Spring Links and Resource

Five ideas for repairs to the ailing school financial model, links to advice on navigating recent executive orders and more

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Happy St Patrick’s Day!

There is a lot going on out there - schools have released accepts and the current churn in the world doesn’t make the waiting on families’ responses any easier. Competition is stiff in many markets. For this quarter’s links and resources, I decided to focus both on the highest view and a more “on the ground” view; three were written about higher ed but I see them as directly related to indy schools.

Before the paywall, there is a resource to help you process recent executive orders and then we move to insights from a higher ed technologist as to considering the impact of AI on academic administration (NOT pedagogy or student experience!), a very long piece that will leave you wondering how it’s possible to lead an academic institution successfully in 2025 and and a short and intriguing article about the five potential models to “survive the higher ed” apocalypse” with commentary from me about how to frame this for the independent school equivalents.

There are big challenges out there, my friends. I think independent schools can pivot and innovate and grow and evolve but it’s going to take inspired leaders who can skillfully manage change and boards whose governance game is crisp and who are excited about the potential. We can respect and listen to the preservationists who are particularly anxious about change but we need to turn their focus to preserving values rather than longtime institutional practices or traditional allocation of resources. None of that happens overnight so if this is completely news to you - you’ve heard a lot about change, change, change but it won’t effect our school - start contemplating now. :)

I caught up with Tom Owen, an attorney in Shipman and Goodwin’s school law practice recently and as you might imagine, they have been swamped with inquires from both public and private schools in their practice as to complying with recent executive orders coming out of the White House. Below is a link to Shipman’s CT school law page where they provide articles that give helpful overviews of the landscape. Of course, this does not substitute for legal advice from your school’s attorney, but this page does have a lot of useful resources.

CT School Law - Legal Advice on Recent Executive Orders