Community is Not Easy
"Community is not easy, but it's necessary," said Avery Trufelman, the host of the podcast Nice Try in a recent episode. Season 1 of Nice Try explored the topic of American utopian communities from Jamestown to Biosphere 2. In general, utopian communities look backward for inspiration, meaning the founders want to live off the land, live with no government, or live with a specific ideology that is unpopular in the current zeitgeist. Each of the seven utopian communities Trufelman explored failed. Ultimately, they failed because the people in the community could not get along, there were ideological splits, they ran out of money, or they could not choose new leadership.
I found a striking parallel to independent schools and utopian communities. Founders create new schools as utopias of education. The vision is created by a small group of parents or educators to find a new or different way to educate children. This new way might be rooted in doctrine or scripture, or it could be rooted in progressive theory, in discovering cutting-edge, innovative educational technology to teach similar content differently or to offer perceived social advantage to students and families.
Every independent and private school is founded to fill a gap, right a wrong, or create a better way to educate young people. Parents and students attracted to the new school's mission and vision buy into that notion of educational utopia. They will continue to do so if there are people for whom that version of utopia resonates, and there is a capable leader in place. As a result, faculty, parents, and students form a cohesive community around the ideology. The challenge is how a school can succeed beyond the founding group and the people who remember the founders. Can those future "generations" maintain like-mindedness and keep it from fracturing and thus either dying or becoming something else entirely?
In my work with independent school leaders in both leadership mentoring and attrition, I can offer four steps to upholding your current utopian school community:
1. Define your school's brand promises and make good on them. I conduct Attrition Studies with schools all over the country. Though the brand promises vary, the leading reason families leave is that what they thought they were buying in admissions was not the lived experience of the student or family. Therefore, the cost of tuition is no longer worth the family's sacrifice to pay it.
2. Listen to your community. The loudest, most demanding, or neediest parents, teachers, and students are the ones that tend to be marginalized by administration when their demands seem unreasonable. But are they unreasonable? There will always be parts of the community that will push back on theory or practice. Conduct focus groups or survey each constituency as a check and balance to be sure your community is not splintering.
3. Revisit your school's mission. If you read the mission statements and tag lines of some of the long-gone schools, you can see why they perished. They are cringe-worthy 50 or 100 years later. With each strategic planning cycle, closely examine the mission to align the founders' vision with the current societal and market reality.
4. Plan for leadership succession. Nearly every utopia in Trufelman's series fell victim to an inability to plan for leadership succession. Schools can also stumble in this realm. I am pleased to see the recent trend for new Heads of School to insist on a leadership mentor as they begin their tenure. The next step in succession planning is to advocate for an Insight Study. When I conduct an Insight Study for a new leader, it is an amplified listening tour using a combination of focus groups and interviews. Imagine how much more successful a new leader could be if she understood the nuances, needs, personal agendas, and blind spots of the school's community in 3 months rather than 2-3 years.
In many ways, maintaining a sense of community at a school is one of the most difficult things to manage beyond the founder stage. Creating cohesion and identity for the school while embracing diversity of thought and culture is at odds with the track record of utopian communities. I am continually inspired by school leaders and their sense of hope, possibility, and deep commitment to the longevity of their current educational utopia.
Community is not just a nice-to-have piece of school life. It is the sixth component of parent retention. The Six Components of Parent Retention is a framework that I developed as a result of attrition research that I conducted with schools across the country. The Components, if addressed in totality will increase retention and positive word-of-mouth at an independent school. Without a strong sense of community, one that is in alignment with the future vision of the school, a school is not on solid ground.
The author, Jill Goodman, is a consultant working with independent school leaders to advance their school’s mission, enhance their processes, and bolster their skills. Learn more about all services here.
