School Growth

09/04/2026

Someone on your team will make a mistake. The question is: What will they remember about your response?

Every school leader has been there. Something doesn't go as planned. A mistake is made. And suddenly, you have a choice. You can assign blame. Or you can create a way forward.

In the latest episode of Educators Among Us, Scott Barron explores a powerful story about Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock—and what happened when Hancock played the wrong chord during a performance.
Davis didn't stop the music to point out the mistake. He adapted. He found a way to make the unexpected work.

That story offers a beautiful reminder for educators and leaders: correction doesn't have to come at the expense of compassion. The strongest school communities aren't built by people who never make mistakes. They're built by people who know that when mistakes happen, we help each other recover.

🎧 Hear the full conversation on "So What: Making Medicine Our of Poison." https://bit.ly/3SJdVz2

09/03/2026

The mistake isn't the moment that defines your leadership. What you do next is. A colleague drops the ball. A plan falls apart. In those moments, it's easy to focus on what should have happened.

But great leaders learn to ask a different question: What can we do with what actually happened? On this episode of the Educators Among Us podcast, Scott Barron shares the remarkable story of jazz legends Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis.

During a performance, Hancock played the wrong chord while Davis was soloing. Davis could have reacted to the mistake. Instead, he adjusted his playing to the unexpected chord, transforming the moment into something better. Hancock later described what Davis did as “turning poison into medicine.”

There’s a powerful leadership lesson in that. We can't always control the mistake, but we can choose our response. Adapt. Stay composed. Protect the person. Find the path forward. Because in education, the moments when things go wrong can become some of the most meaningful opportunities to lead.

🎧 Listen to "So What: Making Medicine Out of Poison"
https://bit.ly/4qQTAnM

08/27/2026

Your credibility can take years to build—and seconds to damage.

For educators and leaders, credibility isn't a title. It's not something we can put on a website, hang on a wall, or claim in a mission statement.

It's built in the everyday moments:
- Do we keep our promises?
- Do our actions match our words?
- Do we take responsibility when we get it wrong?
- Do we communicate with wisdom?
- Can people trust us with their stories?

In the latest episode of Educators Among Us, Scott Barron explores why credibility matters so much in education—and how easily credibility gaps can develop through exaggeration, gossip, sarcasm, careless words, or simply failing to follow through.

Because people don't just listen to what educators say. They're watching to see whether we live it. Credibility is earned through the accumulated experiences people have with us. And every interaction is another opportunity to build—or diminish—trust.

🎧 Listen to "Minding the Integrity Gap" here:
https://bit.ly/4iw1wbZ

08/21/2026

What if your school measured success by how well its educators flourish, too?

Students aren't the only ones who need an environment where they can grow.
Thriving educators need clarity.
They need trust.
They need strong relationships.
They need thoughtful people around them.
And they need leaders willing to invest the time it takes to truly lead.

In this episode of Educators Among Us, Scott Barron sits down with Nathan Wagner of Westbury Christian School to talk about the realities of leading a school toward greater excellence—and the personal growth required along the way. Nathan shares candidly about becoming more comfortable with conflict, having difficult conversations, and embracing something every effective leader eventually learns:

Good leadership communication isn't always complicated. It's often clear, consistent, and repeated.

Because avoiding a hard conversation doesn't always protect people. Sometimes, it keeps them from the opportunity to grow.
For education leaders, this episode offers a powerful look at what it means to lead with conviction, humility, and a genuine desire to help people flourish.

🎧 Listen to Loving and Leading Educators: A Conversation with Nathan Wagner here: https://bit.ly/4gtDbRG

08/20/2026

Excellence isn't a destination. It's a discipline.
A school can't simply declare itself excellent. Excellence has to be pursued—intentionally, honestly, and continuously.

In this special episode, Scott Barron talks with Nathan Wagner, Head of School at Westbury Christian School, about what that pursuit looks like in real life.

They discuss:
- Turning core values into a lived culture
- The weight of consequential leadership decisions
- Why difficult conversations are an act of care
- The discipline of clear, repetitive communication
- Creating a school where educators can flourish, not just students
- Surrounding yourself with people who challenge your thinking and make you better

One of the most important reminders for education leaders: You don't pursue excellence alone.

The right people, the right culture, and the willingness to keep growing make all the difference.

🎧 Listen to Loving and Leading Educators: A Conversation with Nathan Wagner here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7lOyloKqKsEeE2UnKGbEkI

Educators Among Us · Episode

08/07/2026

The best school teams don’t look like a collection of superstars. They move like a symphony.

You can have incredibly talented educators and still have a dysfunctional team. Because individual excellence isn’t enough. The healthiest school cultures develop a rhythm—a shared understanding of how to communicate, collaborate, support one another, and pursue something bigger than any one person.

In the latest episode of Educators Among Us, Scott Barron explores what happens when educators learn to work in graceful rhythm together. He challenges school leaders to look beyond individual performance and ask a bigger question: How well are we working together?

Scott explores:
→ Why team harmony matters more than individual heroics
→ How humility creates trust and unity
→ Why excellence requires practice, coaching, and feedback
→ The four habits that disrupt team rhythm: overreaction, undercommunication, overconfidence, and underdelivery
→ How authentic teamwork strengthens both culture and impact

The strongest teams aren't necessarily the ones with the most talent. They're the ones who have learned how to use their talent together.

What would change in your school if your team found a better rhythm? 🎧 Listen to Find the Rhythm here: https://bit.ly/3U3ozRg

07/30/2026

Leadership isn't tested when everyone shows up. It's tested when they don't.

A last-minute cancellation. A volunteer who doesn't show. A staff member who backs out. Every educator has faced those moments that can derail the day. The strongest leaders don't waste energy on frustration. They focus on what they can control: their response. In the latest episode of the Educators Among Us podcast, Scott Barron explores why broken commitments aren't interruptions to leadership—they're part of the job.

Tune in to “Change of Plans” and discover:
• Why your response matters more than another person's reliability
• How composure leads to better decisions during unexpected setbacks
• Why faithful perseverance inspires confidence in those you lead
• How to maximize the people, resources, and opportunities you still have

When leaders remain steady in uncertainty, their teams learn to do the same. How has an unexpected setback shaped your leadership? Listen here: https://hubs.la/Q04rn2nz0

07/30/2026

What should a school leader actually DO about AI and predicted Superintelligence?

THREE things 🔻Here are the three things to grow your leadership.

👉 1. Lead your board and team.
Get ahead of the anxiety with a composed, structured conversation around five key questions:
1. How durable is our mission in an AI economy?
2. Which programs gain value, and which lose it?
3. Where is our financial exposure?
4. How ready is our faculty and culture to adapt and deliver excellence?
5. What do families expect today that they didn't five years ago?

Leadership that thinks together as thought partners is less likely to panic.

👉 2. Test your value proposition.
Take every claim on your admissions page and ask whether it survives a world of free expert instruction. Keep what does. Renew your crew, curriculum, and culture around the formation your school is committed to delivering, in language that colleagues and families can champion.

👉 3. Anticipate and stay ahead.
You don't need to become a technologist. You need committed time (at least 90 minutes a week) and wise thought partners with credible sources, so you're interpreting this shift for your community instead of reacting to it.
Your teachers, families, and students are all looking for someone to make sense of this wisely.

That someone should be YOU. Lead your people with distinct expertise in people, presence, and progress.

The Human Advantage in the AI Revolution:

Here is what gets lost in all the AI revolution: when technology makes information cheap and instant, the human side of education becomes the premium.

07/27/2026

Schools are NOT the victims of the AI revolution. They're the answer to it❗

Think about what becomes scarce when machine intelligence is abundant:
Not information. Not analysis. Not even instruction.

What becomes scarce is discernment, character, community, and the capacity to love and be loved well. 💡Wisdom, in other words.

The things that can't be downloaded are the very things schools, especially mission-driven schools, were built to cultivate. 1 Corinthians 8:1 says it plainly: Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

The economy of the next decade is going to relearn that the hard way.
Knowledge is becoming abundant and free. Love, formation, and belonging now command a premium. Value always flows to what remains scarce.

So the schools best positioned for this shift aren't the ones with the biggest tech budgets or longest history. It's the adaptive schools that will dominate—the ones that are remarkably intentional about formation and consistently deliver the conditions for flourishing.

That mission statement about character, faith, and whole persons (the one that felt like lofty language next to test scores) just became your greatest asset.

The gap isn't in your mission. It's in the articulation of it and the ability to build engagement around it. That can be fixed!

Read More: The Human Advantage in the AI Revolution

Here is what gets lost in all the AI revolution: when technology makes information cheap and instant, the human side of education becomes the premium.

07/24/2026

You can't build bridges while carrying contempt.

Healthy school culture begins when educators choose to release old offenses instead of reliving them. In the latest Educators Among Us podcast, Scott Barron explores "motivated forgetness" and why letting go of yesterday is essential to leading well today.

Listen to the conversation and discover how releasing the past can strengthen your leadership. Tune in here: https://hubs.la/Q04qCMTG0