It’s lonely at the top. Every School Head bears the heavy weight of responsibility, but an effective, unified, executive leadership team not only lessens that burden, enhances the effectiveness of the top leader and extends his/her tenure, but also paves the path for sustained growth and mission accomplishment.
In most independent Christian schools, our leadership benches lack both depth and breadth, with too much falling on too few talented and experienced people. What happens when those key people disappear?
As School Board members, Heads, and Principals, it is our responsibility to steward the valuable human resources entrusted to us—especially those full of promise—instead of leaving them underdeveloped and then scrambling to poach from other Christian ministries when a key hire is needed. But how can an already too busy Head effectively train the leaders beneath him/her?
This session will introduce components of a one- to two-year, biblically-based leadership development program for key and emerging leaders that encompasses instruction in leadership and school operations and employs a mentoring program to develop more confident, secure, and experienced leaders. Most, or all, of this program can be delivered on site to (and with) your leadership team or cohort, increasing their exposure within the organization and building a shared commitment to the mission and trust among those responsible for executing it.
Starrla Fowler
"Starrla Fowler has served at Veritas Academy since its inception in 2004. She and her husband, Jef, co-founded this school of over 600 students now residing on its 97-acre campus in southwest Austin, Texas. For the past 17 years, Starrla has served in various capacities as the Academic Dean, Academic Team Chair, Grammar School Head, and School of Logic Head, in addition to her continued service on the school board and its Governance and Nominations committee. Starrla graduated summa cum laude from the University of Texas at Austin with a BS degree in Elementary Education. Just out of college, she taught in Houston’s Spring Branch ISD where she was a teacher-of-the-year and served on several task forces in this large school district, including multi-year studies for inclusion of learning disabled students, math curriculum development, and campus development. While at Veritas, Starrla has developed curriculum and academic programs, trained hundreds of teachers, served on accreditation teams for similar schools, and helped many classical, collaborative schools launch and grow. She is passionate about kingdom building through the expansion of classical, Christian schools. After receiving her Masters in Leadership through Gordon College, she shifted her focus to developing programs for training future Christian school leaders. Starrla and her husband, Jef, live in the Texas hill and are the parents of three adult children."