The Private School Leader Podcast

I don’t like snowplows. When I see a snow plow, that means that the roads are snow covered. I don’t like driving on snowy roads, especially because of the hilly terrain where I live. There’s also another reason that I don’t like snow plows. For the 21 years that I was a Head of School, getting our school’s parking lot plowed always seemed to be a recurring source of stress. There is something that...

I listen to a lot of Sports Talk Radio. At this time of year, the NFL playoffs give everyone a lot to talk about. But, after the Super Bowl, the hosts of the local and national shows have to try pretty hard to manufacture topics. Inevitably, one of the hosts will start talking about the GOAT in every sport. Of course, GOAT stands for the Greatest Of All Time. In my opinion, the GOATs in the four m...

On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia Airport, bound for Charlotte. Just 94 seconds after takeoff, the plane struck a flock of geese. Both engines failed, at just under 3,000 feet, over one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger had just seconds to make a decision. Try to turn back to LaGuardia? Try to make it to Teterb...

If you watch TV between Christmas day and New Year’s Day, you will see a lot of commercials for gym memberships. In fact, if you watch the New Year’s Eve coverage from Times Square, you will immediately notice that Planet Fitness is the exclusive sponsor of the big ball drop. Of course, gym memberships are being advertised because the most common New Year’s resolution is to get in better shape. Un...

If you have listened to even a few episodes of this podcast, you know that I like lists. It might be “The 4 Strategies To…” or “The 5 Secrets Of…” , but I love to organize my thoughts into lists. I especially love “Year-End Top 10 Lists”, like: the top 10 movies of the year or the top 10 books or TV shows of the year. With that in mind, I have looked back over the last 52 episodes and pulled out w...

We all have pet peeves. For some reason, most of mine tend to happen at the grocery store. It bugs me when the person in front of me has 35 items in the “10 items or fewer” lane or when someone is walking really slowly or taking up the entire aisle with their cart. My latest pet peeve has to do with the ubiquitous pop up ads that appear anytime I am trying to read something online. Even worse, the...

On June 21, 1985, a domestic flight in Norway (Braathens SAFE Flight 139) was hijacked mid-flight. The aircraft was a Boeing 737, carrying 121 people (116 passengers and 5 crew.)  The hijacker had an air gun that looked real, and claimed that he had planted explosives on board. His demands: speak to the Prime Minister of Norway and the Minister of Justice of Norway. Everyone remained calm and...

Back in the summer of 2021, one of my daughters was driving a Chevy CRUZE with over 110,000 miles on the odometer. She needed to trade it in and get a more updated used car, with less miles on it. We found a car that she liked and got a car wash on the way to the used car lot. We vacuumed the inside and even paid extra to get the shiny stuff sprayed on the tires. It looked great! Unfortunately, on...

A little bit of fire, under control, is a good thing. I love grilling in my back yard and a hot dog always tastes better straight from the grill. When my daughters still lived at home, we would really enjoy making S’mores over our fire pit. Once a year, we would go to a Christmas village to look at the lights and we would always warm up with some hot chocolate by the bonfire. Unfortunately, fire i...

Do you have any fragile kids at your school?  Do some of your students give up easily when faced with a challenging problem or concept? Are your students sometimes too worried about “looking smart?”   Do any of your students get extremely upset when they make a mistake on an assignment or get a question wrong on a test? Do any of your students get really anxious about the grades that the...

I know that the title of today’s episode is a little bizarre, but just trust me. I promise, by the end of this episode, you’re going to see how the heroes from The Hunger Games and Star Wars can help your school save tens of thousands of dollars every year. I want you to imagine that every gas station in your town, except one, suddenly started charging $28 a gallon instead of $4. Would you drive a...

I was a private school leader for 33 years. When I think back on some of my favorite things about my job, a few things immediately come to mind: Spirit Days and seeing all the kids dressed up and having fun Home basketball games on a Friday night with the pep band playing and lots of school spirit on display Graduation Day, especially watching a kid that came a long way finally get their diploma W...

I want you to use your imagination.   Imagine that you are a stick figure. Now imagine that this stick figure has a sponge for a heart. You go through your day and your sponge keeps absorbing other people’s emotions. The grumpy board member on the phone. The teacher who is upset that his curriculum hasn’t arrived yet. The parent that is in your office tears. The new student who is sitting alo...

What do the following four things have in common? A meatloaf recipe The 2nd grade math curriculum The NFL rulebook A grading rubric  They are all examples of frameworks. Frameworks give us structure. They give us a clear guide on how to do something, but leave a little room for interpretation. As private school leaders we use dozens of frameworks every day, like the bell schedule or the stude...

Has this ever happened to you? You are standing in front of your faculty about to introduce a new initiative, policy or school-wide roll out of some sort. Before you even open your mouth, you notice one of your veteran teachers seated at the back of the room. After you say your first three sentences, you notice that this veteran teacher has their arms crossed, they look upset and they are whisperi...

About 5 years ago, one of my daughters bought a 2018 Hyundai Sonata. Before buying this car, she did a ton of research because she was looking for one very specific feature. It wasn’t the stereo system or heated seats. It had nothing to do with the engine or if the car had power windows. She wanted a car that had blind spot detection. I had never ridden in a car with this feature, but there are se...

It was Field Day 2005 and I was just trying to be helpful. I arrived at the field early and asked Mrs. Ankney if there was anything that I could do. She asked me to use the manual line painter and paint the finish line for the 50 yard dash and the 100 yard dash. She had already set up the cones, I just needed to walk in a straight line, from cone to cone, and squeeze the handle on the line painter...

Several years ago, I was meeting with the mom of a 6th Grade boy. She looked me in the eye and said, "If you don't put my son into Pre-Algebra 6, then I'm going to pull both of my kids out of the school." Immediately, I felt my blood pressure rise, my pulse quicken and I started to get a weird feeling in my stomach. If I told her “no,” I ran the risk of her pulling her two children out of the scho...

Just a heads up that the next few sentences are going to be gross. We have all heard the phrase, “death by 1,000 cuts.” This phrase actually comes from an ancient Chinese form of execution called Lingchi , which literally translates to "slow slicing." It was a brutal and symbolic form of torture meant to inflict maximum suffering over time. Of course, in modern language, it describes the fact that...

Has this ever happened to you? You are at school or at an event and you are surrounded by parents, teachers and students. You are surrounded by hundreds of people, but you feel totally isolated and profoundly alone. I remember this happening to me one year at my school’s holiday concert. I went up to the microphone and cheerfully welcomed everyone and told them how much time their children had spe...

12 years ago, Leo’s mom asked me a question. To this day, her words still send a chill down my spine.  "So, are you saying that you have no idea where my child is right now?" And I had to say, “That’s correct.” It was dismissal time on the first day of school, in late August of 2013. Leo got on a bus that we thought was the correct bus. It was a small bus and Leo was the only passenger. Five...

On May 21, 2018, 19 year old Cedella Roman, a French citizen, was visiting her mother in White Rock, British Columbia. Cedella decided to go for a run on the beach and she headed south. After running for about 30 minutes, Cedella saw two men walking towards her and they motioned for her to stop. To her surprise, they were US Border & Customs Agents. She had accidentally jogged over the border...

Is it just me or does it seem like more people are getting more angry, more quickly? I am seeing people go from 0-100 in 2.2 seconds over things that didn’t used to be that big of a deal, like: An overcooked steak at a restaurant Someone’s opinion on the Internet The way that the cashier is bagging someone’s groceries An umpire calling strike three at a Little League baseball game. Not a big deal,...

If you have listened to even one episode of this podcast, you know that I really like to talk about a few leadership traits that are super important for you to be successful as a private school leader. especially: Integrity Empathy Emotional Intelligence Resilience But what if I told you that there is a very important leadership trait that most leaders neglect and it is actually holding you back?...

About 3 years ago, the 5th grade boys at my school were obsessed with juggling. I don’t know how it started, but about half of them were juggling all the time, especially at recess.  I remember thinking: “That looks really difficult.”   Recently, I have been thinking about how a professional juggler is like a private school leader. Sometimes we say, “I’m juggling a lot right now” or we r...