New View EDU Episode 41: Welcoming New Leadership to NAIS

Available September 19, 2023

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During the summer of 2023, longtime NAIS President Donna Orem retired, and new President Debra P. 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.

Debra P. WilsonBeginning with a family background that prioritized education, and moving through both public and independent schools, Debra grew to seek personal growth and challenges that would take her far from her small-town New England roots. Her career in law first brought her to NAIS as general counsel; from there, she moved on to lead the Southern Association of Independent Schools, before returning to NAIS as the new president. As she begins her tenure, Debra says that the evolving purpose of school is one of the things that most excites her about stepping into the president’s role. “Education now really is about educating and helping grow the whole child, more so than it’s ever been.”

Delving into what growing “whole people” might look like in schools, Debra and Tim discuss centering well-being and helping students prioritize human connection. Debra brings up the Gallup studies that show that habits such as engagement with meaningful projects, connecting with mentors, and getting involved with community events and activities are highly correlated with greater wellness later in life. What’s not correlated with wellness, she points out, is grade-point average or test scores.

Ultimately, Debra says, what she looks for in school communities is a culture that helps prioritize connectivity and a sense of belonging, or “mattering.” It’s not, she says, a single educational philosophy, size of school, or governance structure; it’s a feeling that transcends the individual school and becomes a way of moving through the world. To get there, she prescribes “moving at the speed of trust,” paying attention to culture, and getting the basics right—focusing on the fundamentals and taking care of the small details that help build a solid foundation.

 

Key Questions

Some of the key questions Tim and Debra explore in this episode include:
  • What do you believe is the purpose of school right now? What excites you about that?
  • As both a professional and a parent in the independent school world, what do you see working well in schools? What’s working less well? What are the opportunities and what are the difficulties?
  • What does good governance and leadership look like in independent schools?
  • What are the essential skills for school heads right now?

Episode Highlights

Some of the key questions Tim and Debra explore in this episode include:
  • “It's hard to find an independent school with a mission that doesn't talk about educating the whole child and laying out at least a couple of these things. But I think how we articulate that, how we bring that to life, how we hire for those experiences in the people that we hire. Right? I mean, you're the people that are in the classrooms having these relationships. Everybody's concerned that AI is like the education Armageddon. I actually don't think it is. I think it allows teachers to double down on the relationships piece. And to really demonstrate the kind of outcomes that we're looking for in terms of people.” (12:08)
  • “Context really matters. Do people feel known and seen? And when I say that, it's not just the kids, but it's the individual staff members, it's the parents. 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 if they have a bad teacher placement three years in a row, they're 50% behind their peers. That's just research. That's just numbers. And so we don't really have time to play around with this, so 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, they can jump you right off the tracks. And you can bring in those conversations in a lot of other places and a lot of other ways. Like that kind of traditional, basic, we're going to 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)

Key Questions

Some of the key questions Tim and Debra explore in this episode include:
  • What do you believe is the purpose of school right now? What excites you about that?
  • As both a professional and a parent in the independent school world, what do you see working well in schools? What’s working less well? What are the opportunities and what are the difficulties?
  • What does good governance and leadership look like in independent schools?
  • What are the essential skills for school heads right now?

Resource List

Some of the key questions Tim and Debra explore in this episode include:

Full Transcript

  • Read the full transcript here.

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About Our Guest

Debra P. Wilson is the newly appointed president of NAIS, following the tenure of Donna Orem, who retired in summer 2023. Prior to assuming her new role, Debra was president of the Southern Association of Independent Schools (SAIS) after serving as counsel/general counsel for NAIS for 19 years. Before joining the NAIS staff, Debra was a tax litigator at the Department of Justice. She received a B.A. in English from Sewanee: The University of the South, and a J.D. from the University of South Carolina at Columbia. 

In addition to serving on the boards of several schools, Debra’s board service includes The Enrollment Management Association (EMA), Global Education Benchmark Group (GEBG), Mid-South Independent School Business Officers (MISBO), and National Network of Schools in Partnership (NNSP).