Episode 41: Welcoming New Leadership to NAIS

During the summer of 2023, longtime NAIS President Donna Orem retired, and new President Debra Wilson stepped into the role. In this first school year of Debra’s tenure, she sits down with Tim Fish to introduce herself to the NAIS community and share her personal journey with independent schools.

Guest: Debra Wilson

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “Context really matters. There is that…do people feel known and seen? And when I, when I say that, it's not just the kids, but it's the individual staff members, it's the parents. Like, what message are they receiving all of the time? And that really leads to greater connectivity. And it tends to lead to happier encounters.” (20:18)
• “One of the things I talk about with education, we adults can mess around with us all we want. Every kid's only got one shot at it. So, you know, if they have a bad teacher placement three years in a row, they're 50% behind their peers. Like that's, I mean, that's, that's just research. Like that's, there's just numbers. And so we don't really have time to play around with this, so like, how do we hold those things really sacred?” (25:34)
• “You want good, smart, thoughtful, solid people doing good, smart, solid, thoughtful work. Bright shiny objects, like, they can, they can jump you right off the tracks...that kind of traditional, basic, not so sexy, like, we just, we're gonna do really good work day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, is what you're going for most of the time.” (36:23)

Related Episodes: 39, 31, 25, 14, 13

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