The role of a head of school is not just any administrator. They're the driving
force behind the success of an independent school community responsible for
leading the vision, strategy, and day-to-day operations of the school. Like many
things love it however, our head of school is uniquely challenged to attend
to and steward the whole child promise. This is Living Love It! Stories from the
Riverbank. I'm Jessica Sant, Chief Engagement Officer at the Love It! School.
On our first episode of season 3, you'll meet Meredith Cole, Love It!s head of
school since 2018, in our first female head since our founding. She'll share
her journey to Love It, the pivotal turning points in a 31-year career in
independent school education, her vision for Love It!s future, and her
thoughts on what makes this place so unique. Meredith will highlight some of
Love It!s points of pride, challenges, and opportunities, and also discuss Love
It!s place in our broader community. Most importantly, you'll hear Meredith's
perspective on where she hopes Love It!s headed as we approach our centennial
celebration and also offer some insight on how to foster a strong and healthy
family school partnership. I hope you'll discover that some of Meredith's
superpowers are her willingness to strategically attempt new practices and
to model an innovative and growth mindset for her colleagues and most
especially for her students. Her passion for education and centering the
student experience is evident in all that she does. If you want to know what
Living Love It means, you don't have to live any further than Meredith Cole.
This episode has been a long time coming. We have referenced our head of school
Meredith Cole many many times on Living Love It! And finally, she is a guest today.
Meredith, thank you so much for being here! It is an honor to be here. I'm excited to
be part of this exciting endeavor. Very glad that you're here and looking
forward to our conversation. Usually on these episodes, we start at the very
beginning and we're going to do the same with you. I think that your story, your
family's background is really interesting and I know has had an impact on how you
have become who you are today professionally and personally. And I
think for our listeners who are mostly current parents and also prospective
parents, they'd benefit from hearing about it too. Can you share a little bit
about your upbringing and how you made your way to education?
Sure, I joke that I have gone to school every day of my life since the time I was
about four years old. Both of my parents ultimately became educators. My mom
actually graduated from college and was a journalist and my dad became what
the seminary and became a minister and then became a school chaplains. Fast
forward a number of years. They have two children and we are living on a
campus of a boarding school in the Mid-Atlantic and it's an environment that I
grew up in. My parents were both teachers. My dad was a chaplain kind of
think Steve Allen that coaching, teaching, chaplaining in a boarding school, living
on campus, having most of our meals as a family in a school dining room with
hundreds of teenagers. My father then pursued a school administration and
actually became a school head and I had the benefit of attending my first
independent school in the seventh grade where my dad was the head of a small
junior boarding school in Lake Plastid, New York in an incredibly beautiful setting
in the mountains surrounded by opportunities to ski and to hike and to ride
horses and do all kinds of things outside. It was a really neat school,
small little school. We were there for a few years and that
actually was a moment in time where my family really established our home base.
My parents purchased a house on Lake Champlain which was near Lake Plastid
and that is where we basically spent every summer of my life.
It was a moment for me where the out of doors taking risks. I learned how to ride
horses. I did camping trips in the winter in the
snow when it was cold. I learned how to ski.
Wait what is the camping trip in the winter? I can't even imagine what that looks like.
It's cold. Yeah. I probably only remember the good stuff.
Fires and these are the lean twos and sleeping bags that have the right
degree of down in them and things like that. Oh my god.
I remember being fun. We ice skated a lot. We were just outside all the time
until it was like literally 50 below where you couldn't go outside and the
windows were iced over. We left the north country and
my father took an interim year out of school in Ohio, a small
Quaker boarding school. It's teeny tiny little Quaker boarding school.
I had no idea what it meant to be a Quaker. I was in
I guess I was in ninth, tenth grade at that point. I thought he had taken us to the
end of the earth. I was not a happy 15 year old at all.
But I looked back on that year. We were there for a year. It was an interim year for
my dad and it really was an opportunity for me to kind of find my spiritual
center despite the fact that I'd grown up with a fatherhood gone to seminary who
had spent some time as a minister. We hadn't been a particularly kind of
religious family and my parents had always looking back on it.
They said we wanted to leave your religious identity really up to you and
your brother and I'm like well it's hard to form them without a lot of
exposure but that's another story. I spent that year of tenth grade
every school day for 20 minutes in the morning and 20
minutes in the evening in what they call Quaker collection. You sit in silence
and then twice a week on Sundays and on Wednesdays we had 45 minutes of Quaker
meeting where we sat for 45 minutes in silence which for a 15 16 year old who
had never done anything like that was kind of bizarre. But I will say that by
halfway into that year I went from counting ceiling tiles and
shoes and feet to really appreciating the silence and the
inner reflection and for those who are not familiar with
Quakerism the idea is that you sit in silence and it's given that silence
that you hear God and so I think older more mature
Quakers than I was at the time would share those insights on occasion
and speak to what they were hearing but I it is still something that I value
enormously now as a more religious person and certainly a deeply
spiritual person those moments of quiet and reflection. That's how I start every
single morning when I wake up heading downstairs getting my coffee
and sitting in silence for a little while. Then we left
Ohio, Barnesville, Ohio to be exact. Then my father takes another headship
the Foxcroft school which is a girls boarding and day school
in Middleburg, Virginia in the middle of beautiful horse country Virginia.
I was a new junior in high school with this new head of headmaster at the
school who decided that it actually was not okay for kids to smoke at school
that it was not okay for some other things that people were
any remember but he was changing changing things and making new rules and I
just remember you are making my life miserable
dad. Yeah that was your dad that was your dad making all those changes.
Yeah but again I look back on that experience it is definitely where I
became a student where I took myself seriously
intellectually where I remember having a whole bunch of teachers
who really valued what I had to offer intellectually.
I didn't mention that I found out I guess fourth or fifth grade through a
lot of educational testing and many many tears and it was all cemented when I
took I think in sixth grade my first SSAT test that I
have dyslexia and probably found out a little too late that I had a learning
difference. School was was always really hard for me
I've shared with the kids here that when I was in fourth grade I was a blue bird
in my reading group and the blue birds were the lowest reading group.
We quickly understood that whole smoking me our approach and that was really
hard I just remember that. Anyway I'm in 11th grade and a senior in
high school and I am finding my own way now in in terms of succeeding
academically and just feeling smarter for the first time because I
teachers who believed in me and that meant a lot.
And then after I also had opportunities to get involved in school leadership I
was the vice elected vice president of my class my senior year and the president
of the class got in trouble. I don't remember exactly what she did but
lost her position and I became the class president but it
pretty early in the year but I that was one of my first kind of
worries into leadership. Prior to that though I had always been a
very entrepreneurial kid always looking for ways to to make money to try
different things. I worked with kids a lot in the
summer whether I was working summer camps or I was
giving little kids tennis lessons and that kind of thing.
I love being with kids and got a lot of joy and satisfaction out of that
and then that is sort of I headed off to college
went to the University of Virginia had a experience there. It's interesting
looking back on it as a as a student who had learning
differences. That was a time when very few colleges and
universities were actually providing student support in that situation and I
can remember going to the department of student support and
remember what it was called and it was like literally in the
dungeon of the oldest building on campus and
but I remember those people being really supportive and I look at that center
now that they have at UVA and it's completely different and modernized
but I did I made it through UVA and the the best part of that experience was
the experiential experience I had my my fourth year there where I did an
internship and realized that I was actually going to be okay in the real
world. I just had to get through statistics and through some of these
things that were so hard. I would say that college
allowed me grit and resilience big time but college was parts of it were hard
but I knew I wanted to work in school so I applied and was accepted to a fifth
year graduate program at UVA in the education school
and you start taking the courses your your last year of college and I started
taking those education classes and I hated them.
They were dry they were so theoretical and I thought maybe I am not cut out
to work in a school and to do all of this. I kind of changed gears decided I was
not going to go to graduate school. I wanted to get out of school frankly at
that point and decided I would pursue an administrative
post in an independent school. I had interviewed with a number of different
independent schools and I was offered an admissions position
at a girls that actually the competitor girls boarding school to the one that I
went to in Virginia the Madeira school and I coached
I worked in the dorm I did admissions work I ended up
teaching and I was at Madeira for 23 years and I did just about every job
under the sun there always kind of looking for the next challenge and ways
that I could engage and do different things and grow my skill set. I had an
incredible mentor in the head of school there Betsy Griffith
who I had the just the gift of working with for 20 years
and she really inspired me in terms of what I saw was a woman who
was she was a leader she was a strong leader
she was smart she was a mom she was a wife she was feminine she was a
feminist and I was like man you can do all of this stuff
and very inspirational to me I think a lot of people
God rest his soul my dad think that it was my dad who really inspired me
to become a school head and frankly it was really Betsy
seeing that model and and for me the power of being able to see a version of
my future self and to provide that for kids today
is really has a lot to do with why I do what I do.
All into your colleagues too I should say well thank yes a lot of talking I think
I should just know you're gonna do some more talking
you're not done I do hope what you heard is that all of my individual
educational experiences were which were very different
had a huge impact on who I have become as an educator
yes yes well and I wonder if it's a it's made an impact on just who you are as a
human being and how you see the world most definitely and I think that has a
lot to do with why I feel so strongly in the model of an
individual and having been out of higher
faculty who are passionate about what they teach and who they teach as
opposed to educational theory and a set way to do it that kind of stuff
the freedom that he gives them. I think it's what you shared about
being diagnosed with dyslexia is a really important message for families to hear
so often and even just talking with peers who have
children who are now being diagnosed with certain learning differences
I think the first response is panic or fear or worry
am I going to be able to support my child are they going to be okay
and the anxiety of that but you are an example and there's actually
lots and lots of examples of people who serve in leadership roles similar to
what you do who there's documentation of this
there's a disproportionate amount of people of dyslexia who are CEOs and I
think that's so fascinating. It is but I'll tell you boy
to all those parents out there we I can talk a really good game
and I am the mother of two kids with learning differences
and I definitely made some poor decisions
probably based on some of the wrong things thinking I was doing the right
things for my kids when I yeah looking back on it being
worried about pulling them out of certain social situations or
situations that would have allowed them to pursue
passions and loves that they had but having putting them in the right
educational setting those were hard decisions and we didn't always make
the right decision. You mean choosing where they wanted to
be in the moment versus choosing a place that could have supported them better
academically? Probably where I wanted them to
where I wanted them to fit. Right yeah yep we say this all the time
we all say it as parents there's no there's no one
way to do this and we there's lots of different points of
view on how to parent but at the end of the day it's it's hard work and but I
do think your message is an important one Meredith just to say
and you've shared this before you've shared in another settings
what you wish you could have done differently as a parent but just
who you are as a person and what you just acknowledged about your own
journey it was not a straight line there were lots of curves and turns and
maybe doubling back and trying it again. National disappointments and
you know you just it's not a straight line I think we all think that but no
heavens no and as I say it all the time if
if I've done nothing else in John I as parents
just modeling being a just be a good person yeah they're watching
yep they are my two-year-old is spinning back
everything I say right now and I'm realizing I'm saying things that I'm
not even aware that I'm saying it's a little terrifying. That's that
you know all that you just shared leads us to
an important or interesting question to acknowledge about what you do
every day you are part administrator your part CEO your part educator
your part visionary for the school help families understand what it is a head
of school actually does from day to day. I think about the job in a number of
different angles one one of the big pieces is that on my shoulders
sit the success of this place at any given day I may be
on vacation but I am carrying the success of this place with me at all times
we are one part this educational endeavor
which is it's a combination of deliver of curriculum we're of kind of an
extension of family we are church we're health care mental health care
provider we we provide all of these pieces related to the
maturation process of a healthy human being and it's the most precious
commodity that we as parents have in our lives and we're
sit there's people are entrusting us to support their children in this process
and in order to do that we are a we're business
operation so we don't receive any funding from the state we don't have any
federal funding it is all comes out of tuition and
privately funded dollars we have about a set almost a 70 million
dollar operating budget on an annual basis we carry a currently have an
endowment that at this kind of market low is sitting
about a hundred and thirty million dollars we produce about a thousand
w-2s annually a huge chunk of that almost half of it is a whole collection of
part-time employees it's a question of part time with about 500 full-time
employees and we of course have to follow all the laws associated with
being a business operating in the United States in the state of Georgia
and that just has gotten more and more challenging
really since I entered the profession in 1989 lots of accountability lots of
transparency on that front and then and I guess that the the other piece of
my my boss is a board we have a board of 31 sort I said call that they're
non-paid professionals we our board operates very much like a
corporate board they just don't get the benefit of the
salary that corporate board members get they work very hard so they I am their
only employee and then everybody else it love it reports up ultimately through
me but I have this incredible leadership team
who all have a piece of this operation and then I guess that the last chunk of
that work really is this this visionary piece sort of it's not my
vision it's Eva Lubitz vision it's our mission
and it's our our vision to be the school of choice
for a whole child education in the city of Atlanta and how do
it's my responsibility to make sure as the world is evolving around us and
changing that we continue on that track and that we
continue to make to prepare kids to be successful in their
futures which is an ever evolving education frankly I mean we can't
we can't provide the same education we did in 1985 it's not a static
initiative so it's keeping that ball rolling too
it's kind of a three-legged stool I guess well given what you just shared I
had this question queued up for later but I think it's worth asking right now
you've been spending a lot of time talking with
the leadership team about the future and what education might look like what
what our world might look like and how does a love it graduate
been into that constellation of the unknown what do you see given all the
conversations we've been having what do you see as really those
critical skills that kids will need to have to be prepared for that
uncertainty I think a lot about this and one thing
we know for sure is that artificial intelligence is it's coming well it's
here frankly and it's not going away and it is replacing a lot of the jobs
that are related to skills that we historically have taught kids in school
computational skills writing communicating number of different
things that are putting different kinds of problem solving what it does not
solve for is emotional intelligence intuition empathy and compassion and
nuanced thinking and different perspectives and so I
so I know that doubling down on those skills is going to be important I think
we say it all the time but resilience and grit
there are so many complex issues that need to be solved and it's going to take
4,000 tries to kind of get at the right solution it's not a one and done
how do we make sure that it's the love it graduate who has the stamina who has
the fortitude who has the grit the resilience
the appreciation of a diversity of perspectives to try different angles to
bring more minds to the table I want those to be our people out there
who are in all walks of life operating with that skill set
well I mean we're having these these conversations right now with colleges
I met with a university president earlier this week and asked
her what what is the number one skill that you hear
your faculty say and they wish they saw more of in the classroom
no surprise grit resilience how do we then translate the building of that
skill into our classrooms and beginning to think about some of that you know
it's fascinating we as schools we we are responsible for curriculum we're
responsible for delivering through content an outcome of skills
and in many ways and that does have to evolve over time but who is it to kind of
guide us and say these are the skills they need
it's the classroom teacher does not have a whole lot of free hours in the day
to be figuring that out but I think it really is it's it's people like myself
it's making sure that we are providing our faculty with the resources of
realities that are happening out there we're out ahead explaining
two more families yep what we're teaching in our classroom and why it's
valuable to the future of their students right and why it looks
different than what what I learned and what they learned what they learned
what we all learned what we all learned yeah I mean at some point
memorizing some of the stuff that kids have been memorizing is just a waste of
time and we've got to figure out when is the right time to let go of some of
that and we never want to get rid of it's through some of that
memorization of stuff that that you're building other muscles talk
more about that parent school or family school relationship
partnership where do you see opportunities for love it to do more
in terms of quilting that relationship and where do you see opportunities for
families to engage more it excites me so much to think about
this this aspirational vision of a school that has presented itself
so transparently and effectively to families that they know exactly
kind of what to expect that there can be a values there can be an expectations
much and if we could do that so well that we are working
that handing glove approach to growing these kids together and that
what families are doing at home is mutually supportive of what we're
doing at school and what is happening at their friends
house who also goes to love it is there's this sense of parents can
can have this feeling of safe the sense of safety that
that they have a sense that if we value this this other family probably values
the same thing and and then it allows us to give
kids this incredible amount of independence
and again to grow those skills and we can we as the adults in their lives
can back off maybe just a little bit and feels though we have we can control
a little less of their lives and and be a little less worried
I think we're all really worried about it these kids they are
it's not an easy time to be growing up so I I'm really excited about
and we will continue every day at love it too I mean we
Jessica your position I mean we're thinking about it organizationally in
terms of the work people are doing it love it we're thinking about where we
put our resources my commitment to transparency
in this partnership and then to really understand kind of the boundaries
where what is schools to decide and what is a parents to decide and
we do have professional educators here and
they're professional educators but they're not the parent of
Sally Smith and that's Sally Smith parents are expert in Sally Smith you
know we just have to be I think be really aware of that and then I
think the other piece of that is making sure that as we hire
faculty and administrators and staff that and and we've been we've been doing
this I think really well lately we are really hiring people who have an
appreciation for that same value set so that we're all working in this same
path I think the baseline of what you just
described is a community that trusts one another you know that
family school teachers parents kids we trust if we can't have a degree of
trust I mean we've lived through the past couple
years it is so disruptive and everyone's life and it feels lousy
and it really does it tests the model the tension
the integrity of our model let's play out just an example just for the sake of
a conversation Sally Ann's parents who know Sally Ann the best
have a concern about something that's occurred in a classroom
where should Sally Ann's parents direct that concern I would love it to start at
the most local level possible where Sally Ann
has talked to her teacher it it can Sally Ann
solve this for herself that depends on what grades
Sally Ann ends in and of course if Sally Ann is a
kindergartner and she's reported something to her parents that's
that's concerned them I that parent does need to call a teacher and and they need
to do it through the range of my my five-year-old has just shared this
with me and it's a five-year-old's interpretation of something but I think
trying to solve it in the most local level possible makes a lot of sense
and if it's if the solution does not set right with
either party at that local level taking it to the next level which would be
a division head perhaps and then on from there but I think to jump
straight to to me or to a board member there they really don't know what's
that's not their job and I am just going to have to go
all the way back to find out what's happening at that at that
other level but again it goes to that trusting and I think
we're living in this moment of time where everybody's a little bit afraid
and and there's this sense and I'm not even sure where it's come from
necessarily that am I putting my child at risk by
directly confronting a teacher about something and I think kids feel that way
sometimes that strange power play and then the
teachers are feeling it yeah also but I mean Jessica you've talked a lot about
and I think it's it really is going to be part of how we
continue to strengthen this partnership is just to get to know one another
better and to begin to have conversations about
kids in general with parents and teachers in the same room together
and making time for that because it wings somebody it heightens your level of
trust and we just haven't had a whole lot of time for that over the past few
years and you I think of another byproduct of that is you
realize we're all on the same team and that we're not at odds with one another
that we really are you know we're all working towards the same goal
and that's for our kids yeah yeah we just covered a lot of questions that
are complex your work is complex and also very exciting
you're doing something different every hour of the day
what drew you to this role you talked about your mentor you talked about
what Madeira meant to you but what what drew you to the role
and what what keeps you here too and what drew me to the role was
when I began to realize that what I thought
was best for kids I couldn't move the levers in the position where I was to
make that happen and that inspired me I also and I I've shared this before too
I started my educational career in a setting that did not have a faith
identity associated with it at all and I saw kids struggling mightily
with life issues and at no point could we harness it was not appropriate for
us to harness a conversation with them about their faith identity to be part
of how they managed through something or to have faith in something larger
than themselves and I and my my son went to an
episk I was actually on the accrediting team for
an episcopal school and it was such an eye-opener for me to see kind of what
that was like to have that piece of an identity incorporated into a child's
education and experience and frankly a teachers too that kind of coincided
with my interest in pursuing a heads role and when I had an opportunity to
work to apply to an episcopal school that really
inspired me and this idea of kind of the whole child approach to me really kicks
in and it's it is to work in a place and to be
supporting an education that so deeply values the development of emotional
intelligence as much as intellectualism is what I think it's all about it's
really exciting there are a lot of schools that I
would not be inspired to work in but love its mission
and our values and that the deep commitment to that and our founder's
vision spot on and frankly to do this kind of work
and to when I talked about carrying that responsibility every moment of every
day wherever I am it's not just a job it has to
be part of who I am as a human being to love it and I are
deeply entwined I guess that is what keeps you here
is that a really deep connection to what this place is all about and knowing
that I think we can we can keep aspiring to do it
better I don't know if better is the right word but even more succinct
well to continue to evolve to continue to evolve yeah the world needs love it
graduates kind of teasing this out a little bit more
when you think about love it the big points of pride for this place
what makes love it what it is today the first official week that I worked
here I was sitting in this office and looking out behind me where I look at
onto Williams Plaza and I had this sensation that this place
actually had like a heart there's like a beating heart to its center it sounds
a little bit weird and crazy but love it is like a it's a living thing
and it's not about one person it's pretty amazing how
a place can have such a personality and and and frankly a heart and I think
that heart piece impacts everybody who's here and that that certainly is my goal
that everybody who is part of this place whether you're an alum who graduated
in the 60s or you are a new first grader now that you feel
a physical connection to this place you're not the first person to reference
love its heart on the podcast which I think I mean I think you're actually
the the third person to reference that which I
think is pretty remarkable that that's the image
that comes to mind yeah it's right out it's right out here in Williams Plaza
it's yeah every day especially at like 120 p.m.
what about flipping this question a little bit what keeps you up at night
what do you think some of those most pressing challenges are for love it
well first of all actually I do sleep pretty well because I'm tired
but what keeps me I think filled with a little bit of anxiety
kind of that it's kind of ever-present are the stressors of society that are
working against us social media the race to that academic race to
nowhere which is it just seems like such a a hamster wheel that is so hard to get
off of and I see what it is doing to our kids and their health I see what it's
doing to our kids and their relationships in their families I see what it's doing
to the health of parents I just wish that I sit in such a
privileged position where I I can move chest pieces around and I
cannot I can't figure out how to fix that one we also we we have some some
things here at love it that have gotten old that we need to repair
we have a financial model that I wonder at what point can we not keep growing
tuition and what how are we going to change that's in 50 years we don't
cost as much as Duke right now yeah exactly that we we continue to be an
affordable option for as large a range of possible of people
some of those things those are big things and and find in ensuring that we
continue to attract and retain the greatest educators we can without
without really great teachers we are nothing
and it is really disheartening oh I see the numbers of people not going in
the profession and then I talk to colleagues who just
they are they are brilliant they were such they were talented students
themselves they are passionate and they they feel as though their profession is
losing so much esteem and that's a bummer but we're working on that
got a plan for that it's just it's that that academic race like I just have to
fill a resume I'm going to school for the sake of
grades and GPA not to learn like I care about the grade I don't really care
about what I've learned because I have to get into a really good college
and if I don't my future is capoot and I have to do sports and I have to stay up
all night long because I have all these tests tomorrow and if I don't do well
in the test and something has gotten to give I would love to be the school that
experimented the great experiment where I got ever all the
all the and all the parents who are investing in this education to say okay
we're going to give this a shot we're going to make sure that our kids are
getting eight to nine hours of sleep at night we're going to give kids
fewer tests we're going to you know my gut is our kids would continue to get
into great colleges and succeed but that's a big
it's a big risk for a parent to say okay we're going to do it differently
yeah I like that idea for somebody else's kid
yeah or thirty three thousand dollars experiment
and it's easy for us to blame college damn those colleges
if they would just stop but they what did Jessica you told us just heard a
USC had 80,000 applications I mean somehow they got to find 2,000 out of
80,000 well and I remember I will not name who this
was but it is a dean of admission who had a highly highly selective school
college and he shared with me it's not my job
to worry about students it's my job to fill seats in a class
and I don't know that he probably began his career thinking that way
but over time and the pressures of the role and the
all the things that you just described Meredith it
wears on those folks too and eventually you land in this place where you just
say I gotta make sure that I got seats in classes filled
yeah it does and it it is right where the very tippy
I don't know to be top or very bottom bottom it's where that business model
hit the programmatic piece the the mission and
it's I think it's why it's so important it's such a
such a balancing act to make sure that we are
we're finding a way not to short sheet that mission
to improve a budget yeah and you can appreciate I mean in that case that school
is not in jeopardy of closing in stores but the headlines the last few weeks
at least in inside higher ed and the chronicle of higher education
lots of colleges are closing their doors right now the money has run out
so are independent school yeah and so you it's a it's a really tough
the precarious it is a bad experience yeah
situation that we're all in and it's it is a it's not a sustainable financial
model no it or from a human point of view it's not
or that right there's a lot of reasons why
these realities are not sustainable it's a it's a tricky place to be
and we benefit from being in the southeast where population is still
increasing but we're a little bit more insulated than maybe other parts of
the country but yeah it's not to say that we
can afford to not can to respond to these issues right right
okay let's go back to talking about the future
and let's let's let's not go too far out love it's about to celebrate it's
one hundredth birthday in a few years 2026
yeah where do you hope we are by then just in three years where do you hope
love it is in three years i'm really excited about what the
near future holds so love it for kind of the first time in
its history our board has been engaged in a master planning process
and was looking at this place through the lens of a whole child education
and through the lens of the skill that the skill building that needs to happen
for students to be successful into the next
few decades internally we're thinking about the programmatic pieces
and feeding them to the board and the work they were doing on the master plan
and we have come up i mean we know that we have
some spaces if you think about space as another teacher so you've got
a teacher at school you've got parents who are teachers and then you've got
this space that kids are operating in it really is a form of teacher
the community center building where we have arts our arts program where we
have our academic resource center we have the library
educational technology where we're breaking bread together where we're
worshiping those spaces are not serving our needs we
need a maker space that's twice as large really to serve our students
we also have this incredibly beautiful campus and
kids are spending an enormous amount of time in a building that's almost
completely opaque we have come up with this just
a wonderful design of a space that is going to unite our three divisions really
as one love it our littlest kids are going to be
able to see the grown-up versions of themselves on a more frequent basis
are older kids are going to to be reminded of their younger selves and to interact
with teachers that they had previously teachers are going to be able to
intersect more with one another it's a space that's solving
a newly designed space that's solving for a lot and it's really exciting
that is on the horizon and i think it is it is a building that is designed
with a whole child education in this place in mind and the school finally
at this moment of time have the resources and the forethought and the vision
to bring it all together so that if we can if we if all goes well and we can be
opening our doors around our hundredth birthday the other piece that's
really exciting is that we i think we are very creatively
beginning to solve for this teacher attraction and retention
model through some really creative innovative
ventures they do have price tags attached to them
but the goal is really the ennobling of teaching and it is
providing professional educators with the time
that they need to continue to develop their craft
and also the professional leadership opportunities and career advancement
opportunities that most classroom teachers
don't have they they we have had a conversation with a teacher recently
who talked about this is a woman who went to a very selective
university and did very well with her peers and
she became a teacher a really great teacher
and she has friends who became sort of they started as the associate
something and then they became the assistant vice president and then
became the president and they they've had this career
ladder of advancement and she has gotten to be better and better in the
classroom as well but has not had the same opportunities for increased
growth and challenge and we are have put together
some models that allow for that it's it's really exciting and i think we are
going to be a place that is going to be very attractive
to to the teachers we have in terms of retaining them but also of
attracting teachers in the future to be a place that is really
prioritizing excellent teaching and the career development of excellent
teachers i think our future is really bright
all right here we are the last question and as usual the only question i shared
with our guest today it's maridith cole what does living love it mean to you
okay this one is hard because it means so much
living love it to mean means learning and growing and building relationships
and environment that is safe and every sense of the word
challenging joyful and unbelievably full of possibility
that that's what i think it is i have to say that i am personally so grateful
for your leadership maridith and your belief not just in me but so many
people on this campus to help us continue to grow
and see the possibilities of what love it can be three years from now ten years
from now for that kindergarten or in 2050 we are in
excellent hands thank you so much for being i'm living love it today
thank you jessica you know i i also failed to say we just have a
me i said we have amazing kids we have an amazing collection of
adults and if we can get ourselves organized in a way
that we have every opportunity to be a large larger than the sum of our
parts man watch out yep i'm with you thank you
thank you
thanks to maridith cole for being on living love it today
you can find living love it on apple podcast spotify or your favorite
podcast app connect with the love at school on facebook twitter and
instagram all things love at school may be found on our
school website loveit.org i'm jessica sant and until next time
i hope you've enjoyed this story from the riverbank
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