EXPLO Elevate shares good ideas, practices, and wisdom to help schools and their communities flourish.
Dear Friend,
We’re doing a lot of work these days with Heads and Boards. There are three metaphors that we like to familiarize Heads and Boards with before we begin our work. In this issue, Ross has written what we consider a must read piece before jumping into strategy development. Then we’ve got some thoughts on work school leaders must be attending to now if they hope to stem attrition and increase enrollment conversions later in the year. We’ve got a bit on building dispositions in students and then we’re onto the topic of data and how to start building the structures and muscles to make your decision making more solid. – Moira
Three Metaphors for School Strategy
By Ross Peters
Over the last several months we have done a significant number of Board retreats -– from Beijing to Boston, from Charleston to Chattanooga. I am always fascinated to meet the people who express their connection and devotion to a school through Board service. We work Boards hard during the brief time we join them. We strive to surface critical topics and push them to locate their challenging work at the right altitude.
The most satisfying aspect of the work for me has been to witness the remarkable board stewardship of high-quality school heads. I learn so much from them – from their patience, mission focus, and child-centric humanity. Each school and each leader reveals themselves in moments. A critical moment for any school and school head is strategy creation. This is where we can begin to help.
I began my independent school career in the admission office of a large boarding school. In the spring, we would gather in the back office of North Farmhouse to pounce on the incoming mail, letter openers in hand. If an envelope contained a check – a deposit – we would whoop or high five each other. But there was one day – and one envelope – that I vividly remember. The envelope was from a family whose child I knew would be admitted everywhere. I slit open this envelope and peeked inside. There was a check! I couldn’t believe it. I was beyond thrilled. I pulled out the check and the card that accompanied it. And then my excitement quickly deflated. The family had written on the card, “Though we are choosing X school, we had such a wonderful experience at Y (my school) that we feel we owe you a deposit.” Seriously????!!!
Clearly, I haven’t fully gotten over the loss. I never really thought we would enroll this student, yet there is a piece of me that feels we had a partial win. I know even though this family went elsewhere, they would always say very positive things about us.
That first year in admissions I came to understand that turning families into champions starts early. It doesn’t happen by chance and it’s something schools must invest in, align on, and plan for. This winter and spring I had friends whose children applied to independent schools and this fall started at two different schools. They’ve had two very different experiences that illustrate what to do –and what not to do– if you want to turn families into champions.
Great chat recently with Jeremy Goldstein, long time independent school faculty member and now Vice-president of Programs for Trust for the National Mall. We talked about the importance of young people developing civic dispositions, which had me thinking more generally about the work involved in developing dispositions and how they can't be taught, but are enculturated.
Kennedy School: Emerging School Models
A couple of weeks ago, while at the Emerging School Models conference at the Kennedy School (Harvard), it was clear that microschools, homeschooling, and educational savings accounts are exploding in popularity. I heard talk of a group of microschools in a major city in the South affiliating and developing their own association. This association shares resources from faculty, to facilities, to athletics. Each has its own brand and focus, but they come together to offer more than what they can offer alone. Had me wondering if there might be a lesson here for independent schools in working together and at the same time, that it was a cautionary tale about how the options open to families is changing rapidly.
In Alberto Carvalho’s conference keynote, he laid out how he led the Miami public school system from the very bottom of the rankings on multiple fronts to number one and how he is now aiming to do the same in Los Angeles. (The #1 tool? Data. Gathering it, learning how to extract insights, and using it to drive change. Carvalho was clear that every single school leader in both districts has been trained on how to use data. Every single one. Another lesson for us in independent schools?)
Data Informed Decision Making
When I’m working with boards, I often explain that data is how you can tell if the stories you are telling yourself about your school are true. Many boards are in the early stages of becoming data informed. Sometimes I’ll run into a trustee who fears that the move toward using more data means every decision will be driven by spreadsheets. That’s why I like to share an observation from Daniel Kahneman:
No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.
Data without insights – without a story – is useless and learning how to extract stories from the data is a real skill.
Few schools have a Director of Institutional Research, but there are myriad ways to start an institutional research function and better use data. At EXPLO Elevate we took a deep dive into how to get started building this function (even on a limited budget) and you can download our full report here.
And if you’re not familiar with the Center for Institutional Research in Independent Schools (CIRIS), you should be. CIRIS has put out a great institutional research guide.
Meet our New Team Member
Andy Hamilton, is Elevate’s new Senior Data Analyst, with 12 years of experience in extracting actionable insights from data. Whether using analytics to understand stakeholder groups or market and enrollment trends, he’s adept at communicating data insights to non-technical audiences. He excels in survey design and building clear and elegant dashboards. Andy taught math at Escola Secundaria de Manjangue in Mozambique, and was a senior data analyst and digital marketing analyst with two firms. He holds a B.S. in economics from the University of Minnesota and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods in Social Sciences from Columbia University.
Join Us
Association of Independent Schools in New England (AISNE)
June 11-13, 2025 at The Collegiate School, Richmond, Virginia
With Ross, Moira, and Tung Trinh, Dean of Faculty at Collegiate School
Our Leadership Studio is a dynamic experience designed to elevate educational leadership teams beyond traditional team-building. This immersive program offers tools for continual improvement, aligning your team with a determined purpose and clear focus on both mission and strategic goals.
If there are topics you’d like us to cover, good ideas or projects you’d like us to feature, or you want to talk about possible work with your school, please reach out.
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