly affects student outcomes, there is also a direct correlation between instructional leadership and student achievement and well-being.
Kafele structures the book around 10 self-reflection prompts to help the reader answer the question that the title poses: What is my value instructionally to the teachers I supervise? This powerful resource offers illuminating stories about and practical strategies for focusing on the instructional side of leadership to improve teacher pedagogy and enable student achievement to soar.
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