The Price of Progress: What 17 Years at One School Teaches You with Mark Pingitore

What does it actually take to lead a school through a decade of transformation without losing the people along the way?

In this episode of Evolution Stories, Christian Talbot sits down with Mark Pingetore, Head of School at the American School of Barcelona, to explore what 17 years of leading change in an international school really looks like, including the lessons that only came through getting things wrong first.

Mark traces his path from progressive education circles in New York City, working alongside Deborah Meier at Central Park East, to founding Tompkins Square Middle School, to leading ASB through a period of extraordinary growth. He reflects on a change effort in his early years at ASB that stalled not because the goal was wrong, but because he misread the culture, the law, and his own certainty. The shift from building a legal case to asking better questions turned out to be one of the most important moves he made as a leader.

The conversation also covers ASB's five-year growth plan from 2014 to 2018, when the school grew from roughly 600 to nearly 1,000 students, built four major facilities, and dramatically expanded its academic and extracurricular programs. Mark reflects on what made that period work, including a board that focused on the future instead of the day-to-day, clear KPIs revisited annually, and leaders at every level who had genuine ownership of their work. He also names what it cost: staff who felt stretched past their limit, and a five-pillar plan that should have been three.

This episode is essential listening for school leaders navigating the balance between vision and capacity, between pushing for change and protecting the people doing the work.

Transcript

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Welcome to Evolution Stories by Middle States. This interview series is devoted to teaching you how to lead change in education. We're here because facilitating change in schools has never been harder or more important. So this is your place to learn from those who are leading the way. Welcome back, everybody. My name is Christian Talbot. I am the president of the Middle States Association, and I am thrilled to welcome today's guest to Evolution Stories. His name is Mark Pingetore. Pinjitore. Pinjitori. Pinjatore. Mr. Mark. Mark is the head of school at the American School of Barcelona. He is the founding head of school at Tompkins Square Middle School in East Village in New York City. And started out his career, got connected to education through the U.S. Conference of Mayors, through which he ended up starting an after-school program in DC. So, Mark, welcome to Evolution Source. Pleasure to be here. Yeah. So I always like to know the origin story for a school leader when it comes to leading change. Is that something that you realized on the job? Is it something you knew about yourself before you became an educator? Like what where did it where did it start for you? Yeah. I mean, I think it started from my own experiences first. When I was growing up, I went to public schools. Then I went, I also went to union school, which is in Haiti, and I went to the International School of Kenya. And I also lived in Pakistan. And then I came back and went to a Jesuit school for my last couple of years of high school. And just noticing the impact of different educational systems really struck me. And actually, even though at first I didn't want to go into education, I had this thought of like wanting to start a boarding school somewhere for kids. So it was always something I thought about a lot. And then I would say the next kind of seminal moment was my senior year of university, we had like an urban politics course, and I focused on education and learned about there's a group of schools called Central Schools, Coalition of Central Schools, and Ted Sizer and Debbie Meyer. And they were on the Northeast, and I was really fascinated with what they did. And so became interested and was like interested in visiting those schools myself. And then I guess the last stop again, which you mentioned, was while I was at the United States Conference Mayors focusing on kind of educational policy and educational programs, kind of good practices in cities. A friend of mine and I, childhood friends, started an after-school program and for low-income kids in fourth and fifth grade in Washington, DC, and realized like that where was where my passion lied, and I really wanted to have an impact on kids' lives. And so then I went to New York City actually, and I went to uh Bank Street College of Education, and I got to kind of follow something I had studied before, which I ended up working Deborah Myers when she started, she started, she was she went to Fieldston, but she started the Central Park East Schools, which were progressive elementary schools. And so I got to work in one of them as my like my first internship was in graduate school. So those were kind of all the and so that was all about educational reform. So that was about change management. And um, I was really jazzed about that work and continue to be. Yeah. Wow. So you you've named a couple of uh sort of like the shining stars and the education reform, progressive education movement there. Um when you were visiting the essential schools, when you were studying at Bank Street, did um did any of those folks talk about change management as like a discipline or a practice? Was that a because that's a phrase I didn't learn even here until I was like well into my career. Yeah, I mean, they definitely didn't use those words. It was educational reform, um, which uh, you know, I I think that's definitely linked. I mean, I think change management is across different types of quote industries or whatever. Um, but it was more about like, I felt like about the philosophy of it than it was about how to go about doing it. But I mean, they were doing it. So because they had started all these small, you know, kind of the small school movement in New York. Um but I, you know, it's interesting that you you say that because I I don't think there was kind of like was no cookie cutter or like if you're gonna um start schools, this is how you should do it, besides kind of like small and here's the philosophy that we believe in. Um so that's interesting. Yeah, and when I think of education reform, I I for for better or worse, I immediately think of policy reform or policy advocacy, right? Um, which is certainly can be supportive of change. Um uh and maybe actually is probably a better way to put it is like policy has to at least get out of the way of change. Ideally, it it does facilitate it, but um yeah, but the idea of the actual mechanisms of change as opposed to the enablers of change, or like they're they're next to each other, but they're not quite the same thing. Yeah. I was but I was drawn to the implementation. Like again, there was talk about policy when I was at the US Conference of Mayors, but I was really drawn to like the action of doing it and being involved and helping lead it. So yeah. At what point, and I'm asking this selfishly because I think this is also something that is an insight that came to me very late in my career. At what point did you understand that governance policy is as important to a change process as having the right resources or having the right strategy for implementation? I mean, I almost saw the policy first, and then um I would say it's more like kind of going back to it recently. Um when the American School of Barcelona got bigger, kind of policies really struck me. Um but I guess earlier on in my career I was more focused on kind of philosophy and implementation and less about policies. Um policy and philosophy, you know, that's an interesting intersect too. Yeah. Um because I would I mean I would say the Coalition of Esther's Essential Schools, they had definitely they there was kind of policies around their philosophy, right? So there's definitely a dynamic between those two. And I I have to believe that when you founded Tompkins Square, yeah, you had to create policies, right? Like you had to build the policy or governance infrastructure for the place, right? That's true. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I again I was really fortunate that uh there was a a group of progressive schools on in the East Village, and also the superintendent of that district, which was District One of New York City, was really supportive of that movement and the um policies that helped govern it. So I felt like I had really good mentors. And I mean, I mean, and just pointing out, and I think in change management, uh surround being surrounded by supportive, able people is like essential. Which again, actually, I that wasn't something I um was necessarily aware of. I mean, like again, when I was recruiting, I was looking for really good people, but didn't think of it like, okay, need a team and I need to be so supported by, but it was more upon reflection that that uh it's I mean, change is extraordinarily difficult, and to be successful at it, um, you need a lot of good people working together to make to pull it off. Yeah. Well, let's talk about that, the difficulties associated with change. So I always like to ask about a change project you were involved in that either failed or just didn't go the way you wanted it to go. Yeah. Well, my first year at the American School of Barcelona, actually, lots of things happened differently than I expected. I again I had started a school, grew a school in New York. Um, and so the the last director, who actually was Lee Furtick, plan was he had kind of had a growth model going, and that was the plan. Um, but my first year there, um, there was the the uh financial crisis and the school shrunk. And the first thing the board told me uh was, look, um, we want you to hire a uh DFO, uh, and we really need to understand the finances because we're really concerned about the financial situation. We don't think the school can grow the way it is, but you know what, Mark, you find this person and then let's do a study. And so we did a study, and there was no way the school was financially going to be able to sustain with dropping enrollment, and there was supposed to be a new building to kind of support this change. Um, but that that's actually not the the my um story of change management that didn't work with, but that was what I walked into. That was the first big surprise. That was pretty sobering. And then the second thing was pretty sobering, which I quickly learned while I was there. I must have been, I'm thinking it must have been by October of that first year, which was already difficult because I realized I was gonna have to let 10 people go. Uh, and uh, how was I gonna manage that? Um, so I mean, that's a story in itself, but actually when I think of change management that didn't work, I mean, one of the first things was um there were quite a few, I would say, uh, community members, adults that were concerned about bullying in the school or social aggression. And um so, you know, my my goal was to try to make kids feel safer and um create some stability um among the population, among the students. And it again, like most K-12 schools, the focus of this social aggression was middle school. Uh and so there were um a few students who were, you know, particularly sticking out as social aggressors, and um I can't, you know, I'd been in the US for 17 years in education. This is my, even though I'd been um even though I'd attended international schools as a kid, this was my first overseas experience. And you know, I took a little bit of kind of what private schools might be in the United States, and um there was a strong sense among adult leadership, I'll say, in the school, that um we should kind of have a zero-tolerance policy for these for kids who are displaying this type of behavior so everyone else could feel safer. Uh and I understood that. Uh, and so my I mean, I would say some of the mistakes that I first made was just jumping to some conclusions that I didn't know. Uh and I would say, you know, part of telling the story is that I think it's happens so often in international education that you land, you take something from where you were before, you try to apply it in a new situation, and it doesn't necessarily go. So there was this sense of like our policies actually were gonna become a lot stiffer, uh, and we're our tolerance of that type of behavior was gonna um decrease so that um you know the vast majority of kids could feel safe. And so there was a particular student who um I would say did a lot of low-level behavior um uh kind of insults and uh and there was this you know a kind of a growing sense amongst some of the staff members and parents like this kid shouldn't be in the school. And so um I understood that. And so it kind of started pursuing that after, you know the you know, the the student, you know, things were repeated repeatedly happening. And um I kind of went into a US mode of okay, you know, we're gonna tell this family that look, if this continues, you're not gonna be able to stay here. Um but little did I know anything about Spanish law. Um and I um also didn't really understand well enough what was happening uh in the school community. Again, this was kind of almost surface level. Yeah. And uh the short story is um learned that like Spanish law for kids was totally different than in the United States, and much more from an aspect of uh cultivating kids. Kids are gonna make mistakes, particularly young teens. And unless a kid did something kind of like in a U.S. public school where it was really extreme, um the the job was to um try to support the kid. I mean, not you know, consequences of course were allowed, but also, you know, cultivating it. And so I would say that kind of, and I would say there was a lot of tension in the community around this issue. And so I don't think I went the right way about trying to systemically change the situation so kids felt safer. In fact, I felt like the approach led to more tension in the community among you know what what the school should be doing, what kids are doing. And so I'm kind of learning from that step back, understood, and again, a tip I would say somebody was a new leader was you know, make sure you understand the law in the country that you're in. Uh, and also, you know, really taking time to understand the culture that something's happening. So again, I was too reactive to the situation. And so um, I do feel like we stepped back and ended up changing things in the school that was a lot more successful. Um, but that was through both what I would say being clear about what our policies were. So we changed the handbook so that the procedures and the policies were really clear because they weren't before. So again, clarity is a very good thing. Uh, and then another uh area was we um we actually didn't have really a middle school at the time. And like a lot of European secondary schools, you know, seventh and eighth grades like mini high school. Yeah uh and so kids are taking exams, that whole and so we created it, we ended up creating a middle school. Uh we um, you know, more of a what I would say a real middle school model. We had had an advisory. Um so but it it was kind of a painful lesson. I mean, there's more to that story, but you know, I'm just giving you kind of the outlines of it. And I would say that kid who was really struggling, who there were a lot of adults, felt like this kid should not be in the school. I would say that that kid ended up as he matured, became a lot nicer kid. And um, by the time he was leaving and graduating the school, I was like, I'm sure glad uh that he ended up staying uh in the school. And it was like a real lesson for me about again, kids' growth over time. Um and I would also say, actually, you know, that again, this is a different story, but I I began to really appreciate the Spanish approach to education, some of its policies. And I think, again, a lot of North Americans come in and um they think the way that North American approach is might be the correct one, or you know, people need it we're the American school. Um, but you know, now that I've been at the American School Barcelona for 17 years, really appreciate Spanish culture and a lot of the policies and procedures that the Spanish government has. Yeah. Um, so the the phrase zero tolerance, I think it can be very seductive because it sounds, well, I mean, it is crystal clear, right? It means exactly what it what it says. Um and there's often, I think, a mismatch between the supreme clarity of that and the very messy reality of kids' lives, um, which gets even messier when you don't necessarily know the culture as well. Uh but I'm I guess I'm curious, Mark, when you when you think back to that point where you realized, oh, wait a minute, not totally up to speed on Spanish law. Yeah. And also, I probably have missed something about the way that the Spaniards approach um reformation of the uh of the of the social aggressor. Right. Um did you have an what was your instinct? Was your instinct to sort of like double down and get more um sort of assertive about no no no, like we've got to be zero tolerance, and were your was your hand just forced by the law? Or were you more um kind of like, was it like an epiphany, like, oh man, I just I really came at this the wrong way and I need to take a different approach? Right. I think it took time. I mean, I I I was kind of like, okay, this is what we should do. Uh and again, there was, you know, I would say there were fair amount, again, what I would say leadership members, from parent leadership to the staff, he felt like. And um, so I think my epiphany was later. I think as as this case became potential or potentially became a legal issue, started looking into the handbook and like, oh. Uh and um so I I would say really the reflection was probably, you know, certainly not that first year. Yeah. I was kind of dealing with with cr, you know, the the family felt very threatened. The family felt hostile toward the school, they were trying to protect their kid, keep the kid in. Um and so that kind of, you know, I I I wish I could have told you like after a month, I was like, okay, I we messed up, we gotta back up, but it was a longer process than that. Um so but I mean, I'm glad that we did figure that out. And I, you know, for me now it's really helpful um when I, you know, North Americans or people come from other places about Spanish culture and um, you know, the the like and sometimes Spanish a part of Spanish culture can be digressive, but it's also incredibly warm and real. Yeah. Uh and so it it helps me now um have patience with those people who are coming coming and and trying, you know, going through culture shock, uh, and also confident that over time people will appreciate the things that I've appreciated over time. Yeah. You know, it's making me think about something that I'm not thrilled to admit, but but the truth is that certainly for my first few years, I think at least two years, maybe three years, as I had the first time, you know, and I was I was young, I'd never done I hadn't even been a senior administrator, I'd been a department chair. Um I felt like I couldn't admit being wrong. Right. And I think that was it was certainly tied to ego, but but even more specifically, it was about um needing to project a kind of persona that was expert. Right. Like I don't like I don't make mistakes. Right. And so if I did make a mistake, I think I was much more likely to double down on it, yeah, to insist that it was the right thing until you know eventually I kept hitting my head against that wall too many times. And sometimes it might have been, you know, the threat of uh kind of a legal action, or other times it might have been other, you know, other other things. But um that that feels like that question of of sort of like how well do you understand your own the dynamics of your own ego in a situation and how important is your ego versus the right outcome? Like that feels like an important lesson for a leader who wants to create any kind of change. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think you have to be um reflective. I mean, I I hope this has changed in me. I I think I've I used to when you when it got to one of those like really tense moments, it was like I became, I went into like legal, my own legal mode, like I became the I'm gonna build my case. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would say it kind of a, I feel like a profound change is I've learned that when you get to those moments, you actually want to try to discover a lot more and you want to connect with that person who you're having that conflict with. And where before I felt like at that moment it was like, okay, get all your evidence in a line and then get ready for that meeting to have that hard conversation. And now I feel like that hard conversation is about trying to discover more and trying to find that bridge. And so that that took a long time for me. So do you have like a is there like a thing that goes through your head where you're like, oh, wait a minute, I'm starting to build my case, and therefore I need to stop and ask a question or is that like a technical technique? Yeah, yeah, it's totally a technique now. And I mean, I would say that was probably happened maybe halfway, like maybe I think maybe eight years ago or something like that. And I'm like, and I written you did some readings as well, you know, that helped. Uh and so um Professional development readings and experience and F found trying to listen and understand and ask more questions. Um What's an example of a question you would ask? If you if you're sufficiently self-aware to pause and be like, hold on a second, let me just discover a little bit more here. What's what's an example of something you might ask? Yeah, just tell me tell me more about that. You know, I want I want to understand why you feel that way. And it's as simple as that. Yeah, it's simple as that. Um and you know, again, instead of going into lawyer movie, well, you're wrong about that, instead uh affirming someone's feeling that way and and trying to understand their perspective. Yeah. Um, so that's that's been a big change. Yeah. I love that. I love how concrete that technique is, and it's so useful because not only does it stop you from making more of a mistake, but it's such a generous invitation to the other party. Yeah. Yeah. It's real. Yeah, it's real. Yeah, yeah. That's great. Well, let's talk about a change project that was successful. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So um I I again on the when I when I was at the American School of Barcelona, I felt really fortunate. I had got this, um, I had like a totally new board that happened around, I think, 2014. And um they I felt like it was kind of a visionary board. I mean, a lot of times in international education, you hear about dysfunctional boards. Uh and I learned so much from the board members. Uh, and you know, we actually, you know, interesting enough, I mean, the school's plans before, like, or I felt like the school's plans before were like middle, you know, you go through the accreditation process and you decide how you're gonna improve through that reflection process, which is a great way to do it. But um, you know, I wasn't aware of at least any previous like strategic plans that, and so this board, you know, wanted, you know, some of these people had been like Fortune 500 companies and and entrepreneurs, and they wanted to they um and I because at the beginning when I got there, it was like financial crisis mode. Um, when this new board came, they're like, what do you want? I'm like, another science teacher. They're like, no, no, no, like we want to take this school to another level. So, like, what would that take? What would that look like? And it wasn't since uh, you know, I was able to start that after school program and start this Tompkins Square Middle School that was like I was kind of in crisis mode um to go from that to like opening up the possibilities. And so we created this growth plan for over five years, and the idea was to um have growth, but not just for growth's sake, but because we want to do more for kids. And the school at the time um was um it was probably kind of the mid-level private school as far as tuitions, but we had one building that had been there, it was the only building since the 1980s. The whole student population pretty much was in this building. It had hadn't been painted in 20 years, so it was kind of rust coming down, there was dirt pitch in the backyard. We owned the land, so that was good, and we had we had a good staff. Um, but the the the campus was like a level C might be nice campus at the time. And so the idea was like we're gonna invest in the facilities, we're gonna grow the school so we get more inner a larger international student body, we're gonna raise the tuition on new families so that we can recruit and retain the best teachers, and um, we're going to really uh change to a more progressive style of education through a lot of professional development. And so the place that even though we didn't have much money, that we were gonna kind of spend more than most schools was in that realm of coaching, professional development. And again, some of that came from my experience in in New York, but had a board that was like committed to that. And so, and then the the other piece I would say was the school was also committed to really being a well-rounded school. So it was academics and then the uh what I would say performing arts, athletics, um, the extracurriculars, service learning, those were like, and um we made a plan and we were like pretty detailed from the finances in the plan um to the building projects. And so uh in this period between 2000, maybe actually it started a little earlier than that. So, but between 2014 and 2018, the school grew from about 600 to 900 and like 60. We like we kept raising tuition 10 on new families that came. That was like the listed price, which most schools didn't do. And I actually was I was kind of skeptical that was gonna work um because I didn't know other schools that did it. Uh, and then we um in some ways it was kind of a fortunate thing. I mean, we had a lot of good teachers, but they had been in there a long time, and so a lot of teachers were retiring. So the combination of the school growing and people retiring gave us an opportunity to kind of have hire teachers who fit a progressive vision. Um and um I also was able to, you know, at the time able to hire some new principals. So there was just this tons of change going on. Yeah um and I think some of the things that worked was kind of a clear plan vision where we wanted to go, um, the board and leadership being aligned. Um, and then I mean it was ex things were happening. So I would say it was a really stressful period, but again, between 2014 and 2018, just to give like some physical markers, was we built a new elementary early childhood center. We built a new middle school that had a new auditorium, gymnasium, we bought new land. Um, we um we renovated the the main building completely. Uh and then again, you know, new buildings are nice to have, but it's what you can do in them. And so um we went from having, you know, just to give you some examples of like the profound change for kids, we went from having like an after-school program of about 200 kids K through 12 to having over 600 kids um there. And um, we hired an athletic director, he was really good, and he was spot on in finding excellent coaches, and now he had the facilities because we didn't even have an indoor gym before. Uh, and then we hired a new performing arts director, and again, um, we were fortunate. He had a strong vision of how and that um that did well, and then um we had a relationship with Columbia University as um, and um, you know, had a really strong kind of reading and writing program at the school. Um, so that was flourishing, and then some of the teachers we hired, they were really passionate about some of the projects that we were doing. So, for example, a couple teachers we hired were really into speech and debate. So, like we have a we have an Orsi program now of about a hundred kids. Uh, the the theater program, again, we went from not even really having instruments at the school to having a band and orchestra to having musicals every year. Um, and then our academic level went from we were kind of at that time, kind of, you know, if you're using measure, you know, map scores, for example, as an indicator, we were kind of around uh, I would say other other international schools in Europe, and then we were below in math. And during that time period, our our performance and those measurements just like dramatically jumped. Uh, and so it was a there was this cycle of just kind of positive feedback happening. Um, I think there was a lot of stress, I bet. Um, but um it felt exciting to be part of that, and um there were a lot of good people, you know, just a lot of good fortune and um qual quality educators, um really good board members, quality leaders, and then Barcelona was booming. I mean that that that that another thing, like how does that work? Right. So, I mean, it became I mean, the amount of uh people coming to Barcelona at that time, so that it was just like really good timing. Yeah, yeah. I was gonna ask, um it's like what you just described feels like multivariable calculus. It's like there's so many different inputs into a system that feels like irreducibly complex. And um I think there's a lot of lessons to take away from what you just described. One of them is um the sort of the power of having a drum beat of victories, small or large. And it sounds like you had basically a very consistent cadence of things to celebrate in that growth. But um, but I wanted to go back actually to the first thing you described where you when your board said, you know, like let's think a little bit bigger here. Yeah. And it sounds to me like what you're saying is that um you had the right people on the board. Yeah. Uh, you were aligned with them, uh, because that doesn't always happen, even when you have the right people in both places. And there over time there was some shared understanding between you and the board about what success is gonna look like for the school in terms of so so all of that stuff feels like a set of preconditions for positive change, but certainly doesn't guarantee that the positive change is gonna happen. Yeah. So the question I have, Mark, is I'm like, I'm I'm hearing you describe all these things, yeah, and I'm thinking about being ahead of school again and knowing like even without a single change project, yeah, like your day is already jammed with stuff, right? There's never a lack of things to be like genuinely focused on on doing, right? And now you're you had like construction going on for two or three or four years in a row. Yeah, that's a that's a whole massive set of projects, right? You're introducing progressive education, which must have been disruptive on some level, even just you know, kind of like psychologically or in terms of mental modeling. Yeah, um, you know, the the size of the community is growing. And I think anybody who's lived through an expansion knows that there's a big difference between 100 people and 200 people, 300 people and 600 people, 600 people and 900 people. Like those are not, that's not just addition. That's like like that's a that's not just a physical change, that's a chemical change, right? Yeah. So like how did you how did you orient yourself in the midst of so much very positive change, but nevertheless a lot of like how did you keep a North Star? Yeah. I mean, I again I think the board was super helpful, and uh, we had a really good leadership team and staff members who bought into that. But I we were, you know, we had this five-year plan, but then again, I thought the board was really, you know, we had like kind of clear KPIs, like what do we want to do every year? And like each year we revisited the plan, like, okay, some of those things didn't go as we expected. So, you know, we were tweaking quote the five-year plan every year. Yeah. Um, and that was helpful. Can I ask a just a clarifying question? When you say KPIs, yeah, do you mean that you and the board had a scoreboard? Like you knew what the score was, yeah, and you were focused on that as opposed to 10 million other things that you could be talking about. Correct, correct, correct. I mean, the the I mean that was and I've I've been continued to be um blessed with like really strong boards, but that they were they weren't talking about, well, so what's what's happening at lunch, right? They're not they they weren't talking about, well, how come my kid is in, they were focused on the future of the school and how we were gonna get there. Uh and I mean quite a few of them had been involved in kind of change management. So I felt like I had mentors. Uh, I mean, they were they weren't educators, and again, there was this mutual respect. But like when I was in New York, I had budgets, but I never did forecasting. I mean, one of the members like spent hours with me kind of teaching me how to look at PLs. And um, so that that was, and then I mean, that that time period was just a lot of good fortune of you know, because there was a balance, because again, if you're making that much change, it's like not one or three people can make that happen, right? And so, like the people who were in charge of starting these programs, we you know, the everyone's gonna make mistakes, but things just kind of aligned during that time period. And so I think there was a good balance. And and one thing I'd even go back to the first story about things not working out. The problem was there wasn't balance, like balance for me, balance is a key word in leadership and change. And so, like in that case, the balance between um supporting kids socialemotionally and having boundaries. And in this case, the like here's the North Star, here's the vision, but having latitude, like again, I'm not, you know, before I was I ran a middle school, but now I'm not the middle school leader, and giving the middle school leader or giving the athletic director, they they did things that maybe I wouldn't have done it the same way. But as long as we are going in the direction of the North Star, um, and so they had ownership of the of the, and then I would say the same thing with teachers, like we had lots of teachers during that period who started, you know, like I was using the speech and debate as a program, or students, like we had a student, like we were going to model UNs, and this kid was like, Well, why don't we start one in Barcelona? Because you know, it's a great place to go. And you know, because that kid had that latitude but with support, we now every year have 400 kids who come to Barcelona. And so um I that delicate balance between trying to move people in the same direction, but giving giving them it's their thing and supporting them in it, and that's hard. Like I because that doesn't work like in that time period again, those people worked, and I would say since then sometimes I've had some experiences where you're like, ooh, maybe I should look supported that or more carefully, or I wonder how we're gonna fix that. Right? So it's it's a balance. Yeah. It's it's uh again a lesson I it took me a long time to learn, but uh, and these are my words, not your words, but what I heard you describing just now is the leader as a kind of you know, either an orchestrator or a choreographer. The choreographer is actually like the metaphor that came to mind first because the choreographer, you know, says this is what you know success is gonna look like, right? But the choreographer doesn't get out onto the stage and do the dance, right? Right? Somebody else has to do that, yeah. And those performers might do them differently than the way you would have done it, but as long as the dance gets completed the way it was supposed to get completed, you're you know, you have to accept that. Yeah. Yeah, because that's the only way to move forward without slowing everything down to a you know grinding halt, basically. Yeah. Um, last question for you, Mark. Uh, you know, you you've you've learned a lot of change leadership lessons, but you also strike me as someone who's continuing to kind of think about the question. So what's the what's like the change leadership challenge or nut you're trying to crack, or like the or the frontier of how to lead change that you're like you you're you're still trying to find out more about this thing? Right. Uh I mean I think one of the hardest things that for a lot of these international schools, and our school included, is this balance between your rigorous academic program that kids are quite successful and they're going to, you know, you know, elite university, you know, at least some portion or population of the school is going to these. And, you know, you know, for example, you know, our school has the IBDP and we do really well in it, but it's not meant for every kid. And, you know, there's plenty of critiques I have and other people have of that program. I mean, I think it's the best diploma program of the diploma programs, but and it doesn't meet all the kids' needs, and it's not necessarily the best way to learn. Uh, and so how do you, you know, again, I'm I'm rooted in progressive education, and so um I believe in meaningful projects, and I also am aware of um, you know, I I've also seen plenty of what I call fluffy projects in the world. You know, I've interviewed a fair amount of people also who've come from you know kind of project-based schools where they're like, well, the kids didn't learn the skills. And so that balance between real-world applications and kids learning skills in a with vertical alignment uh that's transferable. Yeah, I don't think we any of us have really if that balance between those two, between progressive ed and skill-based development. You know, even now, just you know, a recent quote, backlash might, you know, the science of reading, right? And like, well, we need to do more phonics, we just kind of drop that. And that doesn't mean that kids shouldn't be reading books that they want to read and have eye interest in. And so I so I think in change management around education, it's finding that balance between giving kids real-world experiences that they're invested in, and it's their questions and inquiry, and they're building skills. Yeah, uh, and so I see schools dabble in both, but like they're kind of in a groove with both. I think that's really hard to find. And you know, that and I I see it in classrooms, but institutions, it's really difficult. And I would even say, you know, like I, as you can tell, I was really excited about that period that I was telling you about, but you know, a lot of the staff would have said, like, that was too much, and it was super stressful. And so again, the I would say the other kind of balance factor is feeling you're you're changing and moving, which is uncomfortable, but not being overwhelmed. Yeah. And I would definitely said, like, the downside to that quote, success story I was telling was there were a lot of people feeling really overwhelmed and feeling like this is too much. Like I would have done it again. Yeah. Well, okay, so I lied. I I I do have one more question, which is when you know, maybe you couldn't have known it at the time, but when you look back on that period, would you say that in retrospect, I probably should have done no more than one major change or two maybe like almost like a like is there a math problem there to solve in terms of how much change people can absorb or metabolize? Yeah. Um, you know, I I can't do what some people say, which I'd like to. I think maybe it's how you package it, maybe, but yeah, I mean, we actually in that plan had five, we had five pillars. Okay. It was too much. Like, actually, one of the pillars which we're kind of tackling now, we weren't very successful. And when this was I alluded to now, which is you know, project-based learning, like we did some of it, but compared to like, I mean, the two other pillars was really lifting the math and science, and we did that, but I didn't think the pillar around, and so my my answer to you is I would try to boil it down to two or three, and that's actually what we're trying to do with our recent, our most recent strategic plan. So, I mean, we have we really have two big buckets, which is carrying and belonging and initiatives around carrying and belonging, and around deeper learning. Yeah. Uh, so that's two. The third one, which is kind of interconnectivity, really comes through the work of the two others. Yeah. So it's not really, you know, so we're getting educators, but I would say there's an argument. I don't know what the right answer is. You know, I would say it's the this like one or two. I mean, the reason I'm a little hesitant on the one, it's uh to me, it feels like I played a fair amount of sports growing up, and like it's like playing basketball. So we're just gonna focus on offense. Yeah, and like you still gotta play. So, and in education, you can't just like another way to this dichotomy between deeper learning and carrying a belonging, like one's about relationships and social emotional and support, and the other one's about act like going deeper in academics and critical thinking. But there's a there's an interplay there, and if you're not kids aren't emotionally feeling supported and connected, it's not gonna work. And part of them doing that is through doing deeper learning work, so so two, yeah. Well, listen, I mean, it's music's my ears because I did uh as a consultant lots of strategic plans, yeah. As a head, of course, strategic planning, as a board member involved in in strategic planning. And when schools ask me about this question now, I tell them no more than three. Right, absolutely. And I once I once facilitated a strategic plan um for a school whose uh the the planning chair insisted that they had to have seven priorities. Right. And I said, I'm just telling you right now, you can't have more than three. Right. And he said, Yeah, well, we'll make it work. And sure enough, when we got to the end of the process, he announced to the group, you know, we're gonna take these seven and we're just gonna do these three. Right, right. He had his tail between his legs, but at least he said it out loud because he realized, yeah, there's just no way. Right. Even four, it sounds tough, yeah, maybe just one more. It's like it just doesn't work. Right. It just doesn't work. I mean, I've just add one last word to I think to success in the change management and international schools, which I think middle states accreditation is now more and more focused on, is like I am, I've I've you know, I've been I've been here for 17 years, which is kind of a rare thing. And I would tell you, I've had really good boards. And so, and unfortunately, because since I I'm in the world, I just hear a lot of times where that's not working. And I don't think any of this change management stuff works unless um the the board and the leadership team are connected and working. And I do think that there are you know ways to monitor that and support that. And so I think it's really important work that middle states and other credit agents to push schools to have that under Girding because it impacts the kids ultimately. So I I mean I have a great board now, I've had it. I don't, you know, I've not I hope that continues, but I I think those guideposts really help schools. It's great to hear you say that. I forgot to mention at the start of the podcast that we're here in my hotel room at the AAIE conference. And just this morning, the four major accreditors, uh, the four CEOs we got together. So, you know, for the audience, that's middle states, cognizo, WASC, and NIASC. And um, and we're talking about how vital good governance is for the health of the school. A school cannot be any healthier than its board, basically. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, great. All right, thanks a lot. Thanks, Mark. This was great. Pleasure