Hot Legal Topics for Episcopal Schools (Webinar)

Episcopal schools are navigating an increasingly complex legal landscape with rapidly evolving issues impacting admissions, employment, governance, and daily operations. Join independent school attorney Kristin Smith of Fisher Phillips for an essential update on current legal topics affecting Episcopal schools. This session will demystify key legal developments, provide practical guidance for compliance, and equip heads of school, CFOs, and other school leaders and trustees with the knowledge needed to make informed decisions and mitigate risk.

Making Strategic Thinking Actionable—and Lasting (Webinar)

Leaders want their school to be rooted in mission-driven, data-informed decision making, yet many schools struggle to create strategic plans that are not only aspirational but actionable. Join Mission & Data’s Jason Kern and Mike Cobb along with NAES Heads of School as they walk through research-based processes to develop an actionable strategic plan and effective methods for communicating progress to your community. Participants will receive strategies on how to develop a strategic plan that incorporates feedback from multiple constituencies across the school community and builds buy-in for implementation by considering the school’s organizational, programmatic and adaptive capacities. Learn how to align success metrics to strategic goals and how to build dashboards to keep school leaders and the board apprised of progress toward success.

“I’m Not Okay.” Student Mental Health in the Age of TikTok (Webinar)

As a faculty or staff member, you likely find yourself at the forefront of supporting adolescents with increasingly complex, challenging psychosocial needs. Moreover, students are more likely to seek out a trusted teacher, advisor, or coach for support than to confide directly in a parent or even a school counselor. Drawing from her recent book, Deborah Offner, an adolescent psychologist, will provide a backdrop to Generation Z's concerns and challenges, a quick primer on "normal" adolescent development, and—most importantly—tips and strategies that teachers, deans, coaches, nurses, counselors, and other professionals can put into immediate use with students in distress. We will also consider how you can understand today's parents—and talk to them in a way they can hear—and how you can collaborate with colleagues to best support students and families.

New NAES Principles of Good Practice for Admissions (Webinar)

Episcopal identity informs all aspects of our school life and can be a compelling reason for families to join our communities. How schools live into their Episcopal identity often begins with the admissions process. If you are a head of school, admissions officer, division head, chaplain, or involved in any aspect of the admissions process, this webinar is for you. Join us to learn about the latest NAES Principles of Good Practice: Episcopal Identity and Admissions.

How Parents Pay (Webinar)

Periodically since 1986, NAIS has surveyed parents to better understand their perceptions of the financial aid process, how they sacrifice to pay tuition, and what feelings are most associated with paying tuition. Join this discussion of the new findings from the 2023-24 How Parents Pay research for insights into where behaviors and emotions have changed and where they’ve stayed the same. Consider how these parent perspectives can inform your financial aid policy, parent education, and affordability communication efforts.

Ready or Not, Change Will Come (Webinar)

Discover the keys to guiding your organization through change so that it is both effective and enduring. Whether it’s technological, curricular, or cultural, all schools are faced with the need for change, and in these turbulent times, it's even more important that leadership is armed with the skills to effectively plan for change and to avoid (or recover from) common pitfalls of change. This webinar will give you a framework through which to assess the scope and scale of the change, along with the stakeholders, organization, and culture in which the change will be implemented to create a plan that’s tailored to each situation.

Mission Anchored Compensation Strategies for Independent Schools (Webinar)

Over the past two years, NBOA conducted extensive, innovative research on independent school faculty and staff compensation models with generous support from the E.E. Ford Foundation, including a landscape analysis to gather information from a wide variety of independent schools on their approaches to faculty and staff compensation. Learn about the key findings from this Mission-Anchored Compensation Strategies for Independent Schools project and the research-based resources developed to support independent school leaders as they leverage compensation strategies to attract, retain, motivate, and grow a high-quality and mission-aligned workforce of educators.

Making Your Employee Handbook Work for Your Employees and the School (Webinar)

Employee Handbooks are often glossed over with all that busy schools need to manage but a well-thought-out and updated handbook can both manage community expectations and ensure that the school is legally compliant. Handbooks can have their own character to match that of the school but there are certain policies that should be in all handbooks—anti-harassment and anti-discrimination provisions with clear and succinct reporting procedures and anti-retaliation reminders; whistleblower provisions; properly worded leave rights; and many other clauses which will ensure that the school is complying with its legal obligations and can defend itself when sued. At the same time, many provisions will also help to ensure that the school has been clear in its expectations, which will enable employees to understand what is expected and avoid surprises when a rule is enforced. When done right, handbooks can help the school focus on its mission and avoid misunderstandings that can take it off track.