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

You can have a leadership team, directors, job descriptions, titles, and processes. And somehow the school still works because you're the one underneath it all, noticing, anticipating, remembering, and asking the next question.

From the outside, it looks like you've built something that runs. From the inside, you're the invisible operating system.

In this episode, I sit down with Kris Saburn, an executive director who has spent 35 years in childcare. Kris has a center director, an administrative specialist, and a teacher mentor on her leadership team. On paper, she has plenty of help. And for years, she was still running in survival mode.

• Why a full leadership team doesn't automatically mean a school that runs without you
• The open door policy myth that keeps directors working 60-hour weeks
• Why so many women in leadership give to everyone except themselves, and what it takes to receive care
• The difference between being lonely at the top and drowning in plain sight
• Why questions build more leadership capacity than answers ever will
• How constant updates can be a form of soothing your own anxiety
• Why trust is built through evidence your body experiences, not through pep talks
• The skills Kris built that help her face licensing citations and hard conversations without losing sleep
• What happens when you only seek support in a crisis

Connect With Us

Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com

Join Schools of Excellence on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

I don't bring guests onto this show very often. Most weeks it's just you and me, working through leadership, one honest conversation at a time. But every so often I want to hand you a different voice, because getting to witness yourself in someone else's story is powerful in a way I can't always create alone.

This week that voice is Kate Young. Kate and I have been friends for a while, along with her cousin Carrie, and we've done a lot together in the childcare space through our ongoing "Childcare Conversations." She's spent the last 30 years in early childhood education, she's a mom of four, and she's here to talk about her new book, Authority Without Apology.

The book is about the women who are holding down entire industries — including ours — and getting zero recognition for it. Kate told me flat out: accomplished women don't need more credentials. We need to be seen for the job we're already doing. Once you see that gap, she said, you can't unsee it.

We went deep. We talked about the financial cost of never stepping into your authority, and the quieter, invisible costs underneath it — confidence, identity, the years you lose being "somebody's spouse" instead of yourself. Kate told me about her own mother, who legally owned four businesses and still couldn't call herself a business owner well into her eighties. She told me about the moment, in her forties, when a stranger recognized her by her own name — and the "wrong turn" she took right after.

This conversation got real fast. Grab your headphones for this one.

What You'll Learn:

• Why Kate believes accomplished women don't need more credentials — they need to be seen for the job they're already doing
• The story of Kate's mother, who owned four grocery stores and still wouldn't call herself a business owner
• What happened when a stranger recognized Kate by her own name — and why she now calls it the turning point she got wrong
• The real financial cost of staying invisible in your own life and leadership (and why it compounds over decades)
• Why you don't have to be an expert in something to be the right person for the job
• How Kate found meaning in the years she "lost" by reframing them as a gift to the people who needed her most

Connect With Us:

Kate’s book, Authority Without Apology: https://katewoodwardyoung.me/books/authority-without-apology

Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com

Join This Can't Be Normal on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

You coach her. You remind her. You give her grace, adjust the deadline, understand her season, and hope this is finally the time it sticks. Then you're back on the ride again.

I was on a coaching call recently with a group of owners, and I asked them to think about someone on their team who isn't delivering predictably, reliably, and consistently. Not the obvious underperformer, the one everyone already knows isn't working out. I mean the person you're actually invested in. The one you keep coaching. The one you keep training. The one you keep giving another shot.

I call this the teacup ride. You coach, you explain, you remind, you accommodate. Round and round you go. They give you a little bit of progress, just enough crumbs to keep you hopeful, and then somehow you're right back where you started, wondering why they can't meet the standard predictably, reliably, and consistently.

In this episode, I break down why “did I coach her enough” is the wrong question to be asking, why infrastructure exists to give you evidence instead of just making your school run smoothly, and the two questions that finally reveal whether you're dealing with a skill gap or a willingness gap. Because you cannot supply willingness in another human being, and pretending you can is costing you a lot more than you realize.

• Why “did you coach her enough” is the wrong question when someone keeps missing the standard
• The difference between a skill gap and a willingness gap, and the two questions that tell you which one you're facing
• Why infrastructure exists to give you evidence of reality, not just to make your school run smoothly
• What it actually costs you when you keep supplying your own capacity to cover someone else's role
• How to build a predictable response to a missed standard instead of reacting based on your mood in the moment
• Why “one more chance” often protects the leader's hope more than it protects the outcome

Connect With Us:

Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com

Join This Can't Be Normal on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

How many things in your life look functional only because you've become exceptionally good at compensating for what isn't? That's the question I can't stop asking, and it's the reason I started This Can't Be Normal, a new thinking space on Substack.

This episode is a little different. I'm not teaching a framework or walking you through five steps. Instead, I'm pulling back the curtain on why I started writing publicly about the questions I don't have answers to yet, questions about responsibility, caretaking, competence, and what we've all quietly agreed to normalize.

It started with a moment in Lake Tahoe, on vacation, when I suddenly noticed how automatically I take on responsibility that nobody actually assigned to me. That noticing turned into an article, then another, and eventually into a whole new space for thinking out loud instead of teaching from the front of the room.

If you've ever felt like the person everyone relies on, the one who catches everything before it falls, this episode is your invitation to pause and ask a different kind of question.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why Chanie started This Can't Be Normal, and how it's different from the podcast, coaching, or her book
• The moment in Lake Tahoe that made her question how automatically she takes on responsibility
• Why being a highly competent, capable leader can make it easy to compensate for things that shouldn't require so much of you
• The difference between wanting an answer and wanting to be witnessed in a question
• Why the same "operating system" that shows up in your leadership also shows up in your marriage and parenting
• The question Chanie wants every leader to sit with: what have you become so good at tolerating that you've stopped asking whether it should be normal?

Mentioned in this episode:

• This Can't Be Normal on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/
• Article: "The Cost of Being the Caretaker" — https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/p/the-cost-of-being-the-caretaker

Connect With Us:

• Join This Can't Be Normal on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

Your staff is the biggest line item in your budget. Which also means your schedule can be the biggest leak in your school, and most leaders don't even know it's happening.

In this episode, Chanie is breaking down schedule efficiency: not "do you have enough staff," but do you have a strategic coverage system. She walks through a real audit where a single scheduling fix uncovered nearly $30,000 a year in savings, and why chasing more enrollment isn't always the answer when the leak is sitting in your own schedule.

This episode covers strategic coverage versus just having bodies in the building, why schedule predictability is a leadership standard and not a luxury, why break coverage is actually a culture issue, and why directors who keep jumping into classrooms are quietly stealing from their own school's profitability.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The difference between strategic coverage and coverage for the sake of coverage
• How a 20-minute daily shift overlap across 20 teachers added up to $27,733 a year in one real audit
• Why systems need to be designed around the school, not around whichever person is currently running them
• Why schedule predictability is a leadership standard, not a nice-to-have
• Why break coverage is a culture issue, and how a late break erodes trust between teachers
• Why directors and owners who regularly cover classrooms are unintentionally hurting their school's profitability

Connect With Us:

• Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

What if the thing that finally moves the needle in your school isn't a new system, but a phone call?

This is the final episode in our three-part series on the power of community, and today we're bringing it all together: thriving together, the strength of collective wellness. We're talking about how the people you surround yourself with shape your health, your growth, your business, and honestly, your whole trajectory as a leader.

I open with a quote from Jim Rohn: you are the average of the five people you spend the most time around. And once you sit with that for a second, it explains so much — why the mindset in the room rubs off on you, why a struggling season can start to feel “normal,” and why getting around leaders who are further ahead can shift everything without you doing anything differently at all.

I walk through real, specific examples of what that's looked like inside our own community: a member who sold her school to another member she met inside the program, a director who got connected to her next regional manager role after a cross-country move, a leader who was saved from a construction nightmare by another member's architect referral. None of these people joined community hoping for those outcomes. That's exactly the point.

What You'll Learn In This Episode:

• Why the five people you spend the most time with shape your beliefs, habits, and results — whether you're aware of it or not
• The difference between a community that creates collective wellness and one that spreads collective distress
• Why “your network is your net worth” isn't just a nice phrase — it's access to opportunities, knowledge, credibility, and long-term relationships
• A simple travel habit that keeps you exposed to new ideas outside your usual lane
• Real, anonymized stories of what happens when school leaders build genuine community — from business sales to job placements to saved timelines
• Why investing in community without an immediate ROI is still worth it — and why waiting until you're desperate is the wrong move

Connect With Us:

• Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

Have you ever sat in a staff meeting and realized it's the same three people talking every single time? That's not community. That's a room full of people who've learned it's safer to stay quiet.

This week I'm back with Part 2 of our series on the power of community, and today we're going Beyond Borders. I'm talking about how the connections you build, whether that's at a conference, in your staff meeting, or inside an online community, ripple out into real, local impact at your school. We're talking about why dissent is actually a sign of a healthy team, why the best ideas rarely come from the stage, and why community might be the most underrated retention driver you're not tracking.

What You'll Learn

• Why the best ideas at any event happen in the hallway, not on the stage
• The real reason your staff meeting might be missing true community, even with a diverse team in the room
• Why "strong opinions, held loosely" might be the most useful leadership mindset you adopt this year
• How silencing dissent on your team quietly erodes trust (and retention)
• Why the same two teachers arriving late need two completely different responses from you
• Practical, low-pressure ways to build community even if events aren't your thing right now

Connect With Us:

• Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

You've got hundreds of kids in the building, dozens of teachers on your team, and parents lined up at pickup every single day. So why do you still feel completely alone?

This week, I'm kicking off a brand new three-part series on the podcast all about the power of community, because nourishing the human spirit is just as important as nourishing your business. In this first episode, we're talking about embracing connection, the heartbeat of everything else we'll cover in this series.

I've been running Schools of Excellence since 2016, and if there's one thing I hear over and over from leaders in our world, it's "I want relationships, I want connection, I want friends." And yet, so many of us are painfully slow to actually take the steps it takes to build them. It sounds simple. Go make friends. But in the season of life so many of you are in right now, it's genuinely hard.

So today, I'm unpacking why community matters beyond just feeling nice, the real benefits it brings to your emotional and mental wellbeing, and the sneaky ways so many of us isolate ourselves without even realizing it's happening. This isn't about willpower. It's about recognizing the patterns and making one small first step back toward connection.

What You'll Learn:

• Why humans need community for emotional survival, even though we no longer need it for physical survival
• The four real benefits community offers: emotional support, mental stimulation, a sense of belonging, and shared resources and skills
• Five circumstances (not choices) that quietly isolate leaders without them realizing it
• What happens to your thinking and your decision-making when you stay isolated for too long
• A simple, low-pressure first step you can take today to rebuild connection

Connect With Us:

• Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

LaShawn Bridges has run Blessed Beginnings Learning Center in Detroit for 27 years. She's been through a recession. She's been through COVID. And she'll tell you the hardest season of her whole career wasn't either of those. It was learning how to stop being everyone's answer.

I love bringing owners into this space because the shape of the story tends to rhyme, even when the details don't. LaShawn came to me in survival mode. She had policies. She had procedures. She had disciplinary systems on paper. And she still couldn't leave her building without holding her breath.

This conversation is about what happens on the other side of that. Not a personality transplant, not a quick fix, just the slow, sometimes grief-soaked work of installing infrastructure and watching who you become because of it.

We talk about the identity LaShawn had to grieve to become the anchored, accountable leader she is now. We talk about what chronic over-functioning cost her physically and mentally. And we talk about what changed in her marriage, her relationship with her adult daughters, and her families, once she stopped being the fixer for everyone in her orbit.

If you've ever felt guilty for wanting quiet, or scared that letting something break means you've failed, this one is for you.

• Why LaShawn describes her old leadership style as “survival mode” even with systems already on paper
• The identity she had to grieve in order to become an anchored, accountable leader
• What chronic over-functioning cost her physically, and how her body told her before her mind caught up
• The phrase she repeats to herself to stop absorbing problems that aren't hers to hold
• How she rebuilt her calendar so staff issues stop landing on her desk in real time
• The weekly rhythm that changed her marriage after 27 years together
• Why she now sees failure as a healthy, necessary part of building a business that runs without her
• How she defines excellence, for her team, her families, and herself

• Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com
• Download Chapter One for Free: https://thiscantbenormal.com/chapter-one

Connect With Us:

• Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

You gave the perfect tour. The parent loved everything. And then they enrolled somewhere else.

If that scenario makes you want to scream into a pillow, this episode is for you. In today's episode, I'm walking you through the four silent saboteurs quietly costing you enrollment: the first impression gap, the trust signals your team is missing, the confidence gap, and the follow-through factor. None of these have anything to do with your program quality. All of them have everything to do with how you communicate it.

I share real stories from schools I've worked with, including a director who couldn't figure out why her inquiry-to-tour ratio was so low (spoiler: it wasn't her facility), and why "we'll think about it" almost never means what you think it means.

• Why parents form their opinion of your school long before they ever call or tour
• The exact phrases that unintentionally signal "you're just like everyone else" to a touring family
• What parents are really asking when they ask about your schedule, your rates, or your teacher retention
• Why confident answers beat perfect answers every single time
• How to build genuine confidence in a team member who feels awkward or unsure in front of families
• The follow-up mistake that quietly hands enrollments to your competitors

Connect With Us:

• Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/