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

In this episode, we dive into how you can help your staff to start thinking of the big picture by understanding the bigger context. 

Seeing the big picture, getting into the details, seeing the details, and connecting it all back to the bigger picture can be a beautiful dance. Helping teachers to start thinking about the big picture is essential because that is how you create a consistent alignment that is connected with your company’s mission and culture.

Tune in to learn more about:

• Intentional time blocking within staff meetings for the big picture
• Unshackling yourself from assumptions and biases, and inviting new ideas
• Strategies to get teachers to start thinking in alignment with the big picture (especially if they're nervous to share their ideas)
• Why our teams need to start thinking about the big picture and linking it with their daily habits 

             …and so much more!

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

Access the free resource to help your staff think big picture here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SHOM_54mOs0_3MIIrnrrUOn080HAgsId/view

Want your staff to be more confident? Grab the Confidence and Resiliency Training here: https://discovered.thrivecart.com/confidence-resiliency-training/

Ever wish you knew EXACTLY what to say to a Teacher, Parent, or Admin Team in a Hard Moment? You can now with the Scripts Workbook here: https://discovered.thrivecart.com/script-workbook/

The Director’s Inner Circle & Owner’s HQ is the #1 community & training program specifically designed for early childhood school leaders and owners who are committed to building schools of excellence. You get 24/7 access to exclusive templates & training to help you motivate your staff and build a collaborative culture that positively impacts the lives of children. Plus the support & accountability you need to create massive momentum.

Learn more and apply for the Director’s Inner Circle & Owner’s HQ: http://Chanie.me/jointhedic   

More about the show:

If you are an Early Childhood director or owner, prepare to transform your school and life with the Schools of Excellence podcast. Tune in each week to learn from Chanie Wilschanski, the founder and host of the Schools of Excellence Podcast and a mom of 4 little kids. Each episode will be packed with tools and strategies – equipping you to build schools with higher staff retention, teacher motivation, parent partnership, collaborative culture, and beautiful quality of life. 

 Every week, Chanie shares the truth about the journey to excellence, the strategies that are working TODAY, and the mindset about the critical decisions and choices that you make every day which impact yourself, your teachers, parents, family, and children who you serve every day.

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've come is by being reflective of what you've done in the past academic year. 

In today's, from the archive, episode, I will take you through how to run an end-of-the-year staff meeting. I share with you some of the critical questions you should ask your staff, and how to use their feedback as a resource for future improvement. If you've been wanting to know how schools of excellence conduct their end-year staff meetings and why these meetings are usually very productive, this episode is for you!

Remember, part of being an educator and building a school of excellence is wanting to consistently get better. And understanding how to wrap up the year really well is important in ensuring that your September is set up for success. 

In a nutshell, I speak about:

• The 3 reasons why an end-year review is so critical for your staff.
• The top 5 questions you need to ask at your end-year staff meetings.
• How to deduce meaningful information from the responses your staff give to the questions you ask.
• Strategies for helping your teachers own their development, become more accountable and believe that they have what it takes to teach in a school of excellence.

...and so much more!

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

Access the End of Year Reflective Questions Workbook for $9 HERE

Access the School of Excellence Time Management Bundle for $47 HERE

If you are an Early Childhood director or owner, prepare to transform your school and life with the Schools of Excellence podcast. Tune in each week to learn from Chanie Wilschanski, the founder and host of the Schools of Excellence Podcast and a mom of 4 little kids. Each episode will be packed with tools and strategies – equipping you to build schools with higher staff retention, teacher motivation, parent partnership, collaborative culture, and a beautiful quality of life. 

This is part 2 of this exclusive inside look at a members-only call on Priorities Reset: Reflect, Restore and Recast. In today's episode, we're digging into the third phase of the priorities reset call, where we recast our commitments into a real calendar and decide what we want to invite back and what we can eliminate.

We share insights into the habits that we need to stop doing, besides checking emails, but to stop the thoughts in our minds that are not serving us, that are being toxic for our life, our relationships, and the goals that we want to hit in our life.

What do you want to invite back into your life and what will you no longer be doing? What do you want your new priorities to be? What habit do you want to stop doing and what will be the reminders to stop this habit?

In a nutshell, we talk about:

• What you are no longer doing for the next 90 days.
• An insight on the physical things you need to stop doing and thinking about

• Choosing what makes sense for you and what makes sense as your next step. 

• The transforming leadership drill of accountability
• Stress testing your commitments
• Opening a brand new Google Calendar and then start recasting your school commitments

…and so much more!

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

The Director’s Inner Circle & Owner’s HQ is the #1 community & training program specifically designed for early childhood school leaders and owners who are committed to building schools of excellence. You get 24/7 access to exclusive templates & training to help you motivate your staff and build a collaborative culture that positively impacts the lives of children. Plus the support & accountability you need to create massive momentum.

Learn more and apply for the Director’s Inner Circle & Owner’s HQ: http://Chanie.me/jointhedic  

More about the show:

If you are an Early Childhood director or owner, prepare to transform your school and life with the Schools of Excellence podcast. Tune in each week to learn from Chanie Wilschanski, the founder and host of the Schools of Excellence Podcast and a mom of 4 little kids. Each episode will be packed with tools and strategies – equipping you to build schools with higher staff retention, teacher motivation, parent partnership, collaborative culture, and beautiful quality of life. 

 Every week, Chanie shares the truth about the journey to excellence, the strategies that are working TODAY, and the mindset about the critical decisions and choices that you make every day which impact yourself, your teachers, parents, family, and children who you serve every day.

This episode is an inside look at a members-only call on Priorities Reset. This session is divided into three core parts; reflect, restore and recast. In part 1, we are going to reflect on our last 90 days and then restore ourselves to what our current priorities are. Part 2 will look at the commitments we'll recast in our next 90 days.

20% of your time (and your budget), is your margin. And margins aren't created by default - you have to be honest, give yourself grace and create one. As a school director, it's all about setting the right practices. What story is your calendar telling you? You need to reflect on your commitments, restore yourself in their alignment, and recast into a life that you want for yourself.

In a nutshell, we talk about:

• How you can filter where your time should go
• Current commitments that you can completely let go off
• Becoming aware of invisible labor by taking an inventory of your commitment 

…and so much more!

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

The Director’s Inner Circle & Owner’s HQ is the #1 community & training program specifically designed for early childhood school leaders and owners who are committed to building schools of excellence. You get 24/7 access to exclusive templates & training to help you motivate your staff and build a collaborative culture that positively impacts the lives of children. Plus the support & accountability you need to create massive momentum.

Learn more and apply for the Director’s Inner Circle & Owner’s HQ: http://Chanie.me/jointhedic 

More about the show:

If you are an Early Childhood director or owner, prepare to transform your school and life with the Schools of Excellence podcast. Tune in each week to learn from Chanie Wilschanski, the founder and host of the Schools of Excellence Podcast and a mom of 4 little kids. Each episode will be packed with tools and strategies – equipping you to build schools with higher staff retention, teacher motivation, parent partnership, collaborative culture, and beautiful quality of life. 

 Every week, Chanie shares the truth about the journey to excellence, the strategies that are working TODAY, and the mindset about the critical decisions and choices that you make every day which impact yourself, your teachers, parents, family, and children who you serve every day.

Welcome to the final part, part 4, of the Build to Last workshop series. From improving our mindsets and inviting calm to learning about theme days, time blocking, and calendar creation to our previous episode: building a culture of excellence, it has been a transformational experience.

In today's episode, I share tips on inner team conflicts and understanding how to navigate these conflicts. As directors and owners, we spend an average of 4 hours a day fielding interruptions and navigating conflicts with teachers. How do we understand, show up and navigate conflict while discerning that different types of conflict require different solutions without getting overwhelmed?

In a nutshell, we talk about:

• Types of interchain conflict and understanding how to navigate them
• How to hold your staff accountable without being overwhelmed
• Avoiding hints and encouraging the use of direct, clear, and kind approaches to conflict resolution
• The 6 key  performance assessments 
• How to show up in difficult conversations
• Important strategies for navigating conflicts with confidence and grace
• More about our flagship programs the Director’s Inner Circle & Owners Only HQ

…and so much more!

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

Download the workbook here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mzS7qxZksrvGkDlAI7ji58nPwakPEZlk/view?usp=sharing

To get 40 other scripts in our scripts workbook: http://chanie.me/scripts 

The Director’s Inner Circle & Owner’s HQ is the #1 community & training program specifically designed for early childhood school leaders and owners who are committed to building schools of excellence. You get 24/7 access to exclusive templates & training to help you motivate your staff and build a collaborative culture that positively impacts the lives of children. Plus the support & accountability you need to create massive momentum.

Learn more and apply for the Director’s Inner Circle & Owner’s HQ: http://Chanie.me/jointhedic 

More about the show:

If you are an Early Childhood director or owner, prepare to transform your school and life with the Schools of Excellence podcast. Tune in each week to learn from Chanie Wilschanski, the founder and host of the Schools of Excellence Podcast and a mom of 4 little kids. Each episode will be packed with tools and strategies – equipping you to build schools with higher staff retention, teacher motivation, parent partnership, collaborative culture, and beautiful quality of life. 

 Every week, Chanie shares the truth about the journey to excellence, the strategies that are working TODAY, and the mindset about the critical decisions and choices that you make every day which impact yourself, your teachers, parents, family, and children who you serve every day.

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 moments of experiences. In this week’s episode, I share ideas on how you can make your teachers feel valued and appreciated this Teachers Appreciation Week. Tune in and get ideas on how you can be intentional with your appreciation this coming week!

In a nutshell, I speak about:

1. Why I love teacher appreciation week so much, and its similarities with mothers day
2. Why your calendar is part of your identity
3. The 3 things that teachers need now more than ever
4. The 5 questions you should ask yourself before choosing any fun or creative ideas 

No matter the situation your school is in right now, there is still room to be creative. As you think about all the work you will be doing in order to make this week special for your teachers, what moments do you hope stays in their brains forever?

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

Get your FREE workbook for the Teacher Appreciation Week HERE.

Sign up for the Ideal Week for High Achieving Owners Workshop HERE. 

This workshop is ideal for you if you are looking to:

• Know what the next stage of growth looks like for your school
• Learn how to build out a calendar that serves your lifestyle and stage of life that you're in
• Identify the top priorities that you need to focus on to move your school in the right direction
• Learn what is working for other high achieving school owners in their stage of growth in the season that they're in right now
• Stop doing diffuse energy in a bunch of different directions that aren’t moving your school forward

Sign up for the Ideal Week for High Achieving Owners Workshop HERE. 

If you are ready to take your school to the next level of growth and are looking for support, community and accountability to make that happen - then would love for you to apply for our directors inner circle or owners HQ program. 

Apply for the Director’s Inner Circle & Owner's HQ

If you are an Early Childhood director or owner, prepare to transform your school and life with the Schools of Excellence podcast. Tune in each week to learn from Chanie Wilschanski, the founder and host of the Schools of Excellence Podcast and a mom of 4 little kids. Each episode will be packed with tools and strategies – equipping you to build schools with higher staff retention, teacher motivation, parent partnership, collaborative culture, and a beautiful quality of life. 

Welcome to part 3 of the 4-part series, the Build to Last workshop series. During each episode in this series, we’re going to be digging into specific areas that will uplevel and give you the confidence, decision-making skills, and practical strategies and mindsets for your center from the field of play.

In today's episode, I'm joined by Sara Schreiner and Susan Sholar, members of our inner circle who are from Sunshine Academy in Montana. They share with us their specific habits and routines of how they built a culture of excellence. As a school owner or director, understanding that school culture is not a project but an effect of your daily behavior, actions, and routines is a salient leadership drill. The strategies that work today, don't necessarily work tomorrow, so you need to constantly work on your culture. The moment you turn away from this foundational skill, your school becomes toxic, there's gossip, there's backtalk, there's complacency, and there's resistance.

In a nutshell, we talk about:

• The foundation of building a beautiful culture of excellence
• Why culture is an effect of the leader's daily routine, behavior, and actions
• Showing up as the leader - the habits you need to adapt to create this amazing culture
• The culture of innovation and risk-taking - how you feel, and what you need to hear to know that you have achieved it
• Culture revolving around values, difficult conversations, and boundary setting
• The biggest challenge school leaders have about their culture
• Today's challenge: the Gratitude challenge!

…and so much more!

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

Download the workbook to get tons of resources and 10 freeways on how to build a culture of excellence here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mzS7qxZksrvGkDlAI7ji58nPwakPEZlk/view?usp=sharing

The Director’s Inner Circle & Owner’s HQ is the #1 community & training program specifically designed for early childhood school leaders and owners who are committed to building schools of excellence. You get 24/7 access to exclusive templates & training to help you motivate your staff and build a collaborative culture that positively impacts the lives of children. Plus the support & accountability you need to create massive momentum.

Learn more and apply for the Director’s Inner Circle & Owner’s HQ: http://Chanie.me/jointhedic 

More about the show:

If you are an Early Childhood director or owner, prepare to transform your school and life with the Schools of Excellence podcast. Tune in each week to learn from Chanie Wilschanski, the founder and host of the Schools of Excellence Podcast and a mom of 4 little kids. Each episode will be packed with tools and strategies – equipping you to build schools with higher staff retention, teacher motivation, parent partnership, collaborative culture, and beautiful quality of life. 

 Every week, Chanie shares the truth about the journey to excellence, the strategies that are working TODAY, and the mindset about the critical decisions and choices that you make every day which impact yourself, your teachers, parents, family, and children who you serve every day.

Welcome to part 2 of the 4-part series, the Build to Last workshop series. During each episode in this series, we’re going to be digging into specific areas that will uplevel and give you the confidence, decision-making skills, and practical strategies and mindsets for your center from the field of play.

In today's episode, I'm joined by Jo David, a director who is a member of the Director’s Inner Circle and is a time blocking practitioner. Jo shares with us strategies of how to work on calendars that serve us. As leaders, understanding where our time goes is a sensitive leadership drill and when we believe that we must always be available, we underperform, we over-index, we get overwhelmed, and we feel stressed out. Stay tuned for a mind-boggling session as we discuss stimulating information on building a calendar that serves us and helps us to design priorities that we need to continue building our legacy with our school culture.

In a nutshell, we talk about:

• The 3 myths of the  school leaders' time - why they're myths and busting them
• Drafting out your theme days
• Unmuting rejection to unmute helping hands
• The skill of time blocking and theme days
• Delegating out things that aren't helping your center 
• Investing time to train your staff to avoid survival mode

                …and so much more!

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

Download the Build to Last workbook here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mzS7qxZksrvGkDlAI7ji58nPwakPEZlk/view?usp=sharing

The Director’s Inner Circle & Owner’s HQ is the #1 community & training program specifically designed for early childhood school leaders and owners who are committed to building schools of excellence. You get 24/7 access to exclusive templates & training to help you motivate your staff and build a collaborative culture that positively impacts the lives of children. Plus the support & accountability you need to create massive momentum.

Learn more and apply for the Director’s Inner Circle & Owner’s HQ: http://Chanie.me/jointhedic 

More about the show:

If you are an Early Childhood director or owner, prepare to transform your school and life with the Schools of Excellence podcast. Tune in each week to learn from Chanie Wilschanski, the founder and host of the Schools of Excellence Podcast and a mom of 4 little kids. Each episode will be packed with tools and strategies – equipping you to build schools with higher staff retention, teacher motivation, parent partnership, collaborative culture, and beautiful quality of life. 

 Every week, Chanie shares the truth about the journey to excellence, the strategies that are working TODAY, and the mindset about the critical decisions and choices that you make every day which impact yourself, your teachers, parents, family, and children who you serve every day.

Welcome to part 1 of the 4-part series, the Build to Last workshop. Every single week, over the next four weeks, we're going to be digging into specific areas that will uplevel and give you the confidence, the decision-making skills, and practical strategies for your center. 

In this episode, I am joined by Sharon Hopson. She is the owner of the Bella Vita Montessori in Omaha, Nebraska. We share tips on understanding what you tell yourself, the thoughts that you believe in, and how these create your reality. As a school director, equipping yourself with the pragmatic leadership drills we walk through today will help you uplevel your mindset, and get better, smarter, faster, stronger, and wiser. With a positive mindset, you can acknowledge and tackle every challenge without it affecting your own mental and emotional well-being, your staff, or the school's culture.

In a nutshell, we talk about

• Leveling up your mindset and approaching things with positivity 
• How to manage your time more efficiently
• Creating, embracing, and practicing your boundaries and knowing when to violate them
• Releasing stress and inviting calm and rest
• Inviting someone into what you are thinking, given that you are not a machine and can't do everything by yourself

           …and so much more!

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

The Director’s Inner Circle & Owner’s HQ is the #1 community & training program specifically designed for early childhood school leaders and owners who are committed to building schools of excellence

You get 24/7 access to exclusive templates & training to help you motivate your staff and build a collaborative culture that positively impacts the lives of children.

Plus the support & accountability you need to create massive momentum.

Learn more and apply for the Director’s Inner Circle & Owner's HQ: http://Chanie.me/jointhedic 

More about the show:

If you are an Early Childhood director or owner, prepare to transform your school and life with the Schools of Excellence podcast. Tune in each week to learn from Chanie Wilschanski, the founder and host of the Schools of Excellence Podcast and a mom of 4 little kids. Each episode will be packed with tools and strategies – equipping you to build schools with higher staff retention, teacher motivation, parent partnership, collaborative culture, and beautiful quality of life. 

Every week, Chanie shares the truth about the journey to excellence, the strategies that are working TODAY, and the mindset about the critical decisions and choices that you make every day which impact yourself, your teachers, parents, family, and children who you serve every day.

We all need a sense of belonging. And when new teachers come in, they come with this innate human need to belong to a community. So how do you, as a school leader, facilitate this?

In this episode, I share tips on how you can create a culture of belonging at your school. Remember, just because your new teachers are on the payroll, and they have a spot in the teacher's room, doesn't mean they belong. They are still trying to fit in. Connecting them with people who've walked this path before will create a culture that will look dramatically different. Because creating a culture of belonging is powerful. This all begins with mentoring your veteran staff.

In a nutshell, I talk about:

• How to design an environment where both veteran and new teachers are part of leveling up and raising the bar of excellence within the organization.
• The 4 common struggles that new staff have.
• Strategies on how your veteran staff can model and create a community for new staff.

… and so much more!

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

The Director’s Inner Circle & Owner’s HQ are the #1 community & training programs specifically designed for early childhood school leaders and owners who are committed to building schools of excellence

You get 24/7 access to exclusive templates & training to help you motivate your staff and build a collaborative culture that positively impacts the lives of children.

Plus the support & accountability you need to create massive momentum.

Learn more and apply for the Director’s Inner Circle & Owner's HQ: http://Chanie.me/jointhedic

More about the show:

If you are an Early Childhood director or owner, prepare to transform your school and life with the Schools of Excellence podcast. Tune in each week to learn from Chanie Wilschanski, the founder and host of the Schools of Excellence Podcast and a mom of 4 little kids. Each episode will be packed with tools and strategies – equipping you to build schools with higher staff retention, teacher motivation, parent partnership, collaborative culture, and a beautiful quality of life. 

Every week, Chanie shares the truth about the journey to excellence, the strategies that are working TODAY, and the mindset about the critical decisions and choices that you make everyday which impact yourself, your teachers, parents, family, and children who you serve everyday.