Leading with Vision: Insights from NAIS President Debra Wilson on the Future of Independent Schools

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

Peter Frank 00:53:59
share this podcast with your colleagues in the independent

Peter Frank 00:54:02
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