So, post-election, what's next?

Three thoughts on how the next presidential administration might impact schools

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Well, it has been quite a week!

After news coverage and punditry seemed to point in one direction, pretty early on Tuesday night it conclusively went in the opposite way. So here we are. 

From my conversations before the election, many school leaders were focused on managing a school community with a very liberal faculty and a more mixed student and parent population, concerned with the reaction of the adults in this circumstance. The little I’ve heard is that there was sadness and disappointment but not the same struggle of people to cope as happened in 2016 and in some weird way, tension relief that the race was over.

From my perspective, school leaders did an outstanding job doing all they could to prepare their campuses, providing productive educational outlets for the students and conducting direct conversations with the adults about how to focus on serving the kids. I also heard expressions of empathy for the fact that a Trump victory might well feel profoundly personal and challenging to process for many community members, provoking grief and fear, even as schools were referring to resources such as the EE Ford guidelines for disciplined non-partisanship.

And I want to give special recognition to the communications professionals who were prepared to respond to all outcomes. That preparation took a ton of work. You are in a unique situation supporting your heads and I hope heads’ appreciation for you has only grown and multiplied. Partisan divides and polarization is not going anywhere and schools need your thoughtfulness and your ability to cut through the noise to connect with your community now more than ever.

I will also say that while I am no expert, there is evidence that as a planet, we are at a very unusual, unsettled time, full of deep dissatisfaction with government. The Financial Times reported that for the first time since records were kept (in 1905), all incumbent governments up for reelection were defeated, worldwide.

For the first time in our history, the US will have three one-term presidential administrations in a row.

I do think Americans tend towards preferring divided government and the fact that a number of Democratic senators prevailed in races where Trump won the presidential vote is interesting to note. And a house of representatives majority will likely be held through only a handful of seats, wherever it lands.

So where do schools go from here?

Here’s a few trends that may be amplified to impact independent schools as we move into the second Trump administration.

The School Choice Movement

I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic and stockpiling articles about the successes and challenges of states where vouchers have been made available for parents to apply state funds towards private school tuition. I haven’t had a chance to synthesize and digest my research yet, but I can only imagine that in the next administration, this movement will gather further momentum.

This can be a real enrollment boon for independent schools, even though the voucher amounts likely will not cover the full cost of tuition at a robust and established independent school. However, it could also present a challenge for school leaders with progressive values to wholeheartedly embrace as the school choice movement can be seen as a threat to the health of the American public school system. But it may well be good business for indy schools.

The Continued Ascendence of Tech

I had no idea who Lina Khan was until recently, but the FTC chair who has been attempting to regulate AI and limit the power of Big Tech seems all but certain to be gone under President Trump. The US has abdicated many things to the private sector in the past forty years and the development of AI, putting an untold amount of power in the hands of a very few men, is a fait accompli. (By contrast, after WWII with the founding of the RAND Corporation, while not officially an arm of the US government, it was created to perform research and development for the Air Force and still serves many government agencies and pioneered the beginnings of AI in the 1950s. Much of tech as we know it was started as part of military R&D and then became the behemoth influencing nearly every aspect of contemporary life in the hands of private entrepreneurs who could funnel giant amounts of money into their own R&D. So here we are.) Like many of us, my retirement is tied up in stock market investments so “yay, markets” …but there is no free lunch. 

AI was already impacting our lives but as it develops by leaps and bounds, it will have profound implications for what our society needs an education to provide. It’s not just about cheating. Frankly, I’m not sure how schools are going to take this on at an existential level as I don’t think we’re that great as organizations at grappling with existential level threats. It is doubtful the government is going to be providing many guidelines or guardrails in the next four years.

The same can be said for any kind of regulation or boundaries around social media use by kids. I know free speech advocates I deeply respect value this lack of regulation but the idea that these companies are merely platforms for speech sidesteps an enormous responsibility and an enormous impact.

None of this is easy to wrestle with and it certainly is easier to just let the tech bros loose to keep innovating, making investors more money and hoping for the best, but as I said before - there is no free lunch. And it doesn’t help that we seem to be embracing a model of octogenarians who do not even begin to understand tech as our government leaders.

Friend of the newsletter Lauren Castagnola told me recently that her ten year old son asked her, “Why do I have to go to school when I have a calculator and Google?” Hmmmm.

Getting really clear on DEIB mission-alignment in our schools

In 2016, Trump won the electoral college but lost the popular vote. In 2024, he won both. Progressivism is not in the ascendant. When I was at TABS last week and did an Effective Parent Communications session, one issue that came up was being able to communicate clearly the purpose of a school’s DEIB programming when a parent complained. And this past year, I’ve heard stories from schools of parent complaints of all kinds, from all quarters.

It is crucially important that schools get very clear in the mission-alignment of their DEIB program and that heads in particular be able to articulate its value to a child’s education. There are schools with long and proud traditions of strong DEIB programming, well before it had that label. There are others who put together more intentional programs in 2020 and have been rushing to catch up. It might be time for the schools that were rushing to evaluate what programming is mission aligned and working to achieve its intended goals.

Schools will need to powerfully and clearly state both why DEIB is important for every student’s education and also the “why” behind how DEIB lives at your school, including celebrating the positive results. This is a chance for the head, DEIB director and comms director to pull together and then reinforce the messaging internally and externally. Be ready to listen to parent complaints with curiosity and empathy and then be able to explain why a program or initiative is so core to what makes your school’s education unique, relevant and effective.

What I’ve learned from the assisted living

Several times a week, I spent time in an incredibly diverse community at my mom’s assisted living. We regularly interact with everyone from the staff at the director level to the housekeeping and maintenance folks, the staff health aides, nurses, food service workers from the manager to the front line folks. Many immigrants, mostly women, fill roles, particularly as personal aides. Many come from Caribbean and central and south american countries. My mom’s personal aide, Alisha, has made a contribution to our lives that we truly cannot repay.

My mom has made relationships with just about everyone and any time we are out and about, there is a lot of stopping to chat, affectionate hand grasping, smiles and laughter. Everyone works really hard and also maintains a genuinely warm and positive attitude towards the residents - and I also understand first hand, the elderly residents are not always delightful. There is a full range of educational attainment and socio economic status among these employees. 

There is also the full range of political beliefs. It’s not always obvious. Whatever the exit polls say, analyzing what groups think about what thing, my experience in this community points to the fact that most people just want to make a better life for their families. My sister and I tend to keep any political conversations light and surface level.

I respect where people are coming from and I try to be a good and curious listener. Many aren’t really tuned in to the details of politics. I have seen more well-thumbed Bibles than I have ever seen in my life and I think it is safe to say that the amount of time I spent reading about and listening to political analysis they are putting into reflecting on the state of their souls. (You tell me what the better use of time is…)

So I leave you with this piece from Jennifer Senior about her relationship with a Trump voter and question about how we try to stop seeing strangers as potential enemies. (gift link)

May you have a restful weekend - more on the other side!

Julie

November Happenings at Stony Creek Strategy will be published this coming Tuesday. Always happy to talk about effective parent communication workshops, better communication for trustees workshops, individual coaching and retreat facilitation! Contact us here.