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Small Schools Symposium:
Opportunities and Challenges of Small Communities
An NWAIS Workshop Series to support senior leaders, heads of school and trustees guiding the work of schools with student populations of under 200 students.
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
9:00 - 10:30AM PT / 10:00 - 11:30 AM MT
REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN
Audience
The series is designed to be broadly applicable to heads of school, trustees and senior leaders whose roles intersect with the board. This course will build skills and strategies for those who are looking to move initiatives forward, seize new opportunities,
and move schools onward to their next stage of development .
Workshop Series Description
Small schools have their own challenges and opportunities. Members of the community: parents, students and faculty are known and seen. Sure, resources are constrained, and staff are limited, but small schools are also able to react nimbly to changing
market conditions and seize opportunities without becoming mired in bureaucracy.
Join national thought leaders, and local school leaders and others who work in small schools for this four-part virtual series to explore how small schools can take advantage of their unique characteristics to create vibrant cultures that fuel their distinct
missions.
Outcomes
Through the workshop series, participants will develop a deeper understanding of the national landscape for small schools and how those national trends are impacting schools right here in the NWAIS region.
Schools will leave with:
- a renewed sense of the national market trends for small schools
- inspiration from local schools leveraging their size to do great work
- newly developed and workshopped plans for launching your next initiative, and
- new tools to bring your school to its next phase of development
Session Descriptions
Dec 10, 2024 - 9:00-10:30am PT / 10:00-11:30pm MT
Session 1 | Keynote: Thriving Small Schools: Leading and Governing in Partnership with Brooke Carol
The issues that small independent schools face are complex, varied, and often quite distinct from those their larger counterparts face. In a time of disruption for all schools, including staffing shortages, social unrest, and financial stress, small schools
are impacted differently than larger schools. Yet small schools also have many uniquely positive characteristics that can help them address and overcome challenges. In this session, we will consider the unique characteristics of small schools and
how leaders and board members can work collaboratively and strategically to support their schools to thrive.
We will frame the conversation by considering the distinct benefits and challenges of leading and governing a small school. We will then ground ourselves in the Governance as Leadership model, and the understanding that effective governance is a critical
factor in sustaining a healthy school. We will discuss board and head roles and responsibilities and will focus specifically on collaborative financial modeling, planning, and oversight. There will be ample time for participants to hear and learn
from others throughout the session. Participants will leave with a renewed sense of focus on the amazing benefits of small schools and how collaborative leadership and governance will enable their own schools to thrive.
Jan 7, 2025, 9:00-10:30am PT / 10:00-11:30pm MT
Session 2 | Big Thinking in Small Schools: Structures for Taking on Ambitious Initiatives with Limited Resources with Julie Kalmus (Head of The Little School) and Barbara Frailey (Head of Explorer West)
What are the barriers to bigger strategic action in smaller organizations and what are the ways to overcome them? This session will investigate the unique challenges that small schools face when moving bold initiatives from ideation to implementation
and offer tools that small school leaders and Boards could employ in pursuit of their vision. Bring initiatives you are exploring for a project tuning session with other small school thinkers to add strategy and action to your work.
Feb 11, 2025 - 9:00-10:30am PT / 10:00-11:30pm MT
Session 3 | Rewriting the Rules of Development in Small Schools with Mattingly Messina
This session challenges the conventional wisdom of development and offers Heads, Trustees, and other leaders’ new ways to structure the responsibilities of a Development Director in a lean, small school environment.
Small schools can achieve significant progress in development, even with minimal dedicated staff, by adopting an approach that involves:
- Integrating development efforts into the school's overall financial and enrollment strategy
- Distributing development responsibilities across various teams and departments
- Simplifying operations to avoid time-consuming processes
- Prioritizing relationship management above all else
This session explores how schools can effectively advance their development goals, whether they have a small team, a single person, or no full-time development staff at all.
Mar 11, 2025 - 9:00-10:30am PT / 10:00-11:30pm MT
Session 4: Case Studies From Intentionally Small Schools -
Join two heads of school to learn about how they have fostered successful initiatives that have contributed to their schools stability and success. Each presentation will focus on how you can bring these ideas back to your own school community.
Case Study 1: Sustainability – strengthen your small school and magnify hope with Barry Wright (Head of the Perkins School)
Head of School Barry Wright talks about how his small school has undertaken numerous hands-on sustainability projects which have become core facets of the school’s identity and a key component of the school’s strength and success.
Case Study 2: Focusing on Attrition - Analyze your schools attrition rate to focus on your enrollment goals with Dominic Kehoe (Head of Gig Harbor Academy)
Head of School Dominic Kehoe shares his experiences of how measuring and creating a wholistic plan to mitigate student attrition has helped his school further its enrollment goals and create a more unified school culture.
About our Guest Speakers
Keynote Facilitator: Brooke Carroll, Ph.D.
Brooke Carroll is the Principal Consultant and Coach at Acies Strategies, supporting small schools in leadership development, board development, and strategic thinking and planning. She is a small school champion and author of the book Governing the Small
School: Strategies for Boards. Dr. Carroll holds a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Minnesota and has nearly 30 years of experience leading schools and nonprofits. She has served on eight school and non-profit boards in various
roles and is an ICF-certified leadership coach. Prior to consulting and coaching, Dr. Carroll was Head of School for nine years at Seneca Academy, an International Baccalaureate World School. You can find her at www.aciesstrategies.com..
Workshop Leader: Mattingly Messina
Mattingly Messina is the Founder of Throughline, a consulting firm dedicated to independent school advancement and governance. He previously served as the Director of Advancement at Bentley School in the San Francisco Bay Area, and currently serves as
a Trustee at St. Margaret’s Episcopal School in Orange County, CA. Mattingly also spent multiple years as an in-house legal negotiator at Google and specialized in regulatory litigation. He lives in San Francisco, CA.
Contributing Heads of School
Barbara Frailey
Head of School
Explorer West Middle School
Julie Kalmus
Head of School
The Little School
Dominic Kehoe
Head of School
Gig Harbor Academy
Barry Wright
Head of School
The Perkins School
Registration
Registration is now open!
Participants will register for the full series. In the case that you are not able to attend all four sessions in real time, all registrations include access to session recordings. Registrations are non-transferable and access is limited to the person
who has registered. Recordings should not be shared.
Pricing
Registration includes access to all four workshops and recordings*
Member Schools | $135
Non-Members | $235
*
Links to recordings will remain active for one month following each session.
Clock Hours, STARS Credits, and Certificates
This course is eligible for a total of 6 in-service hours / credits.
A session sign-in sheet will be provided in a follow up email following each session to note your attendance. To receive full credit for your participation in this course, you will need to sign in for each session you attend. You may also request
a certificate of participation via this sign-in sheet.
Please make sure to check any spam or promotional folders in your inbox, as our emails tend to get misclassified.
For more information on Continuing Education Units, please visit our CEU FAQ page.
If you have any other questions, contact NWAIS Program Coordinator & Registrar, Vivian Hoang.
Cancellation
Substitutions may be made any time prior to the first workshop. Written cancellations received for courses prior to the first workshop are eligible for a refund after a $50 cancellation fee.
Still have questions?
Please feel free to reach out to any of us for the following:
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