Indeed, this is the question we have been asking at Prizmah in order to ensure we are serving the ever-evolving needs of our school leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. We have been connecting with many of you and your school professionals in different ways the past few months. Through one-on-one coaching, requests for information and your active participation in webinars and conversations we have hosted, we know you are working hard to support your heads of school, your school community and your stakeholders during this time.

We are committed to providing you with ongoing support by:

• Ensuring you are equipped with the tools and resources you need to stay informed
• Providing access to real-time information about trends in the field as well as data to drive decision making
• Connecting you with peers, mentors and experts who can provide support with immediate challenges and long-term strategy

We believe the lay-head partnership is critically important now, more than ever, and the resources below are designed to provide you with insights and support in your work.

Throughout the pandemic, we have been sharing up-to-date resources on our Knowledge Center--click here for resources on financial aid, fundraising, enrollment management, scenario planning and more.

Partnership in a Time of Pandemic: The CEO and the Board
BoardSource consultant Ann Cohen addresses how the constructive partnership between the board and the professional shifts in times of crisis, and offers questions and insights to guide you with your next steps. Grounded in your school’s mission, this article articulates what “being in this together” looks like.

Governance & Crisis: The Board's Role
Learn how “productive paranoia” can be an asset in planning during crisis. Drawing on lessons from the book Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck—Why Some Thrive Despite Them All, by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen, the authors of this blog explore how thinking about all the things that can go wrong is actually a competitive advantage and offer insight into practices school leaders and trustees should engage in to secure their schools in crisis and beyond.

A Recipe for Thriving in Uncertain Times 
Donna Orem, President of the National Association of Independent Schools, provides a step-by-step guide to questions to ask around scenario planning.

COVID-19 Generative Governance-- Board Guidelines from Dr. Richard Chait (podcast)
Key Takeaways: Should boards be governing differently in times of crisis, particularly now? If it is not business as usual for schools, it is not business as usual for boards.

• Work with discipline—both individually and collectively. Crisis is a time for collective deliberation, consensus-driven decisions, and the discipline to speak with a single voice, especially in the face of unpopular or controversial decisions.
• Focus simultaneously on short- and long-term decisions. Boards should agree on what to decide collectively and get the questions right in the near term while also thinking about generative questions for the long term—those all-important “what-if” questions.
• Set aside the conventional committee structure for the next 9 to 12 months and instead organize the board into two teams. One would work with the administration on urgent fiduciary issues and be consultants, not managers. The second would have a long-term focus, serving like a think tank to discern and frame generative questions. These two teams would ensure that board structure aligns with both short- and long-term challenges.

Chait suggests that the board needs to hold the tension between continuity and transformation: “Insight resides at the intersection of paradoxes. Schools need to have the conversation on whether they want school to be the same as before the crisis. If not, what do they hope to change? If they hope to change, what is the theory of change? How do they think change happens? How did the school culture and values fare during the crisis? Have disruptions disclosed better ways to educate? Or more efficient ways to operate?”

Prizmah recently published the results from the Head of School Pulse Survey. 110 heads of school across North America participated in this survey, enabling us to share rich data intended to support your conversations and decision making around scenario planning. You will find a slide deck with the survey results here. We are using this survey and other knowledge and data collection to shape multiple ways for you and your leadership to engage with one another, synchronously and asynchronously, to process through the complexity and next steps around scenario planning.

We invite you to use this Reshet to share your questions with one another and look forward to continuing to build our community through our Reshet. If you have a board member transitioning onto the board or into a new role, please invite them to sign up for the Reshet or email me directly at ilisac@prizmah.org. 

With prayers for healing for all in our midst, 

Ilisa Cappell