EXPLO Elevate shares good ideas, practices, and wisdom to help
schools and their communities flourish.

Dear Friend,

Jack, Haverford School Class of 2039

What was lovely to see is that hope and optimism about these new schools is what swirls in this household. My brother and sister-in-law are realists and know that challenges of some sort or another will be on the school horizon – they’ve both worked in schools for years. But they are already Baldwin and Haverford champions.

No doubt as you are about to begin your new school year, you have many champions in and amongst your new families. At least I hope you do. The key is to keep them as such. I think it’s a ripe topic to discuss with the entire faculty. To be successful at it, everyone needs to know it’s a priority and what it means.

Leadership Metabolism and Building High Performance Leadership Teams 

By Moira Kelly

Speaking of hope and optimism. Most senior leadership teams start the new school year with strong plans and ambition. Some will make great progress on their vision and goals this year while others won’t. I was reading an article on leadership metabolism by Jason Battye and it got me thinking about the metabolism of school leadership teams. I started thinking about the teams I’ve been on when we moved mountains year after year and other times when I’ve been part of a team that couldn’t seem to make meaningful progress on anything significant. There are clear characteristics of both types and ways to speed up a team’s metabolism. I’ve taken a dive into the topic in: Building High Performance School Leadership Teams: Why Some Schools Move Fast While Others Get Stuck.

Place + Connection + Expectation = Engagement

by Ross Peters

In an era where "scrolling" has become the dominant verb describing how young people—and many adults—interact with the world, independent schools face a critical challenge: How do we create learning environments that pull students away from passive consumption and into deep, transformative engagement? As artificial intelligence reshapes education and digital distractions multiply, the stakes have never been higher for school leaders to master what Ross calls "The Engagement Equation"—a deceptively simple but powerful framework that distinguishes thriving schools from those where students merely go through the motions.

The Power of Visitors and Visiting Teams

If you are genuinely curious about your school, a department, a program, you might want to consider inviting in a visitor or a group of visitors to tell you what they see. This is different than an accrediting team examining whether you have met a standard (though this can be incredibly useful.) There are a number of schools who regularly invite in others for feedback – some volunteers, others paid to do so. There are many models this can take and it is not without cost in time, effort, or actual dollars out the door. That said, I think there are opportunities here that more schools should take advantage of. 

One of my long time board members is a life trustee at MIT and over the years we’ve often talked about what he sees happening in higher ed. That often gets me thinking about independent schools. One particular topic of discussion has been the MIT visiting committee. A systematized program where a group of 15-20 mostly alums go in to spend several days in a given MIT school or department. They interview faculty and students and observe classes and labs. Their observations and insights are then shared. (MIT’s trustees – called members of the corporation – serve on these visiting committees. It keeps them invested in the day to day of the school and they are able to bring their expertise out in the “real world” to help expand the perspectives of faculty and administrators.) 

Thanks to Brian Hughes for the many hours of discussion on MIT visiting committees and to Neil Rasmussen for his permission to share his research and writing Origins and History of the Visiting Committee at MIT.

It is going to be a marquis Fall at EXPLO Elevate. Not only will we be working everywhere from Beijing to Berkeley, and from Boston to Zurich, and points in between, but we will also be continuing our thought leadership. Ross will have one of the feature articles in the Fall Independent School magazine, whose theme is value. Ross is taking on the connection between the current threats to higher education and independent schools, and tying it to the purpose of independent schools. In that piece, he will also share the results of the work of the Purpose Project, which he founded along with John Gulla, Executive Director of the E.E. Ford Foundation. John, Ross and I will be in San Antonio at Flourishing Futures: Character and Leadership in the Independent School Community sponsored by the Kern Foundation. Ross will give one of the keynotes: "Why We Exist: Reclaiming the Purpose of Independent Schools Through Character and Community." I’ll be at TABS presenting on Learning in the Age of AI, and Ross and I will be presenting on building high performing leadership teams this fall with SAIS.

On the docket we have projects ranging from strategy work, to scheduling, to governance and leadership retreats, to right sizing. And head and senior leadership coaching. Reach out to see how we can support you and your school.

Wishing everyone good luck with the start of the school year. 

My nephew Jack is full of optimism and joy about the possibilities that this school year will bring. 

I hope you too can find a bit of that magic, too.

With warm regards,

Moira

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