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

Dear Friend,

It’s time to take your school’s vital signs and we’ve got a diagnostic for doing just that. Ross explores the important work that should be done before you embark on strategy development. David Torcoletti helps us think about defining the spine of your department and setting up new department heads for success. We’ve got a half hour exercise for leadership teams to delve into one pesky question that plagued them this year. How a Saturday morning of running errands had me returning home and taking a dive into how private equity has entered the school market. PE is here, it’s growing, and there are questions school leaders and board members should be asking. And finally, what does it mean to design for love?

Port of Call Work

Every ship needs an honest reckoning before it leaves port. Is yours seaworthy? Before your school launches its next strategic plan, there's critical work to be done and most schools are skipping it entirely. Read Port of Call Work to find out what questions your board and leadership team must answer before you chart your next course.

It's Time for a School Check-Up

When was the last time your school took its own vital signs?

Most independent school leaders are skilled at reading the room — but reading the institution is a different discipline entirely. The DEFCON Scale for Independent Schools offers a structured diagnostic across ten domains, giving boards and executive teams a shared language for what's strong, what's fragile, and what keeps you up at night.

Think of it as a GPS recalibration before you map out your next strategic journey.

Every Department Needs A Spine

Most schools promote good people into leadership roles and then leave them to figure it out. A new department head inherits a team, a title, and — if they're lucky — some notes. What they rarely get is a clear answer to the most fundamental question: What is this department actually for? In his latest piece, David Torcoletti borrows a concept from the theater world to argue that every department needs a "spine" — a shared, active understanding of purpose that connects everything from the first faculty email to how students line up for lunch. If you lead people, this one's worth your time.

The Questions Behind the Question

Have you and your leadership team ever paused to ask whether the questions driving your decisions this year were framed in a way that opened up your best thinking? We've put together a half-hour exercise designed for that in-between moment — after the students have gone but before the adults follow — one that's illuminating without being heavy, and leaves your team with sharper questions to carry into next year. 

They Transformed Youth Sports. Now School Is In Their Crosshairs

What happens when sophisticated investors — armed with demographic data, market analysis, and nearly unlimited capital — decide that the families independent schools have always served represent their next great opportunity? That's not a future scenario. Private equity has already transformed youth sports. Now it's methodically moving into education, one affluent suburb at a time. The signals are clear. Last weekend while running errands I learned it had come to my neighborhood. I explain in, Someone is Coming For Your Families and It’s Private Equity.

A Summer Read: Design Love In 

On a recent flight I downed Marcus Buckingham’s Design Love In. As Buckingham argues, “Experiences drive behaviors drive outcomes.” The book made me think about designing experiences through a different lens. What does love have to do with day to day experiences? And what does it mean to deconstruct love? Buckingham answers those questions and more.

Our schedules are filling. We’ve got some terrific and exciting projects coming up. Reach out if you have an idea brewing, a knotty question you are wrestling with, or just need an outside pair of eyes.

We’re Celebrating 50 Years

EXPLO is turning 50, and we're marking the milestone the way educators probably should by going back to the people who were there. Over the past few months, we've been in conversation with former alumni and faculty whose careers and lives were shaped, in part, by our programs. Their reflections have been a reminder of why this work started and why it still matters.

For readers who know us primarily through EXPLO Elevate, there's a flip side. While we spend much of the year as thought partners and consultants to independent schools, every summer we become practitioners in the most direct sense as hundreds of students arrive for our boarding and day programs. We lean into students directing their own learning and creating an environment that allows students to discover what learning can feel like when curiosity is the organizing principle. It is a lab — one where our ideas about the possibilities for schools are not just theorized but tested, refined, and lived. That's not incidental to our consulting work. It's inseparable from it.

Jeff Wetzler, co-founder of Transcend, author of Ask, and a former EXPLO instructor, captures what we're still chasing after five decades: "I try to make school more EXPLO" — environments where learning feels "relevant and joyful and engaging." That aspiration drives both sides of what we do. And at 50, we're more convinced than ever that it's the right one.

As we launch into summer, I am hoping to follow a bit of advice from Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Live in the sunshine. Swim in the sea. Drink in the wild air.

Until next time,

Moira

Was The Propeller forwarded to you? Get your own regular dispatch of fresh ideas, practical insights, and relevant news by subscribing today. Subscribe here.