This is Talking Out of School, a weekly newsletter about schools, change, leadership and being a human in the 21st century. Thank you to all the subscribers who support this work!
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The last Friday of the month is a digest issue of Talking Out of School with a short essay on a theme, links to the month’s posts, and a list of all links mentioned in the past month’s posts. So if you haven’t had a chance to read all the posts this month, this is where you can get it, all in one place.
Stony Creek Strategy news
My interview with Angela Brown from Niche was a good conversation! While I am certainly not an admissions or marcomm master, I do always have opinions. :)
I’m also very much looking forward to presenting on “Creating a Talent Development Model for Hiring and Retention” - for a one day online summit, TransformED. Founder and producer Peter Baron is a passionate independent school advocate and he’s brought a thought provoking group of speakers together to address different aspects of reimagining the independent school business model as we confront 21st century challenges.
September theme: The work has changed but job expectations haven’t.
Here are some stories I’ve heard recently from people out in the field. One is struggling with the influx of migrants that are flooding her public school system. These kids are traumatized, have not been in a school setting for months, speak little to no English and are lacking basic items such as socks. Teachers are going to Costco to buy supplies for families.
Another is in a school counseling position. When she took the job five plus years ago, she thought she had won the lottery and expected to be there for the rest of her career. Now she and her colleagues are stretched thin and burnt out and she is making plans to transition out.
A tenured professor volunteered to chair an ad hoc committee on inclusion and equitable workload (I’m simplifying the committee title here, but hopefully you get the gist.) While there was great enthusiasm for the creation of this committee, now the faculty committee members are less than enthusiastic about doing the work it entails on top of their other work. She feels like she is pulling a sled through the sand and on top of it, the dean has turned down the committee’s request for stipends because in her view, such service is part of professional citizenship in the university.
As for heads of school, a British search and consulting firm, RS Consulting, just put out a study about how headship has changed since 2013 and I felt very validated indeed. It mentions “unprecedented financial pressures,” “changing parent expectations,” “changing faculty attitudes and expectations” including reluctance to take on extra duties, “omnipresent social media,” “more responsibility on schools to provide leadership around equality, equity and inclusion… and navigate complex related areas such as gender identity” as well as the increasing demands around issues of legal compliance and managing the rise of AI. And the number one change? Concern for student mental health.
Yet, how different does the job description for any position in a school look than it did in 2019? Or the organizational structure?
It makes me think of a chapter in Conscious Business by Fred Kofman where the author discusses how common it is for stated institutional values to be contradicted by the behaviors culturally acceptable in the organization. A prime example would be a stated value of “growth” but in reality, it is unacceptable for an employee to admit making a mistake. And as the author says, holding these contradictory truths in your head literally makes people crazy.
Now that schools are reassessing and moving into the future, I hope strategic planning is delving into how the very underpinnings of school functioning have changed and think hard about ways to adjust how faculty and staff are deployed so that student needs are met and teachers and staff aren’t burning out. It can be less fun than thinking about a new building, a new program, or updated pedagogy, but if we don’t, there won’t be any people to populate these buildings and programs.
AND AN ASIDE ABOUT THE NAIS TRENDBOOK…while we’re on the subject of cognitive dissonance, while I haven’t gotten a copy of this year trendbook yet, the admission info that they published separately just leaves me wondering about DASL and the whole process for producing the Trendbook. The headline is “for the second year in a row, enrollment is up!” and then it does get more nuanced, but the fact that it states New England and the East have seen no enrollment change between 2018 and now…? Maybe in the aggregate? And while enrollment may be “up” or static, what about meeting net tuition revenue goals? And maybe it’s static but are you reaching deeper into your pool and how is that impacting other schools down the chain? And how sustainable is that?
I know enrollment trends can vary widely between regions, missions, etc. but one thing I will point out is that if you are a school struggling with enrollment and/or making net tuition revenue, the way the information is presented in the Trendbook does not make it any easier to make the case for change to a board of trustees. We continue to incentivize the opening enrollment number as the prime measure for success. The longer we decouple enrollment goals from net tuition revenue goals, the longer we kick the can down the road, which does not benefit the students and families schools serve. Does it serve anyone to have a Potemkin village of a “full” school that can’t afford to provide a robust program?
And how do we know the self-reporting in DASL is accurate anyway?
Just a few questions for a rainy Friday.
Talking Out of School posts for September, 2023
Combatting Achievement Culture
Interview with Dr Greg Martin - The Case For Boarding School
Remedies for the Hiring Headache
September Links Shared in TOOS Posts
(Except this one, which is a fascinating article I just read:)
The "learn to code" mantra may need to change in the age of AI
Achievement Culture/Barbie movie
Never Enough by Jennifer Wallace
Rachel Simmons - Enough as She Is and other work
Dr Beth Cooper Benjamin's website
Culture Study Substack - so much good stuff here
Burnt Toast substack - anti-diet culture, parenting, lots more
Strategy should serve the school, not the strat planning process
American are Losing Faith in the Value of College
Can a chatbot write a good college admissions essay?
"An era of mergers and closings"
Florida has approved SAT alternative classical learning test
Schools are spending on security
Dr Greg Martin interview - the future of boarding schools
Developing a Year-round Hiring Model
Hiring Headache
Yet another teacher shortage story
House of Strauss interview with Lee Fang (paywalled but strong recommend for House of Strauss substack - worth the subscription if you’re interested in how media and sports reflect cultural trends.)
New overtime rules would impact boarding schools.
Coming in October (Editorial discretion - subject to change!)
A “People Talking” interview with Brad Rathgeber, CEO and Head of One Schoolhouse
A guest post for Mission Critical Communications from Lauren Castagnola
An essay discussing that while “inspirational” leadership gets all the love, solid management skills need to be both fostered and celebrated.
Quite likely a Stony Creek Diaries post on “Bingo! At the Assisted Living” (a title I have been waiting to use for months now). Astonishing to me, my last Stony Creek Diaries post on loss and change was one of the most viewed posts of the past three months. So more is coming at you…
A very deep and sincere thank you for subscribing to Talking Out of School. A year ago, I didn’t even know if this would still be a thing, and here we are, picking up speed. I’m so glad you’re here. The purpose of this newsletter has been truly invaluable to me during the time of transition and change. Virtual hugs all around!
Julie