Rising Up and Finding Solutions- Janelle McLaughlin’s P3

Janelle is an education strategist, consultant, presenter, coach, keynote speaker and trainer. Over the years she has been a classroom teacher and district administrator. Today, Janelle is also an entrepreneur, author, a social media strategist and a tech enthusiast. These passions and experiences led her to begin her own company, Innovative Education Solutions. She gets to travel all over and utilize her teaching talents by working with leaders at all levels to make their jobs easier and more efficient, while focusing on the people.

Janelle’s focus is on the instructional strategy. She works with teachers and administrators across many districts in the areas of Leadership Development, Student-Driven Instruction, Blended Learning, 1:1 implementation, Effective Technology Integration, G Suite, Chromebooks, Office 365, Process Management and Organizational Leadership. “Most of what I do is job-embedded coaching where I get to work one on one with teachers and administrators, and that’s where the big shifts happen..the deep hard work happens in the classrooms and in the offices of the school buildings.” Janelle has asserted that educators who work side by side with curriculum directors and other leaders are the one that are the most successful.

Janelle commented that selecting the songs for her guest appearance on The Personal Playlist Podcast was a “growth point” for her. She had to really reflect and found the process challenging because she wanted to be really intentional. She even studied the music and lyrics before narrowing it down to the three. Her nostalgic song, in both text and tune, tells a piece of her story. After college, she returned to the small town in Indiana where she grew up in order to raise her kids. “In general, this song always make me think of where I live and where I’ve grown up.” While she noted some of the pros and cons of small town living, she hopes that she is giving her children the best possible life. Being from Indiana, she shares roots with the artists of this song. Here is John Mellencamp’s Small Town:

Janelle’s identity song is one that she really likes. “Every time it comes on, I’m singing along, I’m smiling and kind of dancing.” Janelle is an optimistic and positive person. Going back to the challenge of life in a small town, she had been the curriculum director. As a result of a difficult work related experience, she had to rethink her next steps and leave a job that she loved, not really knowing what she was going to do next. There often aren’t a lot of choices for work in a small town, so it meant rethinking her career. “Four years later,” our guest looked back,” I have built a really successful business doing something that I absolutely love and believe in.” This song tells the upside of her story, and she is just going to keep rising. “We are always going to have things that kid of try to pull us down...and that’s not going to stop me.” Here is Jack & Jack featuring Jonas Blue with Rise:

Janelle’s inspirational song comes from the contemporary Christian genre. Our guest shared that when she first heard it on The Message radio station, she realized how much this song is a motto for what she believes in. When working with a coach, Janelle was asked what stories impact how she lives. It was a challenging question for this positive and confident person. What does creep in, now that she has reflected on it, is that fear of something- the root of any negative self talk she does have. She tries to combat that fear and not listen to the negativity. The songwriter was inspired by the New Testament. In 2nd Timothy 1:17 it says, “For God has not given you a spirit of fear but of love, power, and sound mind.” Zach Williams wrote the song because that idea has really helped him in his life. Listening to this song puts Janelle in another place. When trying to decide on the third song in her playlist, she kept coming back to this song that helps her face the fear and not give into it. Here is Fear Is a Liar:

It was great that Janelle was happy listening to the songs she chose for her P3. “Those are my great songs.” She noticed the intentional journey of these three selections noting, “It took me through the path that I’m sure you intend- from reminiscing to this happy place to this serene strength…” She was so pumped by our conversation, that she was ready to get right into her get work of guiding and empowering educators.

If you want to reach out to Janelle, she loves connecting to and collaborating with others. Learning from other people and the relationships she gets to build are among her most favourite parts of her career. You can find her work at www.innovativeeducationsolutions.net, on Twitter (@Ms_Mac4) and LinkedIn.