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The Net Assets podcast delves into the most pressing issues in independent school business and operations. Delivered by NBOA, the only national nonprofit membership association focused exclusively on fostering financial and operational excellence among independent PK-12 schools, each episode is based on a popular article in NBOA’s Net Assets magazine. Chief financial and operational officers alongside other leaders of school business share what inspires and challenges them as well as their approaches to problem solving and innovation. In each lively exchange, host Jeff Shields, NBOA president and CEO, teases out the human stories behind the printed story.
It seems like the landscape is just so much more complicated. There's so much more fake. There's so much that parents expect from schools, and there's a lot of reputational risk that we have to consider every decision that we make. So, yeah, it does start to feel a little more complicated.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Net Assets Podcast. And I have a guest I'm really excited about, the one and only Grace Lee. She is always one of our highest rated annual meeting speakers and really has a gift for making complex legalese clear and comprehensible for our independent schools. Folks may not know this Grace had a great run at Venable and then took a slight detour much to the benefit of MBOA members being our first HR subject matter expert as our VP of Legal Affairs. She really pioneered our HR programming from the ground up, authored legal matters, column in Net Assets Magazine, covered everything from overtime rules to teacher student texting to my personal favorite, her column sleeping on the job, which I'm sure you can find on mboa.org, Especially if you're a boarding school, you should check it out.
Speaker 2:And then co authored Culture Meets Compliance, our first publication that was a guide to assessing HR at independent schools. Venable is a gold sponsor for our upcoming twenty twenty five NBA annual meeting and Grace will be leading our popular deep dive. Ask an attorney with your colleague, Sarah Fay of Schwartz, Hanneman Grace Chan of L. C. W.
Speaker 2:And as well as a concurrent session with your venerable colleagues about complaints and investigations, which is a really hot topic for our schools, how to handle those well. So welcome to the Net Assets Podcast, Grace.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Jeff. It's great to be here with you.
Speaker 2:You know, people don't know you're also an independent school parent. Tell us how that's going, and how are your girls doing?
Speaker 1:Thanks. Yes. They are independent school students at Georgetown Day School in Washington DC. I have twins, so it's a wild ride. You know?
Speaker 1:I'm they they're juniors this year, and they are dealing with all of the sort of college prep on the on the horizon and adapting, all of that good stuff. But they are so well supported at GDS between their teachers and their counselors, and we're very, very lucky to have them at GDS for that.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm a former GDS parent, so I know exactly what you're talking about. And it sounds like with twins, it's twice the fun, especially as you approach their senior year and college choices. So we're gonna wish you good luck with that entire process. But bringing us back to why you're here today, I just think it's so interesting. If we could just start with your journey to your current career.
Speaker 2:How did you really aspire to being an attorney and then specializing in employment law and then further specializing in employment law at independent schools. How did you end up in this seat?
Speaker 1:Sure. Well, I guess to begin at the beginning, I aspired to become an attorney probably sometime in college. But if I think about it, it really the seeds were planted during my childhood. My parents are immigrants to this country from South Korea, and I saw that they experienced a lot of, you know, struggles in trying to understand that since they were small business owners. And I just recognized, I think, at a young age that I wanted to understand how things worked, and I wanted to understand the legal system and my rights.
Speaker 1:And I wanted to help people who didn't understand, you know, sort of how to navigate things and, you know, people like my parents who, you know, tried to figure things out but didn't have the education or the expertise that put daily all the time. So I went to college. I really enjoyed classes in, like, history and civil rights and all of that stuff, and then decided to go to law school, not knowing exactly what I wanted to do, but knowing that I was interested in people issues and had the opportunity to do a clerkship while I was in law school for a district court judge in DC and had a lot of employment law cases. And that was the first time in law school that I felt like, oh, wow. I could really see myself doing this.
Speaker 1:This is the area of the law that I wanna explore further. So that's what I did out of law school. I got my first job at Fisher and Phillips in Chicago. It was a very small office and did employment law, a 100% employment litigation. And then I moved to DC shortly after that to join my husband who had just gotten a job at DOJ and started working at a small labor and employment boutique.
Speaker 1:And it started with employment law because, Jeff, I think as you might recall, school didn't have HR people in house.
Speaker 2:Very
Speaker 1:true. And the business manager wasn't even the CFO. The business manager was managing all the HR issues, all the accounting issues, all the tax issues, and they just did not have the experience or the expertise in HR. So they leaned heavily on employment lawyers and HR consultants. And the area of employment law just became so much more complicated Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And regulated, and schools started to realize that they were not exempt from rules like overtime. They had to comply. So, you know, we absolutely started in that area, but it became much more than that. Schools had a lot of legal issues and we moved practice to Venable and had a really nice platform for a lot of different issues. So that's sort of how I got here.
Speaker 2:It is really interesting that the great thing about our independent schools is that they're this oasis of learning. Right? They're just these amazing communities. Sometimes that translates to compliance doesn't really impact us. This doesn't happen within our school.
Speaker 2:We kind of operate under our own rules, at least for a time that was probably, and again, no malice. Everything is well intended, but that really can kind of catch up with you if you don't have access to an experienced employment attorney or an experienced HR professional. And I think you'd agree that that's changed a lot for our schools since you started your practice.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It has changed so much. The legal landscape is so much more complicated. There's a lot more risk out there, and schools are realizing that they do have to comply with these laws, but they're also trying as best as they can, which I really appreciate to maintain their culture and their mission and keep that feeling of we're a community. We care about each other.
Speaker 1:And it's so rewarding to work with independent schools of legal counsel because you know that the people you're talking to wanna do the right thing and they want to take care of their people and they really care. So it's great to try to help come up with solutions and problem solve also while mitigating risk and reputational risk.
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting. I I love this quote that an employment attorney gave me once upon a time and said issues of HR compliance or employment compliance aren't naturally intuitive. How do you react to that? Do you feel as though that's kind of the trap that sometimes well intended, good natured, wanna do the right thing people fall into?
Speaker 1:I do think that happens quite a bit. I think it happens less now than it used to. I think that schools have become more sophisticated. They are, you know, sort of put together more policies and practices. I also think that, unfortunately, schools have learned the hard way that doing just what comes instinctually naturally is not always going to benefit the bigger school community or be financially sustainable.
Speaker 1:We might wanna support someone who's going through cancer treatment and pay them for six months and, you know, keep them on benefits, but that might not be what they're legally entitled to, And it might not be what works for the school. So really just sort of, I think, setting up policies and practices and having benefits available to people that are fair and that you can manage in a consistent way in the long run is gonna benefit the school and their employees. And also give you some of that guidance so you're not relying on just human instinct and, you know, oh, this is just what we wanna do in this situation.
Speaker 2:I really agree. I do think the tide has turned, but it is frustrating. It is frustrating for school leaders who want to do the right thing and think they're doing the right thing and the unintended consequence can be really troubling. But let's dig into some hot issues, some hot topics that I know I'm hearing about when I'm out visiting with schools at conferences, etcetera, etcetera. And I know your phone is ringing.
Speaker 2:Let's first talk about the issue of faculty and staff retention. And let's start at the top. Let's start with head of school turnover, which we've been talking about for the last several years. We know that the tenures of heads of school have gotten much shorter. I believe the pandemic and the issues surrounding the murder of George Floyd really made the head of school role challenging, and I think we're still dealing with a certain hangover from that and the impact that has not just on the school community.
Speaker 2:It's important. It has a huge impact on the school community, but the impact it has on the leadership team, including the business officer. We just published a new demographics report last month, and we learned that just under onethree of independent school business office professionals are planning to remain in their current position or current level just 31%, while the same percentage report planning to leave the field of independent schools with twenty six percent retiring and five percent seeking work outside of it. What's your reaction to onethree of our workforce sticking around, but a third moving on and that retirement wave impacting business leaders at independent schools?
Speaker 1:Yes, it's so interesting to hear those statistics in hard numbers. I think it absolutely tracks with just what I'm hearing and seeing on a day to day basis, on an anecdotal basis. And it's concerning because, you know, who is going to take these jobs? Who's the next generation of leadership at our schools? And what begs the question of what can we do to help maintain, retain good faculty, good heads, good leadership to take our schools to the next level.
Speaker 2:Is that landing on your doorstep? Are are folks asking, especially, I would imagine faculty retention is really, I would say the top notch and again, it's not an independent school problem, right? It's a problem in education. It's a problem with teaching as a profession, but it's certainly impacting our schools. What are you hearing and and what are you advising schools that you work with?
Speaker 1:Yeah. That is absolutely a question that comes across our desks quite often, especially right now. Right? We're at the point of a year where we're thinking about who's getting the contract for next year, who's coming back, who do we not want to come back. So it's definitely something that we are trying to help schools navigate.
Speaker 1:Schools are trying a lot of different strategies to retain good talent. Right? They are looking at their benefits. They are having wellness programs and all of this other stuff. But I think some of it also just starts at the top.
Speaker 1:Right? What are we doing to support leadership? Mhmm. What are we doing to support our heads of school? And that's the question we get so often.
Speaker 1:We do a lot of heads contracts every year, and we talk to boards who are really wanting to hardwire some good port for their heads, you know, and also just figuring out where can we support the head? How do we support the head? What does good governance look like? That is a huge issue that we are seeing over and over again of boards who really leaned in during the pandemic and are still leaning in and being called upon by their communities to have an answer for what's going on in the world and what's going on with social justice issues. And boards are being called upon to answer a lot more questions than they have in the past.
Speaker 1:And, you know, making sure that they're aligned with the head of school and that their leadership is supported, I think, goes a long way to helping also faculty feel supported.
Speaker 2:So you concur with that domino effect that the turnover of heads and the shorter tenure of heads is a destabilizing force. It really reverberates throughout the entire faculty staff administration. And so supporting a strong head and keeping them and having them lead that community goes a long way toward keeping faculty and staff feeling like they're working in a stable environment. I just actually blogged about that this week. And stability is really in one of those key areas that folks stay at organizations for.
Speaker 2:Stability, that they know the leadership, they know where they're going and moving on. I want to also unpack another top issue, which is really wellness. And it came out of the pandemic as well, frankly. Likely, it was there before. We know our kids are more stressed.
Speaker 2:We know social media takes its toll, especially from independent schools getting to the right college or university after you're done. Really interesting, though, we're seeing it increase in wellness issues, not just for students, but for faculty and staff. And your latest piece for net assets, which has an overall HR focus, the whole issue. Your article is about the evolving role of school counselors. Tell me a little bit more of what you see is going on in that space for schools.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. We have seen over the past few years, the role of the school counselor just becoming so much more than what it was. Right? School counselors are being stretched. They're being asked to take on more in terms of volume and in terms of breadth of issues.
Speaker 1:And I really appreciate the work that they do. They are really answering the call, but I think that we have to understand as a school and as business leaders, where are the guardrails on how we answer that call. Mhmm. Are we allowing our school counselors to become therapeutic counselors, or are we going to keep with our original sort of plan of their sort of triage, right, their day to day issues, and then they're referring students out to outside experts and outside therapists if they need additional help or, you know, behavioral therapy. So, you know, it depends on the school.
Speaker 1:Right? And some schools say, yeah. We our school counselors do that. We have that in house, and we are hiring more school counselors, and we wanna provide that service to our schools, to our students, especially at boarding schools. But I think, you know, for business leaders to really understand what are your school counselors doing, does your insurance cover you for that, and understanding that school counselors are still employees of the school.
Speaker 1:So making sure that they understand that they need to keep us as business leaders and school leaders apprised of issues because we are seeing a lot of holes and risks where when school counselors don't share information on a need to know basis.
Speaker 2:What are some of the red flags folks should look for that you would advise them to say, this is a red flag to say you're probably overstepping the triage role, the supportive student role, the referral to seek additional help role that the school can't take on from a resource or really from from its mission and purpose to educate, not to provide therapy. You know, this flies in the face of our folks wanting to take care of their students, right? But what are some red flags we should look for?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I think some of the red flags look like counselors struggling with decisions about whether a student is really a harm to themselves and how do I know if a student's going to be safe over the weekend? Well, maybe the school counselor shouldn't be the one making that decision. Right? Maybe the parents should be notified.
Speaker 1:Maybe the you know, it shouldn't fall on the school counselor to make a decision about whether a student's gonna be okay. But over the weekend, I know that we worry about students and we wanna make sure that they're taken care of, but I think understanding where our role begins and ends is really important. And when that starts to feel confusing or blurred, that's a red flag to me.
Speaker 2:You know, it's interesting. Are you seeing schools staffing up in their counselors? And again, with the resource question and the FTEs, etcetera, etcetera, that's always a challenge to add additional staff. But are you seeing that trend?
Speaker 1:Some schools are adding FTEs in their school counselor or their learning specialist roles or the the overall wellness side of the school and the student experience. Some schools say we we just can't right now. We don't have the resources, but the schools who have the resources and are feeling like it's really mission aligned to do so, yes, we are seeing some schools taking that that approach.
Speaker 2:Well, that's really good advice, and I'm glad we talked about that with you. One thing that's coming up for both of us is the MBUA annual meeting in New York City. And as I mentioned in the open, you're one of our featured attorneys for the Ask the Attorney panel, which is very popular. I don't think you're gonna know the answer to this question. How many years have you been doing that panel?
Speaker 2:You must be coming close to ten years now.
Speaker 1:Yes. For sure. Probably, yeah, eight to ten years.
Speaker 2:Okay. Well, with all that experience, as you go into New York City, what questions do you think you're gonna get from the audience? What do you think is gonna come up? Can you predict?
Speaker 1:It's always hard to predict, and I always get questions that I don't expect. And I'm so grateful to the other people on the panel, the other attorneys who helped me answer questions and bring their own unique perspectives. It's such a fun time. I think that we're gonna hear a lot of questions about what should we be doing, what should we think about in terms of the new administration and the executive orders that have come down. We're getting already a lot of questions about ICE.
Speaker 1:What should we do if ICE comes to the school? How do we protect our students? What are our rights? What can we ask for? All of those questions have been coming our way.
Speaker 1:Does this executive order apply to us? Mhmm. What happens if the Department of Education goes away? I mean, some of it, we don't know yet, and we are learning as we go. And some of it is, yeah, we do know what happens when ice comes knocking, and you should be prepared.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:That's pretty heavy stuff for our independent schools to be managing. Anything else where you feel like that? I mean, obviously, there's so much moving so quickly that that's probably top of mind. Anything else I always like when and I've had a chance to see you in workshops several times over the years, and I love when you get a question that, you know, is really kind of, wow. Are you really doing that?
Speaker 2:And you are so gentle in reframing it and turning folks around. Do you still get questions like that where you you think, wow. I thought we had addressed that already, but looks like we need a little bit of a primer on on how to handle that type of scenario?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do. And yes, there's, there's been some jokes about how I, I respond to those types of questions and it's always interesting, but I do think that we will always get questions that we have received before. And I think you told me once that, like, I feel like I've said it a 100 times, but it could be the first time that one of our members is hearing it. And, you know, trying to remember that is is really important. I do think that we're gonna still get questions about employee leave, FMLA, ADA.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of employees who are struggling with mental health and they are not showing up to work or they need time off for mental health treatment and just navigating that and trying to run a school and understanding when can I rely on that person to be back and how do I know if if I need a sub that day? And those are some of the challenges that we still see on a day to day basis that I think we always get questions about every year.
Speaker 2:When you bring up some of these topics and the enormity of it, like head of school turnover, the change administration, and how their policies may impact schools, you really kind of long for the day where we were just talking about employee classifications and Yes. Exempt or nonexempted race point with those issues. Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Those were more straightforward issues and question. It seems like the landscape is just so much more complicated. There's so much more at stake. There's so much that parents expect from schools, and there's a lot of reputational risk that we have to consider every decision that we make.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it does start to feel a little more complicated.
Speaker 2:Well, our time has flown by. I do wanna ask you one last question before we're done, and that's what advice are you giving business officers and HR professionals right now? What what would it be that you really would just guide them or advise them to to get through this current chapter that we're living in?
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, we should all take a collective deep breath because there is a lot coming out of that once right now, and it's only February. So we still have, you know, the rest of the year to get through. I would say, support each other, lean on each other, take advantage of the resources that are out there. But truly, on a day to day decision making process tree, stay true to your mission and your culture. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And that's been my advice all along, but I think it's more important now than ever. And really take the time if you can over the summer to look at your policies and your practices and your contracts and make sure that they align with how you actually practice and what you want to be doing. Because that's what's gonna get you through the sticky issues.
Speaker 2:Well, I wasn't able to cover the entire landscape, but folks who are gonna be with us in New York will get to see you in action at the Ask an Attorney deep dive and the other concurrent session that you'll be doing with your venerable colleagues. Thank you so much, Grace, for joining the Net Assets Podcast. It was great speaking with you today.
Speaker 1:You too. Thanks for having me, and I'm looking forward to New York.
Speaker 2:Thanks again for a great conversation, Grace, who I may have failed to mention also serves as MBOA's legal counsel. And thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of MBOA's Net Assets Podcast. Join us each month as we continue our conversation with business leaders and key voices who are shaping independent school business, finance, and operations. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. For more information on MBOA, visit us online at mboa.org.
Speaker 2:I'm Jeff Shields, MBOA President and CEO and your NetAssets Podcast host. Tune in next time.