Schools of Excellence: The No. 1 ECE & Private School Leadership Podcast

Hosted by Chanie Wilschanski

Entrepreneurship Education

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300

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Oct 2026

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About the show

If you are an Early Childhood director or childcare owner, prepare to transform your school and life with the Schools of Excellence podcast. Tune in each week to learn from Chanie Wilschanski, the founder and host of the Schools of Excellence Podcast and a mom of 4 kids. Each episode will be packed with tools and strategies - equipping school leaders to improve staff retention, increase teacher motivation, grow parent partnerships, create a collaborative culture, and enjoy a beautiful quality of life. Every week, Chanie shares the truth about childcare and early childhood school leadership for those striving towards excellence. If you are an early childhood or childcare school leader looking for strategies to grow your school, that are working TODAY, The Schools of Excellence Podcast is for you. In addition to weekly solo episodes, she'll also be inviting childcare and early childhood industry leaders to discuss the most pressing issues facing school leaders today. Don't miss an episode; subscribe today for everything you need for your school leadership journey!

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60 recent

October 20, 202623 min

322. You Can't Think Your Way Out of Overwhelm

How many times have you tried to think your way out of a hard day? You make the plan, color-code the calendar, give yourself the pep talk... and your shoulders are still somewhere up by your ears. Ashriel Huber is a certified brain coach, author, and host of the Called & Curious Podcast. She helps women who love God but still have anxious thoughts, hard days, big callings, and very human brains learn practical ways to become more at home in their minds and more rooted in God's love. She mixes faith, brain science, honest stories, and simple practices to help women notice what's happening inside them and experience more peace, joy, and connection in the life they're already living. What you'll learn Why you can't think your way out of a fear state, and what your body needs instead The signals your body sends before your brain even knows you're stressed Why ambitious women keep adding more, and how to start subtracting Five things to do with everything you're carrying (only one of them is "carry it better") How to face hard seasons honestly without slapping a positive affirmation on top The identity trap behind "a good mother, leader, or wife should..." and how to renegotiate it Why "I tried it and it didn't work" misses the point, and what rhythms of returning change Connect With Us Ashriel’s Book, Love Moves: https://www.calledandcurious.com/general-3 Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com Join Schools of Excellence on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

October 13, 202614 min

321. Who’s Really Driving Enrollment at Your School?

If I asked you right now who owns enrollment in your school, you could probably give me a name. But if enrollment dropped this month, would that person be the first to notice? Or would you? Most owners I coach can name their enrollment person in about two seconds. She gives the tours, calls back the inquiries, and sends the packets. Then I ask a different question: who is responsible for moving this building from where enrollment is today to where it needs to be? That's when the room goes quiet. In this episode, I'm pulling apart the difference between handing off enrollment tasks and handing off the enrollment outcome. If you're still the one checking the numbers, doing math in your head as you walk past a half-empty classroom, and coming up with every idea when the number won't move, you never really let go of enrollment. You just stopped touching it. We walk through a concrete example, the four parts of infrastructure that make ownership real, and what to do when your director looks at you and says, "I don't know." In this episode, you'll learn: The one question that reveals who really owns enrollment in your school (hint: it isn't on your org chart) Why "help us grow enrollment" creates invisible work for everyone The pipeline numbers your enrollment owner should know without asking you The four parts of ownership infrastructure: standard, ownership, rhythm, and response How you take ownership back the moment you start supplying the ideas What to do when your director says "I don't know," and how to build her thinking without doing it for her Seven questions to ask this week to see who's really carrying enrollment in your building Connect With Us: Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com Join Schools of Excellence on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

October 6, 202620 min

320. Why Hiring More Staff Won't Give You the Relief You Think It Will

You hired the director. You hired the admin. Maybe you even hired the regional. So why are you still the one lying awake thinking about the classroom that isn't staffed? A lot of you are hiring right now. Teachers, admin, maybe a whole new layer of leadership. Before you make that next hire, I want to have a conversation with you about what you are actually handing off. It started in my kitchen. My 11-year-old daughter asked to bake with her 8-year-old brother, and I said yes, as long as the whole kitchen got cleaned up afterward. Fifteen minutes later there were bowls everywhere and ingredients all over the counter. When I asked her about it, she told me, completely sincerely, "But Mommy, I already cleaned seven things." I didn't ask for seven things. I asked for a clean counter. That moment has stuck with me, because it's how so many of our schools run. Everyone did something. Emails were sent, candidates were called, the spreadsheet got updated. And the counter is still dirty. The classroom still isn't staffed. The family who toured still didn't enroll. And somebody has to notice. If you own a school, you already know who that somebody is. In this episode, I share a conversation with a school owner I was onboarding recently who wanted her school to stop depending on her without disappearing from it. We talk about the difference between task distribution and true ownership, why your team can't read the standards living in your head, and what to do the moment your director walks in and says, "We're short two teachers." Are you hiring helpers when what you really need is owners? Let's find out. What You'll Learn Why hiring more people doesn't bring relief when you transfer labor but not ownership The difference between task distribution and real ownership (and why most of what we call delegation is the first one) Why "hiring" is a task and "an appropriately staffed building" is an outcome The invisible agreement you make when you hire a helper instead of an owner Why your team keeps missing a standard that only exists in your head What to say when a problem lands on your desk so ownership doesn't boomerang back to you The four-part ownership infrastructure: Standard, Ownership, Rhythm, Response The one question to ask before your next hire: What needs to become true in this school without me? Connect With Us: Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com Join Schools of Excellence on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

September 29, 202638 min

319. From Survival Mode to Strategy After 35 Years in Childcare

You can have a leadership team, directors, job descriptions, titles, and processes. And somehow the school still works because you're the one underneath it all, noticing, anticipating, remembering, and asking the next question. From the outside, it looks like you've built something that runs. From the inside, you're the invisible operating system. In this episode, I sit down with Kris Saburn, an executive director who has spent 35 years in childcare. Kris has a center director, an administrative specialist, and a teacher mentor on her leadership team. On paper, she has plenty of help. And for years, she was still running in survival mode. What You'll Learn Why a full leadership team doesn't automatically mean a school that runs without you The open door policy myth that keeps directors working 60-hour weeks Why so many women in leadership give to everyone except themselves, and what it takes to receive care The difference between being lonely at the top and drowning in plain sight Why questions build more leadership capacity than answers ever will How constant updates can be a form of soothing your own anxiety Why trust is built through evidence your body experiences, not through pep talks The skills Kris built that help her face licensing citations and hard conversations without losing sleep What happens when you only seek support in a crisis Connect With Us Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com Join Schools of Excellence on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

September 22, 202625 min

318. Women Do the Job…But They Don’t Get Credit

I don't bring guests onto this show very often. Most weeks it's just you and me, working through leadership, one honest conversation at a time. But every so often I want to hand you a different voice, because getting to witness yourself in someone else's story is powerful in a way I can't always create alone. This week that voice is Kate Young. Kate and I have been friends for a while, along with her cousin Carrie, and we've done a lot together in the childcare space through our ongoing "Childcare Conversations." She's spent the last 30 years in early childhood education, she's a mom of four, and she's here to talk about her new book, Authority Without Apology. The book is about the women who are holding down entire industries — including ours — and getting zero recognition for it. Kate told me flat out: accomplished women don't need more credentials. We need to be seen for the job we're already doing. Once you see that gap, she said, you can't unsee it. We went deep. We talked about the financial cost of never stepping into your authority, and the quieter, invisible costs underneath it — confidence, identity, the years you lose being "somebody's spouse" instead of yourself. Kate told me about her own mother, who legally owned four businesses and still couldn't call herself a business owner well into her eighties. She told me about the moment, in her forties, when a stranger recognized her by her own name — and the "wrong turn" she took right after. This conversation got real fast. Grab your headphones for this one. What You'll Learn: Why Kate believes accomplished women don't need more credentials — they need to be seen for the job they're already doing The story of Kate's mother, who owned four grocery stores and still wouldn't call herself a business owner What happened when a stranger recognized Kate by her own name — and why she now calls it the turning point she got wrong The real financial cost of staying invisible in your own life and leadership (and why it compounds over decades) Why you don't have to be an expert in something to be the right person for the job How Kate found meaning in the years she "lost" by reframing them as a gift to the people who needed her most Connect With Us: Kate’s book, Authority Without Apology: https://katewoodwardyoung.me/books/authority-without-apology Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com Join This Can't Be Normal on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

September 15, 202616 min

317. Stop Blaming Your Team for This

You coach her. You remind her. You give her grace, adjust the deadline, understand her season, and hope this is finally the time it sticks. Then you're back on the ride again. I was on a coaching call recently with a group of owners, and I asked them to think about someone on their team who isn't delivering predictably, reliably, and consistently. Not the obvious underperformer, the one everyone already knows isn't working out. I mean the person you're actually invested in. The one you keep coaching. The one you keep training. The one you keep giving another shot. I call this the teacup ride. You coach, you explain, you remind, you accommodate. Round and round you go. They give you a little bit of progress, just enough crumbs to keep you hopeful, and then somehow you're right back where you started, wondering why they can't meet the standard predictably, reliably, and consistently. In this episode, I break down why “did I coach her enough” is the wrong question to be asking, why infrastructure exists to give you evidence instead of just making your school run smoothly, and the two questions that finally reveal whether you're dealing with a skill gap or a willingness gap. Because you cannot supply willingness in another human being, and pretending you can is costing you a lot more than you realize. What You'll Learn Why “did you coach her enough” is the wrong question when someone keeps missing the standard The difference between a skill gap and a willingness gap, and the two questions that tell you which one you're facing Why infrastructure exists to give you evidence of reality, not just to make your school run smoothly What it actually costs you when you keep supplying your own capacity to cover someone else's role How to build a predictable response to a missed standard instead of reacting based on your mood in the moment Why “one more chance” often protects the leader's hope more than it protects the outcome Connect With Us: Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com Join This Can't Be Normal on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

September 8, 202616 min

316. Don’t try to solve it. Just sit with it.

How many things in your life look functional only because you've become exceptionally good at compensating for what isn't? That's the question I can't stop asking, and it's the reason I started This Can't Be Normal, a new thinking space on Substack. This episode is a little different. I'm not teaching a framework or walking you through five steps. Instead, I'm pulling back the curtain on why I started writing publicly about the questions I don't have answers to yet, questions about responsibility, caretaking, competence, and what we've all quietly agreed to normalize. It started with a moment in Lake Tahoe, on vacation, when I suddenly noticed how automatically I take on responsibility that nobody actually assigned to me. That noticing turned into an article, then another, and eventually into a whole new space for thinking out loud instead of teaching from the front of the room. If you've ever felt like the person everyone relies on, the one who catches everything before it falls, this episode is your invitation to pause and ask a different kind of question. In this episode, you'll learn: Why Chanie started This Can't Be Normal, and how it's different from the podcast, coaching, or her book The moment in Lake Tahoe that made her question how automatically she takes on responsibility Why being a highly competent, capable leader can make it easy to compensate for things that shouldn't require so much of you The difference between wanting an answer and wanting to be witnessed in a question Why the same "operating system" that shows up in your leadership also shows up in your marriage and parenting The question Chanie wants every leader to sit with: what have you become so good at tolerating that you've stopped asking whether it should be normal? Mentioned in this episode: This Can't Be Normal on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/ Article: "The Cost of Being the Caretaker" — https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/p/the-cost-of-being-the-caretaker Connect With Us: Join This Can't Be Normal on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

September 3, 202621 min

315. Your Staff Schedule Needs an Audit

Your staff is the biggest line item in your budget. Which also means your schedule can be the biggest leak in your school, and most leaders don't even know it's happening. In this episode, Chanie is breaking down schedule efficiency: not "do you have enough staff," but do you have a strategic coverage system. She walks through a real audit where a single scheduling fix uncovered nearly $30,000 a year in savings, and why chasing more enrollment isn't always the answer when the leak is sitting in your own schedule. This episode covers strategic coverage versus just having bodies in the building, why schedule predictability is a leadership standard and not a luxury, why break coverage is actually a culture issue, and why directors who keep jumping into classrooms are quietly stealing from their own school's profitability. In this episode, you'll learn: The difference between strategic coverage and coverage for the sake of coverage How a 20-minute daily shift overlap across 20 teachers added up to $27,733 a year in one real audit Why systems need to be designed around the school, not around whichever person is currently running them Why schedule predictability is a leadership standard, not a nice-to-have Why break coverage is a culture issue, and how a late break erodes trust between teachers Why directors and owners who regularly cover classrooms are unintentionally hurting their school's profitability Connect With Us: Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

September 1, 202621 min

314. The Community Habit Every School Leader Needs

What if the thing that finally moves the needle in your school isn't a new system, but a phone call? This is the final episode in our three-part series on the power of community, and today we're bringing it all together: thriving together, the strength of collective wellness. We're talking about how the people you surround yourself with shape your health, your growth, your business, and honestly, your whole trajectory as a leader. I open with a quote from Jim Rohn: you are the average of the five people you spend the most time around. And once you sit with that for a second, it explains so much — why the mindset in the room rubs off on you, why a struggling season can start to feel “normal,” and why getting around leaders who are further ahead can shift everything without you doing anything differently at all. I walk through real, specific examples of what that's looked like inside our own community: a member who sold her school to another member she met inside the program, a director who got connected to her next regional manager role after a cross-country move, a leader who was saved from a construction nightmare by another member's architect referral. None of these people joined community hoping for those outcomes. That's exactly the point. What You'll Learn In This Episode: Why the five people you spend the most time with shape your beliefs, habits, and results — whether you're aware of it or not The difference between a community that creates collective wellness and one that spreads collective distress Why “your network is your net worth” isn't just a nice phrase — it's access to opportunities, knowledge, credibility, and long-term relationships A simple travel habit that keeps you exposed to new ideas outside your usual lane Real, anonymized stories of what happens when school leaders build genuine community — from business sales to job placements to saved timelines Why investing in community without an immediate ROI is still worth it — and why waiting until you're desperate is the wrong move Connect With Us: Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

August 27, 202619 min

313. How Global Connections Create Local Impact

Have you ever sat in a staff meeting and realized it's the same three people talking every single time? That's not community. That's a room full of people who've learned it's safer to stay quiet. This week I'm back with Part 2 of our series on the power of community, and today we're going Beyond Borders. I'm talking about how the connections you build, whether that's at a conference, in your staff meeting, or inside an online community, ripple out into real, local impact at your school. We're talking about why dissent is actually a sign of a healthy team, why the best ideas rarely come from the stage, and why community might be the most underrated retention driver you're not tracking. What You'll Learn Why the best ideas at any event happen in the hallway, not on the stage The real reason your staff meeting might be missing true community, even with a diverse team in the room Why "strong opinions, held loosely" might be the most useful leadership mindset you adopt this year How silencing dissent on your team quietly erodes trust (and retention) Why the same two teachers arriving late need two completely different responses from you Practical, low-pressure ways to build community even if events aren't your thing right now Connect With Us: Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

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