Schools of Excellence: The No. 1 ECE & Private School Leadership Podcast

In today’s episode, I speak with a close friend and guest expert, Sally Haughey, CEO and Founder of FairyDust Teaching. FairyDust started in 2010 as a space for Sally, an early childhood educator to blog out her thoughts and ideas. She was in a highly academic setting and still wanted to bring in the wonder to her classroom. From there it expanded and grew. FairyDust Teaching has cultivated a comm...

Are you the kind of school leader that is obsessed with results? Do you find it hard to celebrate the small milestones that your school crosses and constantly in pursuit of ticking the next box? Do you constantly beat yourself up for not achieving certain goals? Well, you could be suffering from perfectionism! Yes, that’s a thing! In today’s episode, I speak about the 3 important steps to follow i...

Sara Schreiner is the owner of sunshine Academy in Laurel Montana. She's married to Greg and the two of them have two children; Sophia-Jo and Wyatt who is six. Sara cares deeply about her team and the families that she serves. And her unshakable optimism and her mindset to be in the pursuit of excellence are truly remarkable. Sara has 25 teachers, 120 families, and 135 children that she's been ent...

As a school leader, the urgent demands of life will always fight for your attention. And so you need to decide what gets your attention, not the other way around. Your ideal week is a week that you would have 100% control of what you could do with your week. If your week included all the things that could nourish you and your family, and take you closer to your legacy and impact, what activities w...

Jennifer Bulmer is the owner of Juvenescence Child Development Centre in Calgary, Alberta - in Canada. She is a proud mom to 2 teenage daughters ages 13 and 15. Jennifer’s humor, emotional intelligence, and wit consistently come across in our conversation today. Her attitude of “it's all gonna work out and be okay” has served her very well in life.    With 25 teachers, 85 families, and 110 childre...

So many of us get caught up in the different types of support that we need.  Sometimes we think we only need financial support, or bookkeeping support, or tax accounting, or team support. And really, those are all peripheral. Those are all kinds of outside contextual things that every school leader needs.  In today’s episode, I talk about the six types of support that you specifically need for you...

It's the last day of the Build to Last Workshop! Directors and owners spend on average 4 hours solving fielding and solving problems from teachers a day.  4 HOURS!  Navigating conflict is 90% of your job.    This is why so many school leaders before joining our program are working 13 hour days, nights, and weekends.  They are busy managing conflict all day that the only time they have to finish th...

Today is Day 3 of the Build to Last Workshop Series! In today's training, I discuss how to build a culture of excellence: Do you want staff that show up excited to work? Staff that supports each other? That don't have constant excuses and excessive call-outs? Staff that take responsibility and pride in their work?   Today I'll cover: How do you envision a culture of innovation and risk-taking? Why...

Are you ready to create a calendar that serves you and leads to NO MORE INTERRUPTIONS? So many directors and owners come to me and tell me they are so overwhelmed or that they are working 12 hour days because they have too long to-do lists or because they are wearing too many hats in their school. It DOESN'T have to be that way. Today I discussed: 3 Myths of the school leaders time “I always need...

Welcome to Day 1 of the Build to Last Workshops! Here's what you'll learn in Day 1 all about mindset and leadership: ✅ The 3 Pillars of Building a School of Excellence ✅ Leadership drills ✅ Set boundaries ✅ Relieve stress and invite calm into your life I know that we've had a hard year collectively. I want to show the tools and strategies so that you can navigate your life with more confidence...

Investing in yourself is very scary because you have to take a bet on yourself. Yet it is one of the most valuable things you can do for yourself because growth doesn’t just happen, you need to make an intentional plan for it. Over time, I have realized that most leaders are afraid of investing in themselves simply because they don’t know if they are worth it! In today’s episode, I address this fe...

Alex Bernath & Miken Oliver lead the Nourish Early Learning Center in Oregon, Ohio. Alex actually lives in Brooklyn, New York, and leads the center from there with her husband Josh and her two children ages one and three. Miken is the director of the day-to-day and is married to Tim and a mom of three children, ages five, three, and one. They have a pretty large center of 25 teachers, 95 families,...

May is an incredible time for reflection regardless of whether you run a 10-month or a 12-month academic school year. End-of-year reflections serve two important purposes - a gauge for determining how we can continuously improve on our processes and a reminder of the kind of mistakes we've made so that we can avoid making them in the subsequent years. The only way to have awareness of how far you'...

Kathy Gray is the owner of Creative Creators Learning Centers in Williamsburg, Virginia. Kathy has 3 daughters ages 17-25 and regularly hangs out with them and has weekly trivia night. She leads 78 teachers, over 380 families, and has been through her share of challenges and personal health scares with her husband Curt.    Kathy is an inspiration to school leaders everywhere for what's possible wh...

Do you run your day, or does your day run you? Do you feel pulled in so many directions to the extent that you hardly can take a rest? I feel you. As a school leader, there are so many things you need to focus on. Yet the most constrained resource that you can never get back or never get more of is your time. This is why you need to be so vigilant about what your time is spent on! In today's episo...

The first positive COVID case in Seattle Washington was announced in February 2020.  As the rest of the nation went about their regular lives, Kerstin Brinson - the executive director at Kids Center - felt disbelief and shock as she bore witness to people going about their regular lives while it was already wreaking havoc on her 2 locations.  As a leader of 50 teachers, over 100 families, and 150...

Today’s episode is the final one in the four-part series of the Four Shields of Difficult Conversations. So far, I have talked about blaming, crying and deflection. Today I’ll be talking about the final shield - victimhood.  Do you ever come across teachers whose life is a series of drama that is never their fault? They could be suffering from the victim mentality! When challenges occur in life, i...

Listen Friday mornings for new episode releases of the Stories of Resilience Series during May and June -- Today, tomorrow, and for an indefinite future We face the challenges of the ever-changing landscape of education. Our schools have seen hard times before In each of these cases the school leader's character, values, resilience, and mental strength have been put to the test. I'm excited to rel...

The COVID crisis took a huge toll on the educational landscape and school leaders struggled to rise to the ever-changing obstacles that were thrown their way sometimes every hour! We are still reeling with consistent uncertainty, ambiguity, and chaos. Leaders are trying to make sense of it all and rebuild their cultures and trust with the teams and the families.   This 6 part series are stories of...

As a school owner, you can agree with me that being the boss can be more difficult and less fun than most people think. The biggest challenge? The staff members at your school. Even if you're a born "people person," being in a position of authority means making tough choices, having tough conversations, and often finding yourself in a tough spot.  During tough conversations, you may have noticed s...

Gratitude and appreciation need to be a habit - a constant in your life. And having a week in a year that is focused on key stakeholders that drive success in your school, is really special. It shows that you value them, and reinforces a culture you'd want to see in a school of excellence. While we may not remember every single detail of what happens in our lives, we will always remember specific...

When leaders fail, their failure is highly attributed to their lack of preparation. As school owners, we tend to work really hard on executing our plans, but we also want to take time to look ahead, predict, understand cautions and traps that we might fall into if our plans are not actualized. We must be ready. We must be prepared. We must lead.   In today’s episode, I share predictions on how bes...

Let’s face it, when a teacher starts to cry during a difficult conversation, it can make even the most experienced school owner uncomfortable.  It’s hard to know what to do, and our own emotional reactions can get in the way of thinking clearly.  In today's episode, I tackle the second shield used by teachers when a difficult conversation comes up - crying. It's not the actual conversation that ca...

Like it or not, schools are home to a number of difficult conversations. Discussing topics such as... pay and benefits Inappropriate behavior Underperformance These can be uncomfortable. But having successful one-on-one conversations is what separates great school leaders from ineffective ones. Difficult conversations may not be fun, but school leaders who navigate them successfully can build stro...

Ready to roll back emotional exhaustion and recharge your workplace?   Employee morale doesn’t simply translate into how happy your people are; it’s a direct reflection of how healthy your school culture is, how well you and other leaders are communicating with teams, and how effective your managers are. High morale only occurs when employees feel taken care of by their school. And because this ye...