When I arrived at Hudson Elementary School, it had an API* score that put it in the district's "500 Club" - a club nobody wanted to be a member of. My challenge was to raise our score to 800 in an environment where a majority of our students were economically disadvantaged.

I focused on revitalizing our school culture by:

• setting the expectation that our staff would "own" each and every Hudson child, including students who came to us from the nearby homeless shelter;
• instituting a uniform policy intended to put all students on an equal footing;
• recognizing and celebrating academic success at every grade level.

These changes created community-wide good will and improved academic achievement, but I ended up working marathon 70-hour weeks just to keep pace. My husband learned to grin and bear it, grabbing whatever precious hours with me he could, but things were different with my secretary: I never communicated directly with her. Instead, we just left each other notes. The result was that I spent countless hours doing administrative tasks, including all my own filing, mail and correspondence.

When my husband and I decided it was time to start a family, I realized I had to learn to strike a balance between my career and my personal life. It was at this point that I was introduced to The Breakthrough Coach (TBC).

TBC's 2-Day Program gave me three valuable insights:

• I realized that my primary responsibility was to develop our teaching staff to maximize student success;
• I needed to give up my addiction to "administrivia" and focus on my job as Hudson's instructional leader;
• I learned that my secretary saw my involvement with administrative tasks as a lack of trust in her ability.

TBC provided the reality check I needed. As soon as I returned to school, my secretary and I used TBC's methodology to completely re-structure our working relationship so that she felt empowered and I was free of all the administrivia. My secretary now runs Hudson, and I have the time I need to lead it.

Two years of practicing TBC's Management Methodology^™ resulted in a stunning personal and professional transformation:

• I went from working 70 to 42 hours a week, yet I now average 9 hours a week in classrooms monitoring instruction;
• Our most recent API came in at 799;
• We are one of Long Beach's top-rated schools for attendance;
• Hudson is now a "school of choice" in our district;
• Hudson has been recognized with the California Distinguished School Award twice, and has won the Title I National Achieving Schools Award four times;
• Hudson has been authorized as an International Baccalaureate World School for grades K-5 (one of only ten in the state of California) and will soon be authorized at the middle school level.

Our Hudson team has proven that there is no negative correlation between poverty and student achievement. I tell our students to set unreasonable goals: "Shoot for the moon and we will celebrate when you land among the stars!"

TBC helped make me infinitely more productive, and showed me that, by allowing everyone to contribute, I could lead our entire school community to achieve success. Students love attending Hudson, and I am gratified by the talent and renewed spirit our staff brings to work everyday. I am also tremendously fulfilled by the time I am able to spend with my husband - and our new baby!