Not long ago, a Head of School reflected on the delicate balance of leading a classical Christian school:
“Our classrooms were alive with joy. Students were eager, parents were supportive, and the mission was vibrant. But beneath the surface, I knew our financial planning was too thin, our advancement efforts too scattered, and our board uncertain of its role. We were flourishing in one sense, yet fragile in another.”
That story is not uncommon. What we’ve learned from years of accreditation visits is that classical Christian schools often shine in their delivery of the mission—in teaching, discipleship, and student formation. But thriving requires more than healthy classrooms. To endure and flourish, schools must also build and work amidst steady, competent support systems: finances that are strategic, boards that govern wisely, advancement that ties everything together, and a healthy culture that carries from kindergarten to commencement.
This fall, SCL’s cohorts focus on these very foundations. Instead of offering many tracks, we have chosen a few—crafted around the urgent needs we see most often, and led by experienced practitioners who know what it means to lead a school with wisdom and faithfulness.
- Building Financial Resilience (Standard 7), led by Keith Nix, considers the stability that undergirds mission delivery. From tuition modeling to reserves, from strategic planning to preparing for capital campaigns, this cohort helps schools think beyond the year-to-year and into long-term sustainability.
- Upper School Culture (Standards 3 & 4), led by Riley Gilmore, addresses the challenge so many leaders name: how to carry the wonder and joy of lower school into adolescence. This transition is overlooked and never simple. How do we resist reducing the teenage years to content and college prep, and instead cultivate culture that forms wise, virtuous young men and women?
- Strategic Advancement (Standard 8), led by Elizabeth Perkins, explores advancement not simply as fundraising, but as the integrated work of telling your school’s story in ways that unite admissions, communications, and development. True advancement strengthens every part of the school by aligning its voice, clarifying its distinctives, and fostering trust. This cohort will help leaders think beyond transactions—toward cultivating genuine, hospitality-driven engagement with parents, alumni, faculty, donors, and students. Schools often ask: How do we ensure that our external voice reflects our internal culture? Together, we will step into this question and consider how thriving schools cultivate generosity, loyalty, and shared ownership in their communities.
- The Classical Christian Lower School (Standards 1 & 2), led by Jessica Gombert, returns us to first principles: how the earliest years root children in both Christian identity and the classical tradition. We’ll look at how theological clarity and classical pedagogy intertwine—shaping not only minds, but loves. Beyond the Trivium, Jessica will guide us through the cultivation of piety, poetic knowledge, and virtue—showing how these early practices shape the whole person for a lifetime.
Each of these topics stands on its own, but together, they illustrate a larger truth: a thriving school cannot be built on excellence in only one area. Heads of School, in particular, live at the intersection of all eight standards. To lead well is to see how they connect, to make decisions not in isolation, but in harmony.
Cohorts exist for this very reason. They are not lectures or checklists; they are conversations among peers who share both the burdens and the hope of this work. They are places where leaders ask honest questions, share hard-won wisdom, and gain the clarity needed to lead with courage and conviction.
The path to thriving is not one we expect leaders to walk alone. Nor can it be done alone. Just as students are formed in community, so too are leaders renewed in community. And in that shared journey, there is encouragement: that your challenges are not unique, that your work matters deeply, and that God has equipped His people to walk together toward wisdom.
Cohort registration officially opens on September 8th. We hope you’ll join us this year—not simply to complete a cohort, but to be strengthened for the calling you’ve received. The goal is not only stronger schools, but schools that last, schools that flourish, and schools that faithfully form the next generation in Christ.
