Daniel Emmerson 00:00

Welcome to Foundational Impact, a podcast series that focuses on education and artificial intelligence from a non profit perspective. This is Foundational Impact, the podcast from Goodnotes for the Good Future Foundation, a new nonprofit that aims to empower teachers and schools to thrive. Let's get into this episode right now.

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Daniel Emmerson 00:24

My name is Daniel Emmerson, and I'm the executive director of Good Future Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to equip educators to confidently prepare all students, regardless of their background, to benefit from and succeed in an AI infused world. This podcast series sets out to explore the trials and tribulations of building a nonprofit from the ground up, while also investigating the changing world of technology in life, learning and work. Today I have the privilege of speaking with president of the National Association of Independent Schools in the USA, Deborah Wilson. Deborah, thank you so much for being with us. I'm wondering, first of all, Deborah, if you could please give us a little bit of an introduction as to your role and the nature of your organisation.

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Debra Wilson 01:13

Absolutely, Daniel, it's so good to see you. I know our guests can't see us the way we get to see each other when we're recording these, but it's just lovely to be with you and thank you for having me on. I'm Deborah Wilson. I'm the president of the National Association of Independent Schools, which means absolutely nothing to anybody listening from the UK, I would imagine. We are the national association for independent schools in the United States. We have roughly 1700-1800 schools within our membership. When you count associations and a bunch of other nonprofit members, we have about 2000 members, including some international schools. So we have a very broad range, and our schools can range anywhere from less than 100 students to 3600 or more students. So a huge range of schools, and they tend to be pre-k all the way through senior year in high school. And some of our schools also have PG programs, so those postgrad years before students head off to college. So lots of schools, a good number of associations across the United States and some abroad. And we provide just a lot of support to schools. We have a lot of data in our schools. We run a data benchmarking tool called Dazzle that our schools can use to benchmark their own data against other schools. We have a magazine that we put out. You know, we sort of break our work down into four key areas. One is, as you know, a trusted authority for schools. We have, like, principles of good practice. We help schools understand sort of the guardrails or the parameters around, you know, any number of things, from bylaws to executive contracts to how to think about cell phone policies in schools. We also think about the forward thinking nature of our work. So helping schools see around corners, whether it's through data or our topic today, like looking at AI and where is AI going? What does it mean for our schools? We obviously provide a national and an international network for our schools, too, so they can reach out to other school leaders or other teachers in our schools and help network them together in that way. And then, and I think we'll talk about this a little bit today. We also serve as a national voice for our sector in education here in the United States. So we do a fair amount of work doing federal lobbying. We'll file amicus briefs in cases that have an impact on our schools and, you know, kind of help tell the story of our industry to make sure we're represented. So, you know, we're, we kind of punch above our weight. We're 60 employees, but we cover a lot of ground. And it's good fun and such a great, worthwhile thing, you know, to do. I mean, education, I think, is the most purposeful work that you can be involved in, and it's just, you know, it's a joy to do it on a regular basis.

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Daniel Emmerson 04:12

But with so many members and such diversity as well in your membership, what's it like to be president of that? Debra? I mean, your day to day must be incredibly varied as well. I'm keen to know a little bit more about the ins and outs there. What does your day look like typically?

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Debra Wilson 04:28

My days never look the same. I think most leaders probably say that, but it's, you know, this time of year, in the summer, it's a little bit quieter. We'll have a vice president's retreat next week for the organisation. You know, it's so incredibly broad. And as somebody, we do Gallup strengths finder work within our organisation, and learner is one of my profiles. So I basically get to dork out a lot on a lot of wonky things. But, you know, I get to talk to school leaders all the time. I travel a lot. I travel around generally around the US a fair amount. I do get abroad occasionally. And, you know, this past year was my first year as the president of the national association, so I travelled about 300,000 miles last year. Wow. Just getting out, seeing schools, speaking at different conferences, getting to talk to school leaders, you know, just hearing what's on everybody's mind, which, I mean, it's, you know, it's challenging. It's a leadership job. You know, these are not easy jobs, I don't think. But it's also weirdly exhilarating just to do something that I think is so purposeful and so impactful in such an interesting and dynamic sector. And so, yeah, I mean, on any given day, I could be here in my home office recording podcasts like this, but I could just as easily find myself in a week. I don't know. Last January I had a week where I started in San Antonio, and then I went to Chicago, and then I ended in San Francisco. So at three different conferences, I don't know. I think between those three events, I probably spoke seven or eight times, which was just ridiculously fun, and just got to spend a lot of time with school leaders in the mix, you know, while also keeping touch with home base and helping coordinate things like our trend book and just what's happening with schools in the moment. So I love to spend time on the road. We use what I learn and what other staff members learn on the road to kind of feedback into the resources we develop or the things that we track down as we learn that they're on the minds of school leaders.

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Daniel Emmerson 06:29

And because of the diversity of your membership, are you finding that you're able to easily see, I guess, patterns of certain topics or issues that are cropping up regardless of the size or the nature of the school that you might be visiting or the leader that you're speaking with, or is it completely across the board everywhere you go?

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Debra Wilson 06:52

Yeah, I mean, I think a huge part of my job is listening for the signal and the noise, right. So, like, what are those consistencies? And you do hear consistencies across schools. I mean, right now the biggest consistency is inconsistency. Right? Like, you know, you think you know what's going to happen, and then three months later, something else happens. I mean, look at our election cycle just this year. We have, obviously, a big election coming up in November. And if you look at this past summer, you're like, wow, okay, plot twist. Didn't see that coming. But you also see trends according to school size, and you'll see them a little bit regionally. I mean, obviously the United States is a pretty big place, and so you can track enrollment trends in different parts of the country. The south has been booming now for quite some time. We've seen some drain from urban areas, although some of them are bouncing back to start to see the flow in the data. And then as you're out speaking with people, you're like, yeah, that makes sense. It's either validating or you find something that kind of goes counter to what you're seeing. And so then you dig into that a little bit more and like, say, tell me about that. Like elementary schools were soft for a while and then coming out of the pandemic, they really got stronger. And so it was like, okay, what does this mean? What does this look like? And finding that meaning, I think, really helps schools because it allows them to maybe foresee a little bit more consistency or understand the patterns that might be happening around them at least a little bit better. But, yeah, I mean, it's a pretty diverse group of schools. And so the minute you think you can say one thing that applies to everybody, you're going to be wrong.

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Daniel Emmerson 08:26

And so how do you navigate what support looks like within the network for schools when taking that into consideration?

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Debra Wilson 08:34

Yeah, so we look at what are our strengths internally. So having people on staff who understand the legal issues schools face or governance issues that might come up. We have two incredible teams that deal with data and research. We talk a lot about access and affordability and finance, so we have a deep bench for some things, but then as new things come up, so, like AI, we're like, okay, who either has the bandwidth and the interest or who already has some background here and how do we build that out? And then we also look at, okay, who can we partner with? So here in the States, there's a group called Atlas. We've partnered with them. They're a technology organisation. So working with them to bring AI insights to technology directors and also like boards. So we just look at, okay, who else in our space might be leading some of this work? Where can we partner with them? Where can we support them? And kind of figuring out our lane a little bit that way and then looking at other people outside of our space to say, okay, who's doing interesting work here? So there's a cool tool out there called timely. And I've met with the or meeting with the leader of that organisation, I think, next week, and they use AI to help schools create school schedules. It's very, very cool and just sort of like knowing what's out there and then like, how can we bring that to our schools? How can we help them see some of those examples? So, you know, first we look internally, then we're always looking at potential partnerships, particularly across our sector, and then looking outside of our sector to say, okay, who can help us better inform our members and who else might we partner with?

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Daniel Emmerson 10:10

And then a lot of the output I suppose, from that is framed around professional development for teachers in some way, whether that's obtaining new knowledge or reaffirming skills. Some of that, I understand, might come from NAIS. But more broadly speaking, what does the state of professional development look like for schools within your network?

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Debra Wilson 10:34

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of wild, actually. There's so much happening at any given point in time. So when we look at how we support schools in a particular area, we'll look at all of the different media options available to us. So we still actually believe in writing. As a recovering attorney and former English major, I'm a big fan of the written word. And so we will do white papers on a topic, sort of teeing up some of the key issues. Or we have a blog that we run every week. And so sometimes we'll use members. So members will highlight, like, this is how we're working through something, or these are some of the solutions that we found. We'll do infographics, so we do kind of pop up surveys. The big topic right now is cell phones in schools, right? Like, I think that's pretty much universal, you know, John Haidt's book, I think has gotten a lot of people really interested in that topic. So we'll do a pop up survey. Like, where are people on these policies? What are the differences between the policies? And we can create an infographic or a research report on that and then we will take it and do professional development too. And for us, during a lot of the year, that looks like online learning. Any teachers, any school leader, any board member who is connected with one of our schools, they can access, most of them are free and we record most of them. So they can go into the website at any point in time. We'll create sort of resource pages. So we have one around AI. So you can kind of go in and look at it. Yeah, like, here's like a bunch of great work that people are doing. We've got one around the election. You know, we have big changes in wage and hour laws coming here. So we have a lot of resources on that and trying to pull them together so people can really get it in one place. Then we also have a pretty big annual conference we do every year called Thrive. Any of our members and non members can come to that as well. And we have different institutes that we do during the summer. So, you know, one we did this year, Daniel, you and I connected through Global Education Benchmarking Groups. We partnered with GEBG this summer to do one on intercultural dialogue in our new office space. And then beyond us again, I mentioned our partnership. So groups like Atlas, and we have state and regional associations coast to coast. They also do a ton of professional development throughout the year and in the summers, and a number of them will do those in person events specifically for teachers. And so, you know, there's a broad range out there. I think one of the things that we're probably missing here in the States is I'd love to see more partnership with higher education to provide ongoing training for teachers, specifically in independent schools, you know, because we're not public schools here, you know, providing that sort of additional support to our teachers, because our models tend to be pretty different from what we see, you know, in those publicly funded schools here in the United States. So we've been talking about that a bit. You do see some, like, leadership programs. There's one at teachers college in Columbia. There's one at Penn. There's another one at Vanderbilt. There are a few others across the country, but I think we could probably use more support there, getting down to the teacher level.

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Daniel Emmerson 13:52

And what's the appetite, then for teachers who understand that they perhaps need to develop a skill set when it comes to artificial intelligence in the classroom, for example. But prioritising that time, because, as you know, with every single school, regardless of their resource capability, it's finding the time to be able to focus on a specific subject and commit hours in your week or month to be able to enhance your skills and knowledge when it comes to something new, like AI, are you seeing. Well, actually, yeah. What sort of responses are you seeing from that?

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Debra Wilson 14:30

Yeah. What does that look like on the ground? You know, I think it's pretty. Yeah, time space continuum is still a thing. So there's still only 24 hours in the day. You know, when I've talked with schools, particularly this summer, like, they've really set aside time or set aside resources to help teachers explore AI. I think the trick with AI is, as always, you're going to have a few people who are like, this is the coolest thing. I'm going to adopt it tomorrow. I really want to start playing with this. And that's great. A lot of school leaders are like, yeah, let's start experimenting with this, but let's create a virtuous cycle. What are you doing? What does the feedback look like? How is it helping? How is it hurting? How is it consistent with the school's mission, vision, values, and culture? I mean, AI raises really fascinating questions in education, both in terms of how kids are using it, how they're learning, and how teachers are using it. You really want to get everybody excited. Talk about AI providing feedback on student work. And people are like, well, that's the teacher's job. Well, let's break that down a little bit. So we're seeing schools playing with it more. We have one school, honestly, they had kind of like a. It's a beautifully streamlined LMS designed for their school that has an AI bot built into it so teachers can load in their lesson plans and it can ask the AI bot, hey, create a multiple choice quiz on this lesson and it just can knock it out. So teachers aren't using the same multiple choice quiz year after year or spending extra time doing that. And what that school has found is you get those early adopters and then they start talking about it. And then you get a couple people who are a little bit of that. They're out in front, but they're not that far out in front. And sort of success begets success, and people start talking with it and playing with it. I don't think from everything I've heard, a top down effort is not gonna win the day. You've gotta give people just a chance to get familiar, to understand it, and to really talk through it. So I've seen everything from just that internal professional development of this is what we're doing, this is how we're playing with it. We even did a staff exercise. It was so fun. We broke everybody up into teams, and we gave everybody a school persona to play with. Chat GPT. This was before four came out. And in my group, I got to be an 8th grader doing a capstone project. And, you know, you had everything from like an angry parent using AI to write a letter about, you know, choose your topic to the head of school or, you know, capital campaign funding, outreach, just so that people got their hands in it to see what schools are playing with. And so we're seeing schools do that too. And then, you know, a lot of vendors are providing, you know, different kinds of AI experience. We have a huge edtech conference here in the United States called ASU GSV, and you've probably heard of it. It's sort of edtech meets venture capital funding, which is kind of an alarming statement sometimes in itself. But this year they did a three day free AI conference before the main conference in San Diego. They had a huge hall just filled with vendors, but also just a lot of learning around AI and what's happening and where it's going. It's definitely a very hot area right now. I worry sometimes it's a little bit. It's so hot that schools are having a hard time finding the thread.

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Daniel Emmerson 17:54

I mean, to walk around an expo at an event, I mean, any given event around Edtech, you're going to find an AI solution almost everywhere you look. We certainly found that at events that we've been a part of this year, and that is overwhelming. You feel that there's so much happening in that space, but at the same time, the implications of getting it wrong can be pretty significant. Are you finding that there's resistance perhaps building up as a consequence of that? Are there many of your schools or schools that you come across that are saying hardline? No, we're not going to be using it, we're not encouraging it? Or is that few and far between?

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Debra Wilson 18:35

Yeah, it's an interesting question. I don't hear many nos. I hear a lot of just caution. You know, one of the big things, when I was at ASU GSV, which was in early April, you know, the Los Angeles United School District had launched this new tool called Ed. And it was designed, and Ed was supposed to do everything from, I use the word was so, you know, plot twist ahead. So it was supposed to do everything from what time the buses are coming to, you know, acting almost like that personal tutor, you know? You know, you have an earth science quiz coming up on Thursday. Do you want to practise this kind of thing? And letting parents know what the students' assignments were coming up with? All these, it had great promise and they invested $6 million in it. And I'm not sure of all of the whys and wherefores, but basically the vendor disappeared or collapsed more or less overnight. And so I think there's an element of like, let's experiment and really let's talk through. And I'm sort of encouraged by this, again, recovering English major, recovering lawyer, that people are taking the time to talk through some of the ethical implications of this. And these are students. Kids only have one shot at education. They only have one shot at this foundational time in their lives. And so we have to take that responsibility incredibly seriously. And many of us in education, I'm not sure you and I have had this conversation, but I experiment on my own three kids all the time. I'm a lot more leery of experimenting on other people's children, I think, taking it slow, making sure we're partnering with vendors who understand education, understand the implications of it. Some of the data privacy and security issues are pretty substantial, and we know that bias has shown up in AI tools repeatedly. So as we look across the country or look across the world, we just think about where demographics are going. If bias is built into AI, then how much can AI keep reinforcing it? These are really big questions that I'm hearing people have really thoughtful conversations about, and I think it's good because it sort of runs into the foaminess of the AI conversations and just levels it out a little bit.

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Daniel Emmerson 20:58

So are you recommending vendors to your network?

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Debra Wilson 21:02

No, we really haven't gotten into that lately. We tend to more listen to who schools have been using. So a handful of schools will say, yeah, we started using this vendor and this has really been interesting or helpful to us. Here's how we use it. And sometimes they're like, this has been really helpful with that. We never turned that on because we were worried about x, y and z. So kind of more of those kinds of conversations. Honestly, I think AI is still so new that it's hard to be like, yeah, these people have all of the answers, because whoever you think has all the answers this week, they definitely don't have them next week. So I think there's a leeriness behind getting into yet. Definitely use these people, not these people. But I'd be curious if you've heard that too, in other places. 

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Daniel Emmerson 21:49

For sure, I mean, we've been speaking with the UK government quite a bit on what a framework would look like for a gold standard, as in, if you're a vendor and you're AI centric and you want to play in the k-12 space, you need to adhere to this criteria. And so we've been looking at prioritisation, what's feasible, what's not feasible, what that looks like in practice. And that's a really, really interesting process to go through. I'm wondering, Debra, if you were thinking about that and what that would look like with regards to a vendor you might work with or schools, conversations with schools, what would be your, your things to look out for or what would you prioritise? You mentioned data privacy.

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Debra Wilson 22:31

I mean, it's such an interesting question. I love, you know, some of our states have gotten into that kind of regulatory piece, particularly in the k twelve space, because the kids are minors. And when I'm listening to you say that, it just reminds me how much of the wild west the United States can really be around things like this. I think there is renewed interest in regulating some of AI, and the Department of Education, the Federal Department of Education has done really good work in building toolkits and things for schools to look at what some of those gold standards are before they get into contracts with just tech companies generally, particularly when it comes to data privacy. And most of the United States has not caught up with the UK in terms of what the expectations are around locking down private information. I think it just depends on the tool. When I think about AI, you've got AI that interacts directly with students. There's a piece there of what are the privacy considerations? How does that work? There's one vendor out there and it's a cool tool. It will record the class and we'll give you feedback on how engaged the students were in the lesson and can provide that feedback directly to the teachers. But like, the privacy pieces of that, you know, filming kids with or without their knowledge, where does that data go? Images of kids online? I mean, you know, you and I could probably come up with this awesome list of like, here's all the things that really freak us out about that idea. So there are those things, right? Like, interacting with students or that involving students. And then you've got like other tools that are more partners for teachers. So developing multiple choice quizzes or helping them schedule parent teacher conferences, like whatever the thing is. And to me, you probably have slightly different scales of regulation or expectation in terms of how those things might work. And so, I mean, it's such a lawyer's answer, but it really depends on me, like, what are you using it for? Who is interacting with it, and how is this going to play out in your space? I wish we had more longevity around AI like edtech firms that have been around for a little while and are used to regulating data and things like that. I feel a little more comfortable with tools where educators have actually been involved in designing the tools or thinking through the tools, or they've at least worked with a group of educators or school leaders. To actually think through some of these things I think is really, really helpful. Like, I look for those kinds of dog ears in the background in terms of the thinking that's gone into the design and the security and stability of the design.

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Daniel Emmerson 25:10

And what about internally as an organisation? Do you have a policy around what your teams can and can't do with AI?

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Debra Wilson 25:17

You know, we haven't developed a ton around it. We're encouraging people to experiment with it and, you know, and then we kind of get into that feedback loop. So I was talking to a colleague the other day and she's like, it's so lovely to use when I'm writing a communication that might be going out to 20 or 30 people, and it kind of helps make it a little more concrete. It dresses up the language a little bit more. It's learned how I write, so it reflects who I am more than it used to, that kind of thing. I think it tends to be more along those lines. We're definitely using it more in Zoom meetings. So you can create AI summaries of Zoom meetings, and it'll tell you what the conclusions are. And that's been really cool. I think that's helped us get a better handle on some of our meetings and what the takeaways are. And it picks up on things that you don't necessarily pick up on when you're participating in a conversation. That's been kind of neat, and I think we're starting to look at, okay, how do we do that in webinars, and what's the check process to make sure it doesn't make something up? I talked about how we did the small group projects, and I got to be the 8th grader in the capstone project, and I kind of pushed it in a bunch of ways, and then I ultimately said, okay, what's the timeline like? Give me a three month timeline for implementing this. And AI created two months that have nine weeks in them. And so you never know what AI might come up with. So you still need that check. But I think it's important for us as an organisation to be experimenting with this a little bit. I'll use it to play around with some slides sometimes if I'm giving a talk, that kind of thing, just to say, okay, how does this work for me? I'm most interested in AI in terms of how can we use it to support our workforce. I think everybody in education and outside of education is really thinking about the burnout factor, boundaries between work and the rest of your life. And I really worry about this with teachers. We've put so much on teachers over the years, and how do we buy some of that time back using AI? So there's a lot of things about AI that I'm excited about, but I really do think about how can we use it as an aid to staff, either within the association or within schools, just to help give them a little lift without throwing something else in the mix. Right. That's the big question, is how can we take some of that time back and really give it back to people? So we're definitely experimenting with it. I think we'll see more experimentation with it coming up.

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Daniel Emmerson 27:55

Finally. Then, Deborah, what would you say to school leaders, perhaps, who are really struggling even to find the time to provide that professional development for their faculty or for themselves to upskill and to understand what best practice might look like. Is it really worth them doing that if they're completely bogged down with behaviour management, difficulties even getting the students to sit down and behave in the classroom? A lot of drugs and self harm that we're hearing from schools that we're working with is on the increase. How do senior leaders, perhaps in that space, prioritise the time for something like AI?

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Debra Wilson 28:35

Yeah, I think it's sort of a perpetually difficult question for our schools. Like, where does this time come from? You have to find it. And to me, I mean, there are not many ta da moments in life, right? This is not a ta da moment. Like, it's good work day after day, one in front of the other. So figure out, like, what are the little steps you can take? Sal Khan's got a great new book about AI in education. So how do you build in, like, just read a chapter a week, just find, or heck, get the audiobook and just have Sal Khan reading it to you, you know, one chapter a week. And, you know, what are your key takeaways? Maybe get a few other people, a few other school leaders, a few other people on your team doing that kind of thing. You don't have to do it all tomorrow, but you have to start on the journey. And ultimately, I think it's actually going to provide some relief from some of these other things. But if you don't, if you just ignore it and hope that it's going to go away, I mean, it's nothing going to go away. And it will fundamentally change the world that our students are going to be adopting tomorrow and the way they're going to be working. So as educators, we have to be ready for that moment and we have to be building systems and just thinking about that in a different way. You know, every year schools go through hiring, you have to think about how this is going to impact what I'm asking my staff to do? Like, what are the fundamental changes that we should be thinking about in teaching and learning and the personalities within our schools and is where technology going? Is that going to shift some of those things that we're looking for? You know, you hire today for the workforce that you're looking for five to ten years from now, and you have to have that proactive thinking or you're not going to find yourself set up for success in the future. So I don't think you have to say, like, no, this is all I'm doing for the next six months. But you have to build in those incremental footsteps. I think a lot about risk management, and risk can be compliance and legal, but it can also be missed opportunities. And so to me, I look at AI and I think, okay, that's a big opportunity. How are we going to grasp it? And so when you think about a risk management mindset, you got to think about, okay, what's our cultural north star like? What's true to us looking at AI? And then you say, okay, what are the programs that I should be thinking about? Everything from how I'm training teachers to how we're working with kids, how we're working with parents, what those expectations are, policies. So how does this, I mean, how does it work with our plagiarism policy? What are our expectations there? What other policies do we need? What kind of people do we need? Do we need to be changing staff? Do we need to be bringing in consultants to kind of help us get there? Really kind of walk through those steps and say, so maybe take, I don't know, 3 hours and really kind of knock that out and say, okay, this is our starting place, and then just start to kind of map that out. So your first thing might be like, we need to learn more about this. What are we all going to start doing to learn more? And then incrementally, how are we moving that forward? So I don't think it has to be a big ta da, but you do need to kind of start putting one foot in front of the other. I don't honestly think this is a place you want to be on the bleeding edge. Some people love to live there. There's enough ambiguity in what's happening with AI. It's good to let the fastest horses get out in front and be like, okay, I'm going to learn from them and I'm also going to learn as I go. So I think that's really okay. And I think if school leaders give themselves that space, they're probably going to come up with more authentic solutions in the end that really fit their school.

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Daniel Emmerson 32:24

I think that's a fascinating place for us to wrap up. Deborah, thank you so, so very much for your time, your energy, and your contributions to this podcast series, which I hope will provide some sort of incremental progress for school leaders who are thinking about this space and what they might be able to do in their own schools. It's always a pleasure speaking to you, Deborah. Thanks again for your time today.

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Debra Wilson 32:48

Well, I loved being with you, Daniel. Thank you for having me on.

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Voiceover 32:51

That's it for this episode. Don't forget, the next episode is coming out soon, so make sure you click that option to follow or subscribe. It just means you won't miss it. But in the meantime, thank you for being here and we'll see you next time.

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