Leading with Vision: Insights from NAIS President Debra Wilson on the Future of Independent Schools
In this episode, we talk with Debra Wilson, President of NAIS, about the challenges facing independent school leaders today. We explore topics ranging from managing technology and data to navigating complex governance issues and supporting students' well-being.
Resources
- National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS)
- Southern Association of Independent Schools (SAIS)
- Trustee Handbook, resource from NAIS serving as a guide to the fundamentals of good governance from the unique perspective of independent schools
- New View EDU, podcast from NAIS featuring thought leaders from inside and outside the world of education to share their views on the purpose and nature of school
- Debra’s go-to podcasts
- Class Disrupted, with Diane Tavenner and Michael Horn
- EconTalk
- Future U
- The Prof G Pod, with Scott Galloway
- Work Life, with Adam Grant
- Biscuits and Jam, from Southern Living
- Freakonomics
- NPR News Now, the latest news in five minutes
- The Anxious Generation, book by Jonathan Haidt which argues that the spread of smartphones, social media and overprotective parenting have led to a "rewiring" of childhood and a rise in mental illness.
Transcript
Peter Frank 00:00:02
Phil, welcome to Talking Technology with ATLIS,
Peter Frank 00:00:05
the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for
Peter Frank 00:00:08
technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens.
Peter Frank 00:00:12
We'll hear stories from technology directors and other
Peter Frank 00:00:15
special guests from the Independent School community,
Peter Frank 00:00:17
and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics.
Peter Frank 00:00:21
And now please welcome your host, Kristina Lewellen,
Christina Lewellen 00:00:25
Hello, and welcome back to talking
Christina Lewellen 00:00:26
technology with Atlas. I'm Kristina Lewellen, the President
Christina Lewellen 00:00:29
and CEO of the Association of Technology Leaders in
Christina Lewellen 00:00:32
Independent Schools.
Bill Stites 00:00:34
And I am Bill Stites, the Director of
Bill Stites 00:00:35
Technology at Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New
Bill Stites 00:00:39
Jersey. And
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:40
I'm Hiram Cuevas, Director of Information Systems
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:42
and Academic Technology at St Christopher school in Richmond,
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:46
Virginia.
Christina Lewellen 00:00:47
Hello gentlemen, and welcome back. How
Christina Lewellen 00:00:49
are you today? I
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:50
feel like I'd be dodging branches momentarily.
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:53
The wind's starting to really pick up here in Richmond.
Christina Lewellen 00:00:56
Yeah, I'm still here at South by Southwest
Christina Lewellen 00:00:59
in Austin, and I almost blew away walking down the street
Christina Lewellen 00:01:03
last night for dinner. It was pretty windy here as well.
Unknown 00:01:05
So you see Hiram.
Bill Stites 00:01:06
Now it's unfortunate that people can't
Bill Stites 00:01:08
see you, because now you're cleanly shaved, which is
Bill Stites 00:01:11
something we haven't had from you in a while. And if trees
Bill Stites 00:01:14
were coming down, they've come down before. I know you own a
Bill Stites 00:01:17
chainsaw, you would have been right in lumberjack mode
Bill Stites 00:01:20
absolutely so you got to grow the beard back, you got to break
Bill Stites 00:01:23
out the chain saw, and you've got to save Kristina and
Bill Stites 00:01:25
yourself from any falling branches or whatnot. Absolutely,
Hiram Cuevas 00:01:29
I'm in. I'm all in. I'll sneeze. Rachel hair
Hiram Cuevas 00:01:31
appears.
Christina Lewellen 00:01:34
So before we jump in with our guest, I do
Christina Lewellen 00:01:36
want to just go to you for a second bill, because we did
Christina Lewellen 00:01:40
recently, we recorded our Ask Me Anything podcast, and there were
Christina Lewellen 00:01:45
a bunch of questions. I had a blast with you guys. I don't
Christina Lewellen 00:01:47
think I've ever laughed so hard. It's a good thing. The mute
Christina Lewellen 00:01:49
button works really well on this platform, so we had a great time
Christina Lewellen 00:01:53
with that. But there was a question bill that we didn't get
Christina Lewellen 00:01:57
to, that we kind of later discovered after we stopped
Christina Lewellen 00:01:59
recording, and it would have been a great question. It
Christina Lewellen 00:02:02
pertains to Bill putting together the dream baseball
Christina Lewellen 00:02:06
lineup. So Bill, I'm going to just give you the mike for just
Christina Lewellen 00:02:09
a second. I'm going to time you, but go for it.
Bill Stites 00:02:13
Okay, so I'm going to be very quick. I'll give a
Bill Stites 00:02:15
little quick backstory, one for listeners that don't know, I've
Bill Stites 00:02:19
been to all 30 major baseball stadiums in the United States.
Bill Stites 00:02:22
Trip we took with our family. My son plays college baseball, so
Bill Stites 00:02:26
it's somewhat relevant. Now, when asked this question in the
Bill Stites 00:02:29
notes, it said I had to read it like an announcer, which I'm not
Bill Stites 00:02:31
going to do. But my original thought was just to submit the
Bill Stites 00:02:35
Looney Tunes, Bugs Bunny episode where it was, you know, first
Bill Stites 00:02:39
base bug funny. Second base, Bugs Bunny. Shorts up Bugs
Bill Stites 00:02:41
Bunny. But what my actual list is, okay, is catching. I've got
Bill Stites 00:02:45
Yogi Berra, okay, first base, I've got Lou Gehrig going
Bill Stites 00:02:50
classic. Second base, I've got Jackie Robinson, super classic
Bill Stites 00:02:56
shortstop, I've got Derek Jeter. You can argue that with some
Bill Stites 00:02:59
people. Third base. This is a straight up Homer pick for me as
Bill Stites 00:03:03
a Phillies fan. I've got Mike Schmidt, then in left field.
Bill Stites 00:03:07
I've got Barry Bonds, center field, Ricky Henderson, stealing
Bill Stites 00:03:12
all the bases fast as you can be. Right field, I've got Mike
Bill Stites 00:03:16
Trout, D, H Shohei Otani, and then my starting picture is
Bill Stites 00:03:21
Nolan Ryan, and my closing picture, somewhat of another
Bill Stites 00:03:24
Homer pick here, growing up and spending time in New Jersey, is
Bill Stites 00:03:28
Mariano Rivera The Sandman. Nice, that's the lineup. I've
Bill Stites 00:03:33
got no pink rose. Yeah, you know it's you could argue that with
Bill Stites 00:03:37
me, and I would be happy going there. All right, fair enough. I
Bill Stites 00:03:41
love this
Christina Lewellen 00:03:41
bill. Thank you for sharing that little
Christina Lewellen 00:03:43
nugget. I'm sorry that we didn't get to that on the Ask Me
Christina Lewellen 00:03:46
episode, because you really thought that out. I did. You did
Christina Lewellen 00:03:49
your homework.
Bill Stites 00:03:51
I did. I read through it, I took notes. I
Bill Stites 00:03:54
contacted my son. I said, What do you think? Where would you go
Bill Stites 00:03:57
with this? He interjected a few changes in there, people that I
Bill Stites 00:04:00
had forgotten about and I got the list. So there you go. Is
Bill Stites 00:04:04
that Sean? Yes, that is. Sean, awesome.
Christina Lewellen 00:04:07
Well, thanks Sean for helping dad with his
Christina Lewellen 00:04:08
homework. Really appreciate it. Shout out to Sean.
Hiram Cuevas 00:04:11
We now know that Christina knows baseball players
Hiram Cuevas 00:04:14
more than she knows 5k runners.
Christina Lewellen 00:04:20
That was rough. That was brutal, Hiram,
Christina Lewellen 00:04:22
but I appreciated your answer as well. Well, hey guys, today
Christina Lewellen 00:04:25
we're really excited. We have a very special guest from the
Christina Lewellen 00:04:29
independent school community. I think just about everybody has
Christina Lewellen 00:04:32
to know. Deborah Wilson. Deborah Wilson, thank you. You are the
Christina Lewellen 00:04:35
president of NAIS, the National Association of Independent
Christina Lewellen 00:04:39
Schools. We are so glad that you made time to join us. Thank you
Christina Lewellen 00:04:42
very, very much. I
Unknown 00:04:43
am thrilled to be here. I can't wait to hear where this
Unknown 00:04:46
conversation goes. Give him the kick off around baseball. And I
Unknown 00:04:49
have to say, that's a weak spot for me. Don't
Christina Lewellen 00:04:52
worry. I'll protect you from all of the
Christina Lewellen 00:04:54
sports metaphors and the zombie references when they start, just
Christina Lewellen 00:04:59
not in. Mile. It ends usually within about 20 or 30 seconds.
Christina Lewellen 00:05:03
I'm
Unknown 00:05:03
good for the zombie apocalypse. We can go there all
Unknown 00:05:06
day long.
Christina Lewellen 00:05:08
Oh no. Haha.
Unknown 00:05:09
Christina, haha.
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:14
Deborah, okay. Deborah, what is your melee
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:17
weapon of choice?
Debra Wilson 00:05:21
You know, I haven't got my deep what's
Debra Wilson 00:05:23
yours? Hiram, what's your melee weapon of choice?
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:26
It's from World War Z and it's called the Lobo.
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:32
It's essentially the pike with like a shovel end on it.
Bill Stites 00:05:36
I generally go samurai sword. I want to be like
Bill Stites 00:05:38
Michonne from The Walking Dead. I want to have the samurai
Bill Stites 00:05:42
sword. I'm
Unknown 00:05:43
probably more sword than anything super technical,
Unknown 00:05:46
mostly because when I've played any games and whatnot with my
Unknown 00:05:49
kids, I do better with those kinds of weaponry.
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:53
Suffice to say, we are all saving Christina. We
Bill Stites 00:05:56
are we're circling around Kristina because Kristina
Bill Stites 00:06:00
is useless in the zombie apocalypse. Yeah,
Christina Lewellen 00:06:04
all I got is the OG Buffy, the Vampire Slayer
Christina Lewellen 00:06:07
reference, with the can of hair spray and the lighter, that's
Christina Lewellen 00:06:10
all I got.
Bill Stites 00:06:13
That would work. That would work. Buffy
Debra Wilson 00:06:15
is one of my strengths, too. Kristina, you
Debra Wilson 00:06:17
want to talk about the hell mouth any day like I'm in. I
Debra Wilson 00:06:20
love this. You
Bill Stites 00:06:21
gotta go with Aqua net, though, because that had
Bill Stites 00:06:24
such a high flame content that it was the can of choice. Well,
Christina Lewellen 00:06:28
we have gotten off to a very interesting
Christina Lewellen 00:06:31
start. Poor Deborah, you actually are much, much smarter
Christina Lewellen 00:06:34
than this conversation has walked us down the path. But
Christina Lewellen 00:06:37
please take a moment and kind of tell everybody your background.
Christina Lewellen 00:06:40
You've been the president now of NAIS for a while. You've spent
Christina Lewellen 00:06:44
part of your career there. So you returned to NAIS. Can you
Christina Lewellen 00:06:48
give everybody a sense of your professional journey, in
Christina Lewellen 00:06:51
particular in the independent school
Debra Wilson 00:06:53
space? Rolling back to baseball, momentarily, I
Debra Wilson 00:06:56
grew up in southeastern Connecticut, so Red Sox fans
Debra Wilson 00:07:00
would note that I grew up on the correct side of the Connecticut
Debra Wilson 00:07:02
line. Connecticut, as you might know, is a fierce battleground
Debra Wilson 00:07:06
between Yankees and Red Sox, and my family has gone heavy heavy
Debra Wilson 00:07:11
Red Sox, at least until my younger sister moved to New York
Debra Wilson 00:07:14
City, and she sends us mocking photos of her kids dressed up in
Debra Wilson 00:07:17
Yankee gear. So I went to the Williams school on Connecticut
Debra Wilson 00:07:21
College campus. That was actually my sort of initial
Debra Wilson 00:07:25
introduction to independent schools. My parents were both
Debra Wilson 00:07:29
first generation college graduates, and education was
Debra Wilson 00:07:32
incredibly important to them, so I went to the Williams school. I
Debra Wilson 00:07:36
went to college and went to law school. I started off briefly
Debra Wilson 00:07:40
working at DOJ, doing tax litigation, believe it or not,
Debra Wilson 00:07:44
of all things, I'm a little bit policy wonky and regulatory law.
Debra Wilson 00:07:49
I really enjoy because a lot of times you can find an answer
Debra Wilson 00:07:52
unlike other parts of the law. And while I was doing that, I
Debra Wilson 00:07:55
realized, like, you know, I can do this, but do I really want to
Debra Wilson 00:07:58
do this? I'm sort of a purpose junkie. I think a lot of people
Debra Wilson 00:08:01
in education are sort of purpose junkies. We go into education
Debra Wilson 00:08:05
because we really believe in it. And I'm from a big education
Debra Wilson 00:08:07
family. My mom has a PhD in nursing research, and so even
Debra Wilson 00:08:13
when I was little, she actually taught nursing at a local
Debra Wilson 00:08:15
community college, and her students would practice doing
Debra Wilson 00:08:19
different wraps and bandages and things on us, which we thought
Debra Wilson 00:08:21
was fabulous. That was big fun for us when we were kids. And my
Debra Wilson 00:08:25
stepmother actually taught in the Connecticut public school
Debra Wilson 00:08:28
systems for over 30 years, primarily in special education.
Debra Wilson 00:08:32
So lot of education focus growing up. So I started looking
Debra Wilson 00:08:37
around, and NAIS was actually looking for somebody to do
Debra Wilson 00:08:39
regulatory work. So that was what they first hired me to do.
Debra Wilson 00:08:43
And as I got in there, you know, I was the first lawyer that NAIS
Debra Wilson 00:08:46
had ever hired. And I started doing more support of the in
Debra Wilson 00:08:50
house legal work and getting into, you know, filing briefs in
Debra Wilson 00:08:55
different cases and things like that. And so just like in any
Debra Wilson 00:08:59
good independent school, my job kind of grew with me as I took
Debra Wilson 00:09:02
on more responsibilities. So I ended up being at NAIS that
Debra Wilson 00:09:05
first time for almost 19 years. And during that time, you know,
Debra Wilson 00:09:10
I went from obviously doing regulatory work to supporting
Debra Wilson 00:09:13
the in house work to writing a lot more white papers,
Debra Wilson 00:09:16
coordinating with outside lawyers. There some things that
Debra Wilson 00:09:19
I just do not get in the weeds with like ERISA law would be one
Debra Wilson 00:09:24
of those things, those kinds of pieces. So really kind of doing
Debra Wilson 00:09:28
or coordinating all of the legal work, both for the organization
Debra Wilson 00:09:31
and then looking at the sector. But during that time, also I
Debra Wilson 00:09:34
branched out too into governance. So I co authored the
Debra Wilson 00:09:37
trustee handbook with Donna Oram, and we did a total
Debra Wilson 00:09:40
overhaul of it, and then starting around 2010 2011 I
Debra Wilson 00:09:45
started getting a lot of calls about really student related
Debra Wilson 00:09:49
issues that went beyond the norm. So a lot of calls about
Debra Wilson 00:09:53
student anxiety, depression, students looking to take leaves
Debra Wilson 00:09:57
for mental health purposes. And pretty scary. Things. So more
Debra Wilson 00:10:01
calls about student suicides, of course, advent of technology, a
Debra Wilson 00:10:05
lot of sextortion, the initial advent of sexting and all kinds
Debra Wilson 00:10:10
of things. So it really led me to dive more deeply into student
Debra Wilson 00:10:14
health and wellness. And now I know everybody listening has
Debra Wilson 00:10:18
probably at least heard of, if not, read the anxious
Debra Wilson 00:10:21
generation. So it was sort of the beginning of that. And then
Debra Wilson 00:10:25
at the Southern Association of Independent Schools, my friend
Debra Wilson 00:10:28
Kirk Walker was finally retiring, after being ahead of
Debra Wilson 00:10:32
school and then being at SAIS. And so I kind of wanted to
Debra Wilson 00:10:36
branch out a little bit. So I applied for that position, and I
Debra Wilson 00:10:39
was the president there, starting in 2019 through COVID,
Debra Wilson 00:10:43
and then I started at NAIS in August of 2023 as the president
Debra Wilson 00:10:47
of NAIS. So that's kind of how I ended up where I am today, and
Debra Wilson 00:10:52
it's been fun to be back at NAIS. Obviously, I'm working
Debra Wilson 00:10:54
with colleagues that I worked with for a long time, but then
Debra Wilson 00:10:57
we also have a lot of new faces around the table too, which is
Debra Wilson 00:11:00
fun and energizing.
Christina Lewellen 00:11:02
That's really great. So you're coming
Christina Lewellen 00:11:04
up on two years back at NAIS, tell me a little bit. I'm so
Christina Lewellen 00:11:09
curious to know what your day is like.
Debra Wilson 00:11:12
I'm really curious to know that too. Kristina, my
Debra Wilson 00:11:15
days look like. So I always set aside time every morning and
Debra Wilson 00:11:21
then around midday, in case crisis calls come in. Because I
Debra Wilson 00:11:25
find my days can get very, very booked when I'm having a normal
Debra Wilson 00:11:28
day, when I'm having like a not traveling kind of day, I'll
Debra Wilson 00:11:32
either listen to podcasts while walking the dogs in the morning
Debra Wilson 00:11:35
or starting as early as 730 and might do crisis calls with
Debra Wilson 00:11:39
school leaders of all kinds. So could be heads of schools,
Debra Wilson 00:11:42
associate heads, technology directors, development people,
Debra Wilson 00:11:46
people from other associations, you name it, and it kind of
Debra Wilson 00:11:49
flows from there. So I try to set aside thinking time in the
Debra Wilson 00:11:53
morning. I think better in the morning. I don't know if you all
Debra Wilson 00:11:56
sort of set up your days optimally, but I find if I don't
Debra Wilson 00:11:59
claim time, then I'm going to struggle. So I try to set aside
Debra Wilson 00:12:03
at least a little time to do some writing, do some reading,
Debra Wilson 00:12:06
to catch up on things. And then often, my days can be kind of
Debra Wilson 00:12:10
taken over by just a lot of different meetings. What's going
Debra Wilson 00:12:15
on with the Association, what might be happening with
Debra Wilson 00:12:17
different schools, moving different initiatives forward.
Debra Wilson 00:12:20
And so my afternoons, my my lull in my brain is at about two
Debra Wilson 00:12:24
o'clock. And so I almost always try to have a meeting at two
Debra Wilson 00:12:27
o'clock, because otherwise I just know I'm not as focused as
Debra Wilson 00:12:30
I might be. I do a ton of speaking. So there's usually a
Debra Wilson 00:12:34
couple days during the week where I'm doing some kind of a
Debra Wilson 00:12:37
webinar or some kind of a podcast. I travel almost every
Debra Wilson 00:12:41
week during my busy time. So between this time last year and
Debra Wilson 00:12:46
I know because we're just coming off of our annual conference,
Debra Wilson 00:12:48
between this time last year and this year, like I've gone about
Debra Wilson 00:12:50
330,000 miles, traveling around the country, speaking at
Debra Wilson 00:12:54
different events and visiting different schools. So none of my
Debra Wilson 00:12:58
weeks look the same from week to week. It's nice when I can
Debra Wilson 00:13:03
actually be home for a full week. That's exciting, when I
Debra Wilson 00:13:05
can spend, you know, seven nights in my own bed. That's a
Debra Wilson 00:13:08
big plus.
Christina Lewellen 00:13:09
Yeah, that's a rarity, too, at certain times
Christina Lewellen 00:13:12
of the year around the independent school space. So I
Christina Lewellen 00:13:14
know that feeling for sure, is there a way especially I think
Christina Lewellen 00:13:18
about like, what I would feel like if I had a first thing in
Christina Lewellen 00:13:21
the morning crisis call almost every day you're taking and
Christina Lewellen 00:13:25
receiving a lot of stress. My sister is a psych nurse
Christina Lewellen 00:13:29
practitioner, and I kind of wonder like, where do you put
Christina Lewellen 00:13:32
all of that energy, you know, that comes at you? How do you
Christina Lewellen 00:13:36
let that go from your own world and your own body, is it hard to
Christina Lewellen 00:13:42
start your day with knowing that you're setting aside time to
Christina Lewellen 00:13:46
help put out a fire? So
Debra Wilson 00:13:48
that's a really interesting question. I think it
Debra Wilson 00:13:50
depends on the type of fire. I mean, I've been helping schools
Debra Wilson 00:13:53
manage school crises for almost 25 years, so I've had a lot of
Debra Wilson 00:13:59
these phone calls over time, and it's something that I love,
Debra Wilson 00:14:04
because it's something tangible that I can do to help people
Debra Wilson 00:14:06
talk through things and help them either find the right
Debra Wilson 00:14:09
person, find the right resource to talk them through it, or just
Debra Wilson 00:14:12
talk them through like, what are the different avenues that you
Debra Wilson 00:14:15
can go down? And so, you know, some things are like a really
Debra Wilson 00:14:19
big crisis, and those are really hard, and those are emotionally
Debra Wilson 00:14:22
difficult. Some of them are just people kind of saying, I'm
Debra Wilson 00:14:26
dealing with something really complex. And can you help me
Debra Wilson 00:14:28
sort of see through this a little bit? And I think we all
Debra Wilson 00:14:32
really value having somebody to reach out to and talk through
Debra Wilson 00:14:35
that a little bit and just talk through the different angles. I
Debra Wilson 00:14:39
think I what I bring to the tables. I help people back up a
Debra Wilson 00:14:41
little bit and think about it from a risk management
Debra Wilson 00:14:44
standpoint, kind of once a lawyer, always a lawyer. And
Debra Wilson 00:14:47
just think about like, not just how do you manage that moment,
Debra Wilson 00:14:50
but then how do you go back and say, okay, like, where might we
Debra Wilson 00:14:52
tweak our policies, our procedures, our programs? Do we
Debra Wilson 00:14:56
need different skills around the table to help us make. Manage
Debra Wilson 00:15:00
this from the front end. I mean, ideally, I help schools prevent
Debra Wilson 00:15:04
a crisis rather than deal with a crisis. We're all pretty
Debra Wilson 00:15:07
experienced at managing a crisis, but ideally you want to
Debra Wilson 00:15:10
go back and be like, okay, like, let's make sure that doesn't
Debra Wilson 00:15:12
happen again. So what has to now? What we should be thinking
Debra Wilson 00:15:15
about? So I've done it for so long. I'm sure I absorb a lot of
Debra Wilson 00:15:19
things, but it doesn't set me back a whole lot in my head when
Debra Wilson 00:15:23
I'm talking to people that way. But there are definitely times
Debra Wilson 00:15:27
like during COVID, I think was really hard. That was really for
Debra Wilson 00:15:30
everybody, very emotionally draining, just trying to figure
Debra Wilson 00:15:33
out, how can we do the best thing for kids, you know, and
Debra Wilson 00:15:36
have good because of sort of comprehensive communities
Debra Wilson 00:15:40
engaging in that That, to me, was the most exhausting time. So
Debra Wilson 00:15:45
when I look at now, I mean, there are exhausting things
Debra Wilson 00:15:48
about now too, but nothing like we had back then. I don't know,
Debra Wilson 00:15:51
maybe it's all relative in my head at this point. So
Christina Lewellen 00:15:54
before we kind of zoom in on your thoughts
Christina Lewellen 00:15:58
around technology, which I would love to get to. I'm sure the
Christina Lewellen 00:16:01
guys would too. I want to zoom out for just a second, because
Christina Lewellen 00:16:04
it is unique that we have you as a prominent leader in the
Christina Lewellen 00:16:09
independent school space. I think we would be remiss if we
Christina Lewellen 00:16:12
didn't pause for a moment and ask you big picture, what are
Christina Lewellen 00:16:18
some of the things that you're talking about the most. What are
Christina Lewellen 00:16:21
some of the issues that you're wrestling? You know, when you
Christina Lewellen 00:16:24
have that time to read and think, what are the things that
Christina Lewellen 00:16:28
you think are kind of at the tip of the tongue of most
Christina Lewellen 00:16:32
independent school leaders right now?
Debra Wilson 00:16:34
Yeah, I mean, I think right now, obviously
Debra Wilson 00:16:37
there's a lot of material coming out of DC, and so there's a lot
Debra Wilson 00:16:42
of questions. I've heard people sort of jokingly say they're
Debra Wilson 00:16:44
getting, you know, their law degree on the side, just sort of
Debra Wilson 00:16:47
reading different materials that are coming out of either through
Debra Wilson 00:16:50
executive orders or dear colleague letters and things
Debra Wilson 00:16:53
like that. So, you know, really talking with schools about like,
Debra Wilson 00:16:56
how do you center on your mission vision and values right
Debra Wilson 00:16:59
now and provide consistency in the school community. We've been
Debra Wilson 00:17:05
talking a lot about the Overton window and how the Overton
Debra Wilson 00:17:08
Window is shifting right now on this the Overton Window is sort
Debra Wilson 00:17:12
of this idea that norms shift over time, and so what might
Debra Wilson 00:17:17
have been seen as radical and doesn't even necessarily have to
Debra Wilson 00:17:21
be in, like, a political idea, just sort of like, you know,
Debra Wilson 00:17:23
sort of a cultural concept. What could have been seen as radical
Debra Wilson 00:17:27
a couple months ago was less radical now, or what wasn't
Debra Wilson 00:17:30
radical before is now radical. And so, like, how do you
Debra Wilson 00:17:32
understand where your community is and what it needs in the
Debra Wilson 00:17:36
moment is really where a lot of school leaders are? And I think
Debra Wilson 00:17:40
some of it, you know, kind of getting into our technology
Debra Wilson 00:17:42
conversation. It's not dissimilar, right? Like, when
Debra Wilson 00:17:44
you have so much change in technology, with the advent of
Debra Wilson 00:17:48
AI and people feeling sort of disrupted, right? Like, what are
Debra Wilson 00:17:51
all these new tools? And where is it going? We're creating so
Debra Wilson 00:17:53
much data and big data and small data, and how do we do these
Debra Wilson 00:17:56
things, getting people to sort of say, like, what's right for
Debra Wilson 00:17:59
your community right now in light of what you know, and
Debra Wilson 00:18:03
you're never going to know everything you want to know. So
Debra Wilson 00:18:06
how do you strategize with less than perfect information? Like,
Debra Wilson 00:18:10
that's where a lot of leaders are right now and again, making
Debra Wilson 00:18:14
sure that schools are centering on students not to get too
Debra Wilson 00:18:17
distracted by everything outside and saying, like, okay, all kids
Debra Wilson 00:18:21
have one shot at education. That's it. You don't generally
Debra Wilson 00:18:25
get to do third grade twice. And so how are we creating healthy,
Debra Wilson 00:18:29
stable environments for kids and really focusing on our mission
Debra Wilson 00:18:34
in that way, particularly in a time of so much change?
Bill Stites 00:18:38
So in the mornings, you mentioned listening to
Bill Stites 00:18:41
podcasts, and new view edu is in my steady rotation of podcast
Bill Stites 00:18:47
listen. So thank you for keeping that going and keeping that up.
Bill Stites 00:18:51
It's a must listen for me. But my question for you, and this is
Bill Stites 00:18:55
on a somewhat of a lighter note, what are the podcasts that
Bill Stites 00:18:58
you're listening to in the morning. You know my time to
Bill Stites 00:19:01
listen to podcasts is when I'm driving to and from the gym
Bill Stites 00:19:04
first thing in the morning, when I get it all in, listening at
Bill Stites 00:19:07
one and a half speed so I can click through them all. But what
Debra Wilson 00:19:10
are your top choices? I love that one and a
Debra Wilson 00:19:12
half speed concept. I almost always listen to NPRs, whatever
Debra Wilson 00:19:17
their succinct thing is in the morning, just because it lets me
Debra Wilson 00:19:20
know what's been happening while I've been sleeping. I also
Debra Wilson 00:19:23
listen to future you with Michael Horn and Jeff selingo
Debra Wilson 00:19:28
quite frequently. I listen to Scott Galloway quite a bit,
Debra Wilson 00:19:32
which is kind of fun. He's a little colorful for some folks.
Christina Lewellen 00:19:36
I love it. Though he is a straight shooter.
Christina Lewellen 00:19:39
I love him. Yeah,
Debra Wilson 00:19:40
he's not messing around, and he's not afraid to
Debra Wilson 00:19:43
be unpopular. I do listen to Freakonomics Radio sometimes,
Debra Wilson 00:19:48
like I kind of have sort of a running library, and I kind of
Debra Wilson 00:19:52
look to see what's in there. Biscuits and jam is kind of fun.
Debra Wilson 00:19:56
It's through Southern Living, and I got to know the editor. Of
Debra Wilson 00:20:00
Southern Living a few years ago, and then work life with Adam
Debra Wilson 00:20:03
Grant is another one. Sometimes you can get me kind of dorky out
Debra Wilson 00:20:07
a little bit with econ talk, which is sort of a fun one, and
Debra Wilson 00:20:10
class disrupted before. I think they're off at least. I haven't
Debra Wilson 00:20:14
heard much from them in a while. I was on a big class disrupted
Debra Wilson 00:20:18
thing for a number of years, and that, I don't know, sometime in
Debra Wilson 00:20:21
the last eight months that fell off for me a little bit. But it
Debra Wilson 00:20:24
might be that, like so many other podcasts I was listening
Debra Wilson 00:20:26
to, kind of double down, as you know, once it once it works down
Debra Wilson 00:20:29
in your library like you kind of, you don't forget about it,
Debra Wilson 00:20:31
but other stuff pops up. Thank you. All right, so now,
Christina Lewellen 00:20:35
Deborah, let's zoom in a little bit now
Christina Lewellen 00:20:38
to like some of the technology issues that you're thinking
Christina Lewellen 00:20:40
about and talking about. It sounds like you were mentally
Christina Lewellen 00:20:43
tapped into technology a while ago in your first run with NAIS.
Christina Lewellen 00:20:48
As you mentioned, you were thinking about student health
Christina Lewellen 00:20:51
and wellness, thinking about the terrible things of sexting and
Christina Lewellen 00:20:55
probably cyber bullying and all of that nonsense. But obviously,
Christina Lewellen 00:20:59
technology is just everywhere, touching everything at all times
Christina Lewellen 00:21:04
at independent schools, and now we have aI issues layered on top
Christina Lewellen 00:21:07
of that. So I'd like to just kind of hear your thoughts about
Christina Lewellen 00:21:10
where things stand with technology. Obviously, from the
Christina Lewellen 00:21:14
Atlas standpoint, we believe that technology has become a
Christina Lewellen 00:21:19
specialization within independent schools because of
Christina Lewellen 00:21:23
the fact that it can certainly unlock the mission of a school.
Christina Lewellen 00:21:27
It can be a tool to accomplishing the competitive
Christina Lewellen 00:21:30
differentiation that we're all swimming toward. But then there
Christina Lewellen 00:21:34
are these risk mitigation issues that go far beyond keeping the
Christina Lewellen 00:21:39
network room up and running like it's so complicated it's the
Christina Lewellen 00:21:43
spider web of things, and because of that, Atlas really
Christina Lewellen 00:21:47
approaches technology as if it's this very layered and nuanced
Christina Lewellen 00:21:52
thing that is quite specific to independent schools. So I'm
Christina Lewellen 00:21:55
curious what your thoughts are and how you've seen that evolve
Debra Wilson 00:21:58
over time. When you think back to, like, what
Debra Wilson 00:22:01
technology looked like 25 years ago, I mean, you still, like,
Debra Wilson 00:22:06
you had a lot of tech carts around. And now, when you think
Debra Wilson 00:22:09
about everything, from just when you're building the new school,
Debra Wilson 00:22:13
what are you building for, from a technology standpoint, right?
Debra Wilson 00:22:16
Like, how does all of that work? Or if you're retrofitting an old
Debra Wilson 00:22:19
building and managing that to what's going to happen with
Debra Wilson 00:22:23
really big data out there schools, as they're building
Debra Wilson 00:22:27
their own LMS is that have aI chat bots and like, they're
Debra Wilson 00:22:31
really studying student engagement in different lessons
Debra Wilson 00:22:34
through those LMS systems. Like, how are we guarding that data?
Debra Wilson 00:22:38
How are we thinking about that data? How are we using that data
Debra Wilson 00:22:40
responsibly, it all kind of smears together, right? Like
Debra Wilson 00:22:44
it's no longer these siloed, standalone pieces. And I think
Debra Wilson 00:22:48
people within schools, and we certainly have this in our own
Debra Wilson 00:22:51
Association, people within schools are asking more of
Debra Wilson 00:22:54
technology and more from the data we're collecting, so that
Debra Wilson 00:22:59
nothing is resting by itself anymore, and how you're making
Debra Wilson 00:23:03
choices about what tools your school is adopting, who's making
Debra Wilson 00:23:07
those choices, and if they're delivering on the usability like
Debra Wilson 00:23:11
those are all big things. I think that technology has become
Debra Wilson 00:23:14
so much more central to almost every conversation, and
Debra Wilson 00:23:18
certainly more and more of a seat at the table because you
Debra Wilson 00:23:21
want to be using the right tools and doing things the right way,
Debra Wilson 00:23:24
but also it's really expensive when you do things either
Debra Wilson 00:23:27
improperly, poorly or in an uneducated kind of way, those
Debra Wilson 00:23:32
can be really big mistakes. So one of the things that I think
Debra Wilson 00:23:35
some schools struggle with a little bit is like, Where does
Debra Wilson 00:23:38
this now fit in, into conversations around pedagogy
Debra Wilson 00:23:41
into conversations around operations, right? Like, how
Debra Wilson 00:23:44
does all this technology work together? It's no longer just,
Debra Wilson 00:23:48
are we in an apple or a PC school? It's really about like,
Debra Wilson 00:23:53
how does ADP talk with this system, to the system that we've
Debra Wilson 00:23:57
built to track substitute teachers, to everything else.
Debra Wilson 00:24:01
How does it all work together? There's a lot riding on those
Debra Wilson 00:24:05
decisions, and particularly like how we work with external
Debra Wilson 00:24:08
vendors who help us do the everyday business of schools.
Unknown 00:24:13
So
Hiram Cuevas 00:24:13
Deborah, how has the curriculum changed? For
Hiram Cuevas 00:24:17
example, in the aspiring heads track that NAIS provides in
Hiram Cuevas 00:24:22
terms of getting to the root of many of the questions and the
Hiram Cuevas 00:24:27
scenarios that you've just described, so that aspiring
Hiram Cuevas 00:24:31
heads recognize the importance of tech and make sure that they
Hiram Cuevas 00:24:35
serve as that partner for the head of school so that they can
Hiram Cuevas 00:24:39
make those data driven decisions.
Debra Wilson 00:24:41
Yeah. I mean, I think it's getting all of those
Debra Wilson 00:24:43
leadership programs, you know, they evolve every year to say,
Debra Wilson 00:24:47
like, Okay, what's more central, what's actually really great
Debra Wilson 00:24:50
about aspiring heads is you get a lot more technology people in
Debra Wilson 00:24:54
aspiring heads now than you would have seen a few years ago.
Debra Wilson 00:24:58
So they actually. Wave a lot of flags, like, hey, like, you
Debra Wilson 00:25:01
should know more about this. And we're definitely talking more
Debra Wilson 00:25:05
about just that strategic vision, and how do we look
Debra Wilson 00:25:07
forward? So when you're really talking about people who are
Debra Wilson 00:25:10
aspiring to headship understanding that piece of it,
Debra Wilson 00:25:15
so that, when they're thinking strategically forward, how are
Debra Wilson 00:25:18
they building in that technology piece to it, I mean to me. And
Debra Wilson 00:25:21
one of the things that I talk about a lot with heads and
Debra Wilson 00:25:24
aspiring heads on the road is you have to think about that
Debra Wilson 00:25:29
long term piece and strategically, where is
Debra Wilson 00:25:31
technology going to play into it? Even when you have staff
Debra Wilson 00:25:35
turnover, it's always a question of, okay, like, what does this
Debra Wilson 00:25:38
person do? How does technology there supplement this role, or
Debra Wilson 00:25:42
where might technology be taking some pieces of this role off the
Debra Wilson 00:25:45
table so that we can reconfigure a bit how we're working within
Debra Wilson 00:25:48
the school. And if you're not proactively thinking about that,
Debra Wilson 00:25:52
you're probably missing the boat. Now you're definitely
Debra Wilson 00:25:55
going to be missing the boat in, say, three to five years. As
Debra Wilson 00:25:58
technology becomes bigger, AI becomes more relevant and
Debra Wilson 00:26:03
central to everything that we do. So you know, I think you're
Debra Wilson 00:26:06
seeing those programs evolve more that way. As an
Debra Wilson 00:26:09
organization, we're doing more work around AI, both in terms of
Debra Wilson 00:26:13
what we do internally and what we're thinking about, and just
Debra Wilson 00:26:17
the tools we provide to schools how AI can supplement those, but
Debra Wilson 00:26:20
just also talking more with school leaders and making them
Debra Wilson 00:26:23
more aware of what's out there and how they should be
Debra Wilson 00:26:26
proactively thinking about that when they're looking forward.
Debra Wilson 00:26:30
Deborah,
Christina Lewellen 00:26:30
if I could ask you to Pete a picture of an
Christina Lewellen 00:26:35
ideal school head for today. What does that look like? What
Christina Lewellen 00:26:40
characteristics makes for a good head of school? And my question
Christina Lewellen 00:26:45
comes from a place of empathy and awe, because it seems like a
Christina Lewellen 00:26:51
really difficult job, and there's no way that one human
Christina Lewellen 00:26:55
can have all of this expertise in these complicated scenarios.
Christina Lewellen 00:26:59
So how do you paint the picture of an optimized Head of School?
Debra Wilson 00:27:04
Yeah, I love that question. I do think it depends
Debra Wilson 00:27:06
on the school. I mean, the first piece is, if you are personally
Debra Wilson 00:27:10
aligned with the mission, vision and values of the school, that
Debra Wilson 00:27:13
has always been pretty crucial. But you know, they always say
Debra Wilson 00:27:16
you can't change your spouse, right? You can't change your
Debra Wilson 00:27:19
partner. You're not going to fundamentally change that. And
Debra Wilson 00:27:22
my refrain from that is, if you think that's hard, try to change
Debra Wilson 00:27:24
the DNA of a school. So like, if you're not aligned there, and
Debra Wilson 00:27:29
that varies, right? Like, even schools where the mission,
Debra Wilson 00:27:31
vision values kind of sounds the same between institutions, they
Debra Wilson 00:27:34
don't play out the same way. The culture is not the same between
Debra Wilson 00:27:37
schools. And you can do culture shifts, but you're not, I don't
Debra Wilson 00:27:40
think you're going to fundamentally overhaul a
Debra Wilson 00:27:43
school's culture, at least not in a very short period of time.
Debra Wilson 00:27:46
So that's like the first piece, is that alignment piece? The
Debra Wilson 00:27:51
second is, it's actually something that I worry about,
Debra Wilson 00:27:54
that we're losing with the heads who are retiring right now, is
Debra Wilson 00:27:58
that that ability to, like, take a beat and process this sort of
Debra Wilson 00:28:02
Shoot first, ask questions later. Thing doesn't work very
Debra Wilson 00:28:05
well in our schools, in the nonprofit space. So just how do
Debra Wilson 00:28:08
you encourage people to just like, pause for a minute, take a
Debra Wilson 00:28:11
step back and really look at okay, like, what's our process
Debra Wilson 00:28:16
here? What are our procedures here? How do those reflect the
Debra Wilson 00:28:18
mission, vision and values in risk goals, so that they're
Debra Wilson 00:28:21
acting consistently. It's so hard in a time that feels just
Debra Wilson 00:28:25
so pressurized and so fractured, it can be hard to wait a minute,
Debra Wilson 00:28:29
because you're getting a lot of pile on all at the same time,
Debra Wilson 00:28:32
depending on what the crisis is. So that would be my second one,
Debra Wilson 00:28:36
like just that ability to step back and really understand that
Debra Wilson 00:28:40
bigger picture for a moment, speaking across difference,
Debra Wilson 00:28:44
speaking across different constituencies, and that empathy
Debra Wilson 00:28:47
lens of like, how do I understand where this other
Debra Wilson 00:28:50
person is coming from and what they're telling me? We know that
Debra Wilson 00:28:54
polarization is growing on our campus. It can be pretty big
Debra Wilson 00:28:56
between our faculty and our parents. It can be really big
Debra Wilson 00:28:59
among the parent body. Like there's just, there's a lot of
Debra Wilson 00:29:01
different constituencies that need to be managed, and you can
Debra Wilson 00:29:04
have different groups within those constituencies that also
Debra Wilson 00:29:08
make it pretty complex. So that ability to kind of be a
Debra Wilson 00:29:11
diplomat, to be an ambassador, but also to be an authentic one,
Debra Wilson 00:29:15
so that the community really believes in what you're doing
Debra Wilson 00:29:19
and that you're hearing people and you're trying to navigate
Debra Wilson 00:29:22
the best path forward, I think that's going to consistently be
Debra Wilson 00:29:26
a trait that people really need to manage. And to your point,
Debra Wilson 00:29:30
Kristina, about one person not being able to do it all like
Debra Wilson 00:29:33
somebody I can build trusting teams and really use distributed
Debra Wilson 00:29:37
leadership, and it's so hard to do that, particularly when the
Debra Wilson 00:29:41
schools in crisis, like, you know, the leader necessarily
Debra Wilson 00:29:44
goes from maybe flying at 20,000 feet to flying at 5000 feet. So
Debra Wilson 00:29:48
how do you build a trusting team? How do you trust that
Debra Wilson 00:29:51
team? And then, how do you really use that team
Debra Wilson 00:29:54
effectively? I think, is incredibly crucial. Like you
Debra Wilson 00:29:57
can't manage this by yourself anymore in your. Head. You know,
Debra Wilson 00:30:00
25 years ago, you could still sort of do that, but now that's
Debra Wilson 00:30:05
just a ship people have heard about in terms of day to day and
Debra Wilson 00:30:08
the bigger your school, the more complex your school, the more
Debra Wilson 00:30:10
important that is. I was talking with a former head the other
Debra Wilson 00:30:14
day, and he pointed out, you know, one of the problems with
Debra Wilson 00:30:17
being a leader is you have less control over the day today, but
Debra Wilson 00:30:21
you're still accountable for everything that happens in your
Debra Wilson 00:30:23
institution, right? So it's an interesting kind of dichotomy of
Debra Wilson 00:30:27
leadership that you don't actually get to do as much as
Debra Wilson 00:30:30
you used to do depending on what roles you held before, but
Debra Wilson 00:30:33
you're still accountable for what happens. So building those
Debra Wilson 00:30:36
trusting teams, building that understanding, I think, is
Debra Wilson 00:30:39
really key. I mean, I could go on this list for a long time,
Debra Wilson 00:30:42
but I'll stop after this next one, understanding the business
Debra Wilson 00:30:46
of schools, having a business awareness of how schools run
Debra Wilson 00:30:50
operationally, and that includes technology, it includes budget,
Debra Wilson 00:30:53
and includes the impact of financial aid, or, you know,
Debra Wilson 00:30:57
other tuition offsets, like how All of those things play
Debra Wilson 00:31:01
together, what your levers are and understanding running a
Debra Wilson 00:31:04
school. I was talking to a former head the other day, and
Debra Wilson 00:31:06
he was just talking about the fundamental importance of
Debra Wilson 00:31:09
understanding what goes into maintaining a campus. Just the
Debra Wilson 00:31:13
business side of maintaining a campus, right, including
Debra Wilson 00:31:15
technology. I know people listening can't see Bill and
Debra Wilson 00:31:18
Kristina both like nodding their heads. You know, you have to
Debra Wilson 00:31:21
budget for upgrading technology. You have to budget for the roof.
Debra Wilson 00:31:26
We have some schools that they're incredibly old campuses.
Debra Wilson 00:31:29
Some of them are historic sites, just understanding the business
Debra Wilson 00:31:32
operations of maintaining that, setting that money aside so
Debra Wilson 00:31:36
you've got the budget for it and what it takes to do that you
Debra Wilson 00:31:39
can't ignore that. You can't basically say, you know, I'm
Debra Wilson 00:31:41
sorry, I'm not a numbers person. You have to be a numbers person
Debra Wilson 00:31:45
if you're in a school leadership role these days, lot
Bill Stites 00:31:48
of the conversation has been around, what are the
Bill Stites 00:31:50
problems that we're trying to solve? How we manage in crisis?
Bill Stites 00:31:53
You know, you mentioned your morning. You know, you leave
Bill Stites 00:31:55
time open your morning to deal with those things, and honestly
Bill Stites 00:31:58
say that that aligns a lot with what we deal with in tech,
Bill Stites 00:32:01
because you never know what broker blew up or where do we
Bill Stites 00:32:04
have a water leak that's now like dripping on equipment. You
Bill Stites 00:32:07
know, all of those things. Every day I come in and I just have my
Bill Stites 00:32:10
fingers crossed that I'm going to be able to sit at my desk and
Bill Stites 00:32:13
get to the work of leadership. The question I have for you,
Bill Stites 00:32:18
because again, I think we're in similar boats here is there's
Bill Stites 00:32:22
the day to day crisis mitigation work that we do. We talked on a
Bill Stites 00:32:27
recent show about mitigating burnout, and how do you stay
Bill Stites 00:32:30
fresh? And the crisis stuff can definitely weigh you down, but
Bill Stites 00:32:34
it's the leadership stuff you were talking about the aspiring
Bill Stites 00:32:38
heads program. Talk about the work that I've done and we've
Bill Stites 00:32:41
done here with Atlas, whether it's T list or the conference or
Bill Stites 00:32:45
this podcast, these are the things that excite me, because
Bill Stites 00:32:48
they're the leadership opportunities that we have in
Bill Stites 00:32:51
these areas. So how do you balance that out between the
Bill Stites 00:32:55
idea of dealing with the crisis that comes up, but also having
Bill Stites 00:33:00
that ongoing spark to continue to want to lead. And the second
Bill Stites 00:33:05
part of that is, what are the things that you're working on
Bill Stites 00:33:07
now in that area of leadership that really are exciting you so
Bill Stites 00:33:11
where's the balance? And then what do you like? Yeah,
Debra Wilson 00:33:14
I mean, I guess I love those things that are
Debra Wilson 00:33:16
Spark, like I love having conversations like these.
Debra Wilson 00:33:19
They're fun and remind you of the bigger space you work in. I
Debra Wilson 00:33:23
never lose track of the fact that there really aren't many
Debra Wilson 00:33:26
Tadas by the time I hit a TA DA like, whether it's a conference
Debra Wilson 00:33:30
or some big thing gets launched, I've already moved on to the
Debra Wilson 00:33:32
next thing. I am very aware that really good work happens in
Debra Wilson 00:33:37
small increments, day after day, and that can be a lot of
Debra Wilson 00:33:40
leadership. There are very few moments where you're like, look
Debra Wilson 00:33:42
at me lead those things, right? Where you can, like, look at a
Debra Wilson 00:33:46
week or a month, and you can be like, we had no systems outages
Debra Wilson 00:33:50
whatsoever in this month, right? Like we have hit some finely
Debra Wilson 00:33:53
tuned place where things are happening really well. So I do
Debra Wilson 00:33:57
think about that and it just when I'm having, I don't know
Debra Wilson 00:34:00
maybe it's like a boring streak. I reflect on that a lot like,
Debra Wilson 00:34:03
what have we been doing? Well, day over day that provides
Debra Wilson 00:34:06
consistency, stability and we're working towards our goals. I
Debra Wilson 00:34:10
take a lot of pleasure in that, because I think it's a sign of a
Debra Wilson 00:34:14
good leader. If those things are happening in terms of exciting
Debra Wilson 00:34:18
stuff, I always try to have a couple things going on that are
Debra Wilson 00:34:21
really exciting, while also recognizing, from my current
Debra Wilson 00:34:25
position, I can't be the juggernaut. So it's hard for me
Debra Wilson 00:34:29
to be in charge of many things right now, because so many
Debra Wilson 00:34:32
things kind of come up to me that if I'm specifically taking
Debra Wilson 00:34:36
ownership of a project or two, I can actually become an obstacle
Debra Wilson 00:34:39
because I'm traveling and doing the other stuff. So balancing
Debra Wilson 00:34:44
that out and partnering with like my VPS or my management
Debra Wilson 00:34:47
team around specific projects, I find really exciting. We're
Debra Wilson 00:34:51
working on a couple different projects right now that I think
Debra Wilson 00:34:53
are really exciting. One is sort of an initial grant from E Ford
Debra Wilson 00:34:58
that's tracking the impact of our. Schools on students from
Debra Wilson 00:35:02
low income families, and looking initially at, where are they
Debra Wilson 00:35:07
going to school, and getting into how are they doing in
Debra Wilson 00:35:10
school. We're hoping to open that up over time to helping
Debra Wilson 00:35:15
schools track their alums, so both like from a young alum
Debra Wilson 00:35:19
perspective and beyond and saying, like, okay, like, how
Debra Wilson 00:35:22
can we see the impact of our schools? What are our alums
Debra Wilson 00:35:25
reporting to us overall? And there's exciting things
Debra Wilson 00:35:29
happening in other parts of the industry that could really lead
Debra Wilson 00:35:32
schools to be able to understand the entire student journey, from
Debra Wilson 00:35:35
when kids are pretty young all the way up through college and
Debra Wilson 00:35:38
beyond, to say, like, Okay, how are our kids doing? How are they
Debra Wilson 00:35:41
doing within our schools, and then how are they doing in life
Debra Wilson 00:35:44
beyond it? And so that, to me, is kind of big, cool, Legacy
Debra Wilson 00:35:47
type stuff.
Christina Lewellen 00:35:49
I love that that's very cool. And it kind of
Christina Lewellen 00:35:51
like speaks to the Scott Galloway vibes, right, where he
Christina Lewellen 00:35:55
feels like education is one of the primary ways that we can
Christina Lewellen 00:35:58
unlock social mobility, especially socio economic
Christina Lewellen 00:36:01
mobility in this country. I love that you guys are doing that.
Debra Wilson 00:36:05
Yeah, no, it's very cool, right? And it feeds
Debra Wilson 00:36:07
into, like, chatty work at Harvard, around network and
Debra Wilson 00:36:10
things like that. And so there's just a lot of cool pieces to
Debra Wilson 00:36:13
that. And then another project that we're just at the very
Debra Wilson 00:36:16
beginning phases of. So I'm almost afraid to talk about it,
Debra Wilson 00:36:19
but I'll talk about it a little bit, is helping schools,
Debra Wilson 00:36:22
particularly boards and leadership teams, as they're
Debra Wilson 00:36:25
going into a transition, like a heads transition. So if a head
Debra Wilson 00:36:28
is retiring, if they're moving on to another school, helping
Debra Wilson 00:36:31
the school understand, like, where they really are in the
Debra Wilson 00:36:33
moment. I have a lot of conversations board chairs about
Debra Wilson 00:36:36
going into a head transition, right? What should we know? What
Debra Wilson 00:36:39
does that look like? And my biggest thing is you have to
Debra Wilson 00:36:42
know what problems you're trying to solve, and the board doesn't
Debra Wilson 00:36:45
always know that. And so sometimes, I think we don't
Debra Wilson 00:36:48
always get the right fit, because you're hiring to solve
Debra Wilson 00:36:52
one problem when actually your problem is something else. So
Debra Wilson 00:36:55
you might be hiring a head who's very like program and curriculum
Debra Wilson 00:36:59
oriented, when really what you need is like a fundraiser,
Debra Wilson 00:37:01
enrollment management type thing. All of those skills are
Debra Wilson 00:37:04
really important, but some of them take precedent, depending
Debra Wilson 00:37:07
on what the school is facing. So really looking at the tools,
Debra Wilson 00:37:11
some of which we've already developed, what process can we
Debra Wilson 00:37:14
help schools with to get their hands around that? So not just
Debra Wilson 00:37:18
their operational pieces too, but a little bit of culture and
Debra Wilson 00:37:22
leadership team and like, what skills do you have around the
Debra Wilson 00:37:25
table? And that's, I think, a pretty cool project, and will
Debra Wilson 00:37:28
hopefully help schools as they're going into searches,
Debra Wilson 00:37:32
they're going into transitions, to help them do it a little more
Debra Wilson 00:37:35
eyes wide open and more aware, because it's hard, it's hard to
Debra Wilson 00:37:39
get your hands around that, particularly from a board
Debra Wilson 00:37:42
perspective.
Christina Lewellen 00:37:44
Yeah. And speaking of boards, I'm
Christina Lewellen 00:37:46
interested to go into this realm of governance for just a minute.
Christina Lewellen 00:37:50
It's a big topic. And I think that there's some independent
Christina Lewellen 00:37:53
school boards that are doing the right things, talking about the
Christina Lewellen 00:37:56
right things, supporting their heads. And then there's other
Christina Lewellen 00:38:00
times where we are seeing some churn, where boards just get a
Christina Lewellen 00:38:05
bee in their bonnet about something, and then you are
Christina Lewellen 00:38:07
forcing some kind of disruptive transition. Let's at least
Christina Lewellen 00:38:12
narrow it for you, because I know that's a big topic. So
Christina Lewellen 00:38:15
let's say I am an independent school technology leader, and I
Christina Lewellen 00:38:21
meet you eyeball to eyeball at a cocktail reception, and I say,
Christina Lewellen 00:38:25
Hey, I've been thinking about headship or I'm getting involved
Christina Lewellen 00:38:28
more with our trustees. What are the kind of key elements that I
Christina Lewellen 00:38:32
need to know about independent school boards? What would your
Christina Lewellen 00:38:35
warnings or even your encouragement be in that realm?
Christina Lewellen 00:38:38
I think that they can be tricky, and I don't think all tech
Christina Lewellen 00:38:41
leaders fully understand what their heads are kind of
Christina Lewellen 00:38:45
juggling. So that's kind of the origin of my
Debra Wilson 00:38:47
question. I mean, it's really complex, probably
Debra Wilson 00:38:50
one of the biggest trends I'm seeing around boards right now,
Debra Wilson 00:38:53
and it's been a little bit since before COVID, but I think COVID
Debra Wilson 00:38:57
Definitely triggered this when schools are in crisis or
Debra Wilson 00:39:00
managing something very complex. Boards tend to fly at not quite
Debra Wilson 00:39:05
as high of an altitude a lot of times, you know, the heads are
Debra Wilson 00:39:07
keeping them a little bit more aware. They might have trustees
Debra Wilson 00:39:10
involved in a task force that you wouldn't necessarily have
Debra Wilson 00:39:13
seen trustees involved with 15 years ago. Oh, that's
Christina Lewellen 00:39:16
interesting. So it's almost like we train
Christina Lewellen 00:39:18
them to kind of get in the details a little,
Debra Wilson 00:39:21
yeah, it's not even they're not even inviting
Debra Wilson 00:39:24
them deep into the weeds, but it's more like, I want the board
Debra Wilson 00:39:26
to know about this more, because we're going to hear about this.
Debra Wilson 00:39:31
You know, big topic, particularly in the technology
Debra Wilson 00:39:33
space, that I think is coming up, which is very cool and
Debra Wilson 00:39:35
really exciting, but I think probably a little disorienting.
Debra Wilson 00:39:38
Are like, say, AI textbooks, which, in half the cases, have
Debra Wilson 00:39:43
neither text and nor are they books, right? So, so we need a
Debra Wilson 00:39:46
different name, yeah. So we need a different name. But you know,
Debra Wilson 00:39:49
when you talk to people who are developing these tools, these
Debra Wilson 00:39:51
learning tools, right? And it's in my mind that's sort of like
Debra Wilson 00:39:54
doubling down on the flip classroom or whatever, you know,
Debra Wilson 00:39:57
you're going to run into parents who. Who have read the anxious
Debra Wilson 00:40:01
generation. The main takeaway if you read the anxious generation
Debra Wilson 00:40:04
is that if you are a parent, you will become more anxious. Like,
Debra Wilson 00:40:06
that was at least my takeaway. We have three kids, so you know
Debra Wilson 00:40:10
you're going to get pushback on more screen time for kids. Like,
Debra Wilson 00:40:13
how do you know where is this data going? You know, suspicion
Debra Wilson 00:40:16
around it, or if you're using tools where the AI is grading
Debra Wilson 00:40:20
papers. What does that mean? Like, I think raising awareness
Debra Wilson 00:40:23
with boards, because they know that you might see just managing
Debra Wilson 00:40:27
those communications with the community and the community
Debra Wilson 00:40:30
questions that come out. So I think it's an interesting time
Debra Wilson 00:40:34
in governance, and the heads who are doing this are pretty savvy,
Debra Wilson 00:40:38
and they're reminding boards about the operational and
Debra Wilson 00:40:42
strategic roles and those differences, but I think they're
Debra Wilson 00:40:45
raising awareness around operational issues that might
Debra Wilson 00:40:48
become sort of strategic points of contention, and that can be
Debra Wilson 00:40:52
with parents, it can be with alums, it can be with students
Debra Wilson 00:40:55
like you name it, but they're just much more aware of that and
Debra Wilson 00:40:58
asking the Board to use its influence in The community to
Debra Wilson 00:41:01
help support the school in the direction that it's going. So I
Debra Wilson 00:41:04
think it's important to understand those dynamics and
Debra Wilson 00:41:08
how those might play out, you know, from a staff perspective,
Debra Wilson 00:41:12
in terms of, like, if you're in that role right now within
Debra Wilson 00:41:15
staff, and so if board members are coming to you with, like,
Debra Wilson 00:41:18
sort of strange requests and things making the head, really
Debra Wilson 00:41:20
aware of that, because heads are very much tracking, making sure
Debra Wilson 00:41:24
the board is not overly in the operational weeds. And that can
Debra Wilson 00:41:28
show up right from a technology standpoint, like now, if you're
Debra Wilson 00:41:32
a tech leader in your school, you're managing a lot of data.
Debra Wilson 00:41:35
You're just very aware of how everything flows and so
Debra Wilson 00:41:38
understanding from sort of a health perspective, like a
Debra Wilson 00:41:42
healthy governance perspective, like, where are board members
Debra Wilson 00:41:45
kind of supposed to be, and making sure that your head is
Debra Wilson 00:41:48
aware of some lines are potentially being crossed there,
Debra Wilson 00:41:51
and they might already know about it, and be like, yeah,
Debra Wilson 00:41:53
it's all good. Like, I told this trustee to come and speak with
Debra Wilson 00:41:56
you, but you kind of want to do a gut check on that if something
Debra Wilson 00:41:59
is unfolding in a weird way. I mean, I think relationships with
Debra Wilson 00:42:02
boards are constantly evolving. What I tell heads is, you want
Debra Wilson 00:42:06
good pillars of the community to be your board members. Right
Debra Wilson 00:42:10
now, you want people who really understand what it means to
Debra Wilson 00:42:14
serve on a non profit Board, who really understands your school,
Debra Wilson 00:42:17
really committed to your school's mission, vision and
Debra Wilson 00:42:19
values, because it's a complex time, and sometimes the people
Debra Wilson 00:42:24
who want to be on the board the most are not the people that you
Debra Wilson 00:42:28
necessarily want as your first string of recruitments. A lot of
Debra Wilson 00:42:31
times it's the people who are like, no, like, I'm good. Like,
Debra Wilson 00:42:34
I don't need to be on a board. You're like, yeah, actually, I
Debra Wilson 00:42:36
really need you on the board, because they understand that
Debra Wilson 00:42:39
dance of being really strategic, being pulled down more in that
Debra Wilson 00:42:43
advisory capacity, to the head when they need to be but then
Debra Wilson 00:42:46
going back up to being strategic. You know, I worry
Debra Wilson 00:42:49
sometimes in our industry that we give boards a bad rap,
Debra Wilson 00:42:53
because most boards, they do great work. They support our
Debra Wilson 00:42:56
schools, they support our heads. They understand bringing time,
Debra Wilson 00:43:00
treasure and talent to the table. But when things go
Debra Wilson 00:43:03
sideways, they can get profoundly sideways.
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:07
So Deborah, I have a follow up regarding boards,
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:09
and perhaps if you could shed some light, or some experience
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:13
on how boards have evolved in terms of risk mitigation as it
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:19
relates to technology when they actually take a look at staffing
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:24
needs in light of cyber security, and what that means to
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:28
the overall FTEs for a tech department versus some of the
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:31
institutions that many of our board members work for that have
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:35
dedicated cyber teams, and what has that done to the
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:40
conversations surrounding boards and heads of school. Yeah, I
Debra Wilson 00:43:44
love that question. You're singing my
Debra Wilson 00:43:46
tune, you know. So when I do workshops with boards around
Debra Wilson 00:43:50
risk management, we talk like, about just the whole process of,
Debra Wilson 00:43:53
like, how do you identify risks and like, you know, what
Debra Wilson 00:43:55
processes do you use? You know, more boards are definitely
Debra Wilson 00:43:57
getting interested in risk management. You're seeing what
Debra Wilson 00:44:01
used to be the audit committee or the audit and risk committee
Debra Wilson 00:44:03
now has become like the Risk and Audit Committee. And when I've
Debra Wilson 00:44:06
done this exercise with boards like I'd say nine times out of
Debra Wilson 00:44:09
10 that tech slash cyber security piece is in the top
Debra Wilson 00:44:14
three, almost every single time, right up there with student
Debra Wilson 00:44:17
security. And I think you're underscoring exactly what's sort
Debra Wilson 00:44:21
of at the nub of that is we're seeing more trustees coming with
Debra Wilson 00:44:25
a corporate background, and they understand what their own
Debra Wilson 00:44:28
businesses are doing around cyber security, so they don't
Debra Wilson 00:44:31
tend to get into the staffing needs like that. It's usually
Debra Wilson 00:44:35
coming from the school administration to say, hey, we
Debra Wilson 00:44:37
need more people here, but the question of cyber security, and
Debra Wilson 00:44:41
how are we managing that, particularly given some of the
Debra Wilson 00:44:44
data that our schools are sitting on, whether it's around
Debra Wilson 00:44:47
giving or around admissions, like, just all of that
Debra Wilson 00:44:50
information, as they become more aware of what we've got, they
Debra Wilson 00:44:53
become a lot more interested in like, how are we keeping it
Debra Wilson 00:44:56
secure and asking questions like, saying, like, yeah, I.
Debra Wilson 00:44:59
Want kind of a deep dive on this and through, like, all of the
Debra Wilson 00:45:03
mitigation steps, right? So thinking about policies and
Debra Wilson 00:45:06
procedures and programs and personnel and training and all
Debra Wilson 00:45:09
of those things, but also saying, like, insurance wise,
Debra Wilson 00:45:12
like, where are we with cyber security, and what due diligence
Debra Wilson 00:45:15
are we doing on the vendors that we're using, who are providing
Debra Wilson 00:45:19
the security for some of this data. So that's coming up a lot
Debra Wilson 00:45:23
more, and depending on the size of the school and sophistication
Debra Wilson 00:45:28
of the systems, you get more in depth questions or less in depth
Debra Wilson 00:45:31
questions. But I mean, I think it's definitely a trend that
Debra Wilson 00:45:34
boards are talking about risk more, really focused on it more,
Debra Wilson 00:45:37
and they're very aware of those cyber needs and not heard as
Debra Wilson 00:45:41
much conversation around size of staff, but certainly around what
Debra Wilson 00:45:45
are the schools internal protocols for how they're
Debra Wilson 00:45:49
managing the risk and really looking at that insurance and
Debra Wilson 00:45:52
due diligence piece. The
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:55
reason I bring up the staffing question is I think
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:58
all, just about every Independent School tech leader
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:00
that I have spoken to, cyber has been layered upon them,
Unknown 00:46:05
yeah, totally Yes, in addition
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:07
to AI, in addition to data, data management, etc.
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:11
And so you end up with not necessarily a true professional
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:17
in that vein. And when you start looking at the corporate level.
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:20
Corporate has its own cyber teams, and I think that's the
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:24
hardest part for me to convey to some of the heads of school that
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:27
I've talked to, is the need for a deep dive in terms of looking
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:33
at what skill set your teams possess and where you're headed
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:37
in the future, because oftentimes that operational side
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:41
gets just added on as an additional layer. Think about
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:45
facilities, for example, facilities, all of a sudden, is
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:47
now on our network with all sorts of different things that
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:50
was just another layer that was placed on the IT staff that we
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:54
never, ever thought we were going to have to have your
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:57
monitor, irrigation systems, your monitoring, access control
Hiram Cuevas 00:47:01
lists, etc, but the cyber is such a different specialization
Hiram Cuevas 00:47:05
that I do worry schools may not have the full wherewithal.
Debra Wilson 00:47:10
Yeah, well, and it's a different viewpoint,
Debra Wilson 00:47:12
right, like so, you know, I always have, like, a running
Debra Wilson 00:47:15
list of scary things happening out there, and so the one that
Debra Wilson 00:47:18
came across my desk two months ago now, was around people
Debra Wilson 00:47:22
taking student photos off of school websites.
Christina Lewellen 00:47:26
Oh yeah, with AI,
Debra Wilson 00:47:29
yep. So all of our websites may soon look like
Debra Wilson 00:47:32
Pottery Barn catalogs. I think there's been like one glimpse
Debra Wilson 00:47:35
of, like half of a leg of a person in one Pottery Barn
Debra Wilson 00:47:38
catalog 10 years ago, and that question of, like, who should be
Debra Wilson 00:47:42
thinking about that? There's a student safety and wellness
Debra Wilson 00:47:45
component to it. There's a technology component to it.
Debra Wilson 00:47:49
There's, like, all these pieces. So as these things converge,
Debra Wilson 00:47:53
like, who's thinking about that? I went to a school in New Jersey
Debra Wilson 00:47:56
years ago, and they have cameras all over the place, and they
Debra Wilson 00:47:59
have, like, a security room right where you had 15 screens,
Debra Wilson 00:48:03
20 screens from like, all of the different cameras all over
Debra Wilson 00:48:06
campus. I mean, that was years ago, and now that's so much more
Debra Wilson 00:48:09
integrated into the technology back end than it was about like,
Debra Wilson 00:48:13
those were just like live feeds. There was some recording, but it
Debra Wilson 00:48:15
wasn't integrated into the rest of the school at that time. I'm
Debra Wilson 00:48:19
sure it is now, I think if I went back to that same school.
Debra Wilson 00:48:21
So it really is, like, you know, the motherboard for the entire
Debra Wilson 00:48:25
school, and I think that's a really good strategic
Debra Wilson 00:48:29
conversation for leadership teams to have, and also to say,
Debra Wilson 00:48:33
okay, like, who's on this cross team, and making sure that the
Debra Wilson 00:48:36
technology director is at the table, but that people are very
Debra Wilson 00:48:40
clear, of like, who's got ownership over this, and how are
Debra Wilson 00:48:44
we sharing that information? I mean, I bet you know, the four
Debra Wilson 00:48:47
of us probably just in the time we've been on here together,
Debra Wilson 00:48:51
we've probably all gotten at least 30 emails of different
Debra Wilson 00:48:54
newsletters that spike up different things, right? So how
Debra Wilson 00:48:56
do we share that information when you're working together at
Debra Wilson 00:48:59
a school, and how do you keep working as a group? And who owns
Debra Wilson 00:49:03
what, I think is a real question, because it has shifted
Debra Wilson 00:49:06
over time, and depending on the school, the cyber security
Debra Wilson 00:49:09
concerns can be really big. I mean, look at Power School. Yes,
Debra Wilson 00:49:14
right? Like everybody kind of run around the mulberry bush.
Debra Wilson 00:49:17
You know, Power School was doing its thing, but then everybody
Debra Wilson 00:49:20
was doing, like their own outreach and disclosures and all
Debra Wilson 00:49:23
kinds of things. So who's doing that? Who knows about that? And
Debra Wilson 00:49:27
also, what other resources, external resources, does the
Debra Wilson 00:49:30
school have to help guide them in doing those things? Having an
Debra Wilson 00:49:34
attorney who specializes in technology contracts, but also
Debra Wilson 00:49:39
is very aware of how to do that outreach? When do you have to
Debra Wilson 00:49:44
make disclosures to your families? How can you tell what
Debra Wilson 00:49:47
data has been accessed? All of those kinds of things, I think
Debra Wilson 00:49:50
is really crucial now, in a way that it wasn't years ago. So
Debra Wilson 00:49:54
Deborah,
Christina Lewellen 00:49:54
before we run out of time, I would love to
Christina Lewellen 00:49:57
put it back into the space of. Of what is next for NAIS? You've
Christina Lewellen 00:50:03
been there now for almost a couple years, and my
Christina Lewellen 00:50:05
understanding is that you're sort of moving towards some
Christina Lewellen 00:50:08
longer term strategic conversations. So what do you
Christina Lewellen 00:50:11
think is kind of on the horizon for NAIS? Yeah, the strategic
Christina Lewellen 00:50:15
work
Debra Wilson 00:50:15
is really exciting. We just kicked that
Debra Wilson 00:50:17
off at the conference. We did some initial focus groups and
Debra Wilson 00:50:21
different Round Table kind of conversations. I mean, really,
Debra Wilson 00:50:23
what I'm interested in is hearing from our members, like,
Debra Wilson 00:50:26
what do people really need right now? Like, kind of across the
Debra Wilson 00:50:28
table, and I have a feeling for what some of those things may be
Debra Wilson 00:50:32
like the team. And we could probably almost like place a bet
Debra Wilson 00:50:34
someone some of the things that will come out of these
Debra Wilson 00:50:36
conversations. But I would rather actually know. So we're
Debra Wilson 00:50:40
really doing a deep dive into all of our events. You know, how
Debra Wilson 00:50:44
do we think about leadership when we're looking at the
Debra Wilson 00:50:46
different leadership academies, looking and listening,
Debra Wilson 00:50:49
particularly post COVID and everything else, and then
Debra Wilson 00:50:52
thinking about, okay, like, where are places we can partner
Debra Wilson 00:50:55
across the ecosystem? So Kristina, we've partnered with
Debra Wilson 00:50:59
Atlas any number of times on different things, which is
Debra Wilson 00:51:01
always fun, and looking at more of that. So how do we do that,
Debra Wilson 00:51:05
you know? And at the same time we're looking at dasl, we do a
Debra Wilson 00:51:09
ton of data collection, and, you know, helping schools understand
Debra Wilson 00:51:12
their data. We're playing around like everybody else with AI in
Debra Wilson 00:51:16
that. Like, how can AI help our school leaders understand their
Debra Wilson 00:51:19
data better? And like, what does that mean? What does that look
Debra Wilson 00:51:22
like, while also balancing security risks and making sure
Debra Wilson 00:51:26
that AI is not hallucinating with school data? There's a long
Debra Wilson 00:51:29
road to go there, but really doing more of that, I think
Debra Wilson 00:51:33
you'll see some of our strategy lab work continue, but also
Debra Wilson 00:51:37
looking at like, how do we partner with schools in longer
Debra Wilson 00:51:40
term when they're working with bigger projects. One thing that
Debra Wilson 00:51:43
we hear a lot is, you know, it's expensive to hire consultants.
Debra Wilson 00:51:46
It's expensive to do these different things. So given how
Debra Wilson 00:51:49
many small or small or medium sized schools are out there,
Debra Wilson 00:51:52
like, how can we help them do the things you're trying to do
Debra Wilson 00:51:56
without just the extreme costs that go with it? And you know,
Debra Wilson 00:52:00
we are tracking that heads turnover too. So how are we
Debra Wilson 00:52:03
developing leaders, you know? So how do we shore up the
Debra Wilson 00:52:06
leadership pipeline? But then also, how do we help leaders
Debra Wilson 00:52:09
have more successful starts at their schools and, like, really,
Debra Wilson 00:52:12
get them to that second contract? So how do we support
Debra Wilson 00:52:16
them? How do we support their boards, and that partnership
Debra Wilson 00:52:18
between the two and, you know, and you know, and I mentioned a
Debra Wilson 00:52:21
couple of the other pieces that we're working on that are kind
Debra Wilson 00:52:23
of exciting. So I mean, I think there's a lot of exciting, fun
Debra Wilson 00:52:26
stuff ahead, and continuing to support our schools in complex
Debra Wilson 00:52:31
and dynamic times is, you know, always front of mind. So again,
Debra Wilson 00:52:35
good work, day after day, looking at these long term
Debra Wilson 00:52:38
goals, but then also saying, like, Okay, people need stuff in
Debra Wilson 00:52:40
the moment too, and meeting those needs, as you know, like
Debra Wilson 00:52:44
working with our schools, it's a gift. Absolutely, education is
Debra Wilson 00:52:48
complex, but people really want to do the right thing, and they
Debra Wilson 00:52:51
want to do the right things by their communities and centering
Debra Wilson 00:52:55
around students. And that's just such good, purposeful work. So
Debra Wilson 00:52:59
that, to me, is fun
Christina Lewellen 00:53:00
every day that is incredible. And just
Christina Lewellen 00:53:03
know, yes, Atlas is 100% in whenever you're looking for
Christina Lewellen 00:53:08
partnership, we love working with your team, and we love
Christina Lewellen 00:53:11
creating resources that are beneficial for both aspects of
Christina Lewellen 00:53:15
our community. And so I wish you the absolute best of luck. I
Christina Lewellen 00:53:19
have no doubt that you and your team will do incredible things
Christina Lewellen 00:53:22
and that there's really great things ahead for NAIS. Deborah
Christina Lewellen 00:53:26
Wilson, thank you so much for joining us today and giving all
Christina Lewellen 00:53:29
of this time and incredible knowledge. We're so grateful to
Christina Lewellen 00:53:32
you.
Debra Wilson 00:53:33
Well, thank you so much for having me. This has
Debra Wilson 00:53:34
been very fun on a blustery and rainy day.
Christina Lewellen 00:53:38
It's our favorite coffee date of the
Christina Lewellen 00:53:40
week, we always say
Peter Frank 00:53:43
this has been talking technology with Atlas,
Peter Frank 00:53:45
produced by the Association of Technology Leaders in
Peter Frank 00:53:48
Independent Schools. For more information about Atlas and
Peter Frank 00:53:51
Atlas membership, please visit the atlas.org if you enjoyed
Peter Frank 00:53:56
this discussion, please subscribe, leave a review and
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school community. Thank you for listening. You.