Dr. Frontier's Recommended Resources
Welcome! These are the books, tools, platforms, and resources I find myself recommending most often to the principals and school leaders I work with — gathered in one place so that when someone asks "what do you actually use?", I can answer it properly, every time. Everything here has earned its spot through real use in real schools, not a marketing pitch. Dig in, take what's useful, and leave the rest.
📚 Books Every School Leader Should Read
Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work
If you read one book on building a real PLC culture, make it this one. DuFour and his co-authors turn the theory of collaborative teams into concrete, repeatable practices, and it's the text I return to most often when coaching schools through the messy early stages of getting teams to focus on learning rather than just teaching.
Taking Action: A Handbook for RTI at Work
Buffum, Mattos, and Malone give you the clearest blueprint I know for building a functioning multi-tiered system of support. It moves past the usual MTSS jargon and shows you how the tiers actually fit together, which makes it invaluable for leaders who want intervention systems that hold up under pressure.
Driven by Data 2.0
Paul Bambrick-Santoyo makes the case that data only matters when it changes what teachers do on Monday morning. I recommend this to leaders who feel buried in assessment reports but aren't yet turning that information into instruction — the data meeting protocols alone are worth the cover price.
Leverage Leadership 2.0
This is my go-to for instructional leaders who want to spend their time on the few levers that genuinely move student outcomes. Its frameworks for observation, feedback, and weekly data review have shaped how I coach principals to protect their time and lead with focus.
Visible Learning: The Sequel
John Hattie's synthesis of what works — and what merely keeps us busy — is essential reading for anyone serious about impact. I lean on it constantly in strategic planning conversations, because it grounds big decisions in evidence rather than the latest trend.
📊 Data & Assessment Tools
i-Ready
i-Ready pairs an adaptive diagnostic with targeted instruction in reading and math, giving you a clear picture of where each student stands against grade-level expectations. I recommend it to schools that want diagnostic data and aligned intervention in a single platform, which makes tiering students and monitoring growth far more manageable.
NWEA MAP Growth
MAP Growth is the interim assessment I trust most for measuring student growth over time, not just where they land on a single test day. Its RIT scale lets leaders track progress across years and set realistic, defensible goals — exactly the kind of data that anchors an honest conversation about whether interventions are working.
IXL
IXL combines adaptive skill practice with a diagnostic that pinpoints exactly where a student's understanding breaks down. I point teachers toward it when they need to move from "this student is behind in math" to "this student needs these three specific skills," which is the level of precision that makes intervention planning actually work.
Amplify
Amplify's literacy assessments — including its DIBELS-based screening — give early-grade teams the early-warning data that strong intervention depends on. I recommend it to schools building a serious early-literacy MTSS, because catching reading difficulties early is one of the highest-leverage moves a leader can make.
🗓️ Productivity & Planning Tools
Calendly
Calendly ends the endless back-and-forth of scheduling by letting people book time directly against your real availability. For school leaders fielding meeting requests from staff, families, and partners, it quietly protects the calendar — and the focused time that good leadership requires.
Asana
Asana keeps initiatives, action steps, and owners visible in one place, so a school improvement plan stops living in someone's head and starts moving forward. I recommend it to leadership teams that want clear accountability without adding another layer of meetings.
Zoom
Zoom remains the most reliable way I've found to run coaching sessions, team meetings, and family conferences when everyone can't be in the same room. Its recording and breakout features make it especially useful for professional learning, where you want to capture the session and still give teams space to work.
🎧 Podcasts & Professional Learning
Cult of Pedagogy
Jennifer Gonzalez covers the craft of teaching and leading with unusual depth and honesty. I recommend it to leaders who want to stay genuinely connected to what classroom practice feels like — it's a reliable source of ideas you can bring straight to a staff meeting.
The Principal Center Radio
Justin Baeder interviews thoughtful authors and practitioners on the real work of instructional leadership. The conversations are practical and unhurried, which makes it a good companion for principals thinking through the harder parts of the role.
Better Leaders Better Schools
Daniel Bauer's show is built squarely for school leaders who want to grow without burning out. I send it to principals who are looking for encouragement and concrete leadership habits in equal measure.
🖥️ Technology for Schools
Google Workspace for Education
For most schools I work with, Google Workspace is the backbone that everything else connects to — documents, shared drives, calendars, and communication in one ecosystem. Its real strength for leaders is collaboration: when your team works in shared, living documents, planning and follow-through get noticeably easier.
Canvas LMS
Canvas gives teachers a clean, flexible place to organize instruction and gives leaders visibility into what's actually being taught. I recommend it to schools that want a learning management system robust enough to grow with them rather than something they'll outgrow in a year.
ParentSquare
ParentSquare consolidates family communication — messages, forms, and updates — into one platform that reaches families in their own language and preferred channel. Strong family engagement is one of the most underrated drivers of student outcomes, and this is the tool I trust to make it consistent rather than ad hoc.
School Frontiers Services
These are our own offerings — the work we do directly with schools.
If there's a resource you're looking for and it isn't here, reach out — I'm always glad to point a colleague in the right direction. Contact us
Disclosure: Some of the links on this page are affiliate links, which means School Frontiers may earn a small commission if you make a purchase — at no additional cost to you. We only recommend resources we genuinely use or endorse, and a commission never determines whether something earns a place on this list.