He said "no thanks" to Oprah ...

Hi there,

Many of you who are active on principal Facebook groups know that they can be places of both sincere encouragement and selective sniping. You never quite know which sort of vibe you’re going to get.

There are many folks, however, who consistently use their voices to pick up their peers and rally staff and students. If you’ve ever seen a post by St. Claire Adriaan, you know he takes that ambition to another level.

I initially saw his posts about “Well Dressed Wednesdays” - a completely student-driven event focused on future entrepreneurship - and knew that I had to hear this man’s story.

While I thought he’d be an exciting educator with some fun ideas, I had no idea the depth of life experience of this gregarious gentleman. The good news is … I got it all on tape.

As a teaser, here are just a few of the topics we cover:

• Growing up as a young child of color in South Africa under apartheid

• How he managed to lead schools with 100% staff retention for up to five years in a row

• How he TURNED DOWN OPRAH (yeah … that Oprah) when asked to lead a school in South Africa because …

• He felt called to turn around a failing school in post-Katrina New Orleans (Spoiler: He did it!)

  and more …

Check out the whole episode here. (also available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts)

But just to give you a small taste, here’s a brief snippet of our conversation about building cohesion as a staff. It literally gave me goosebumps.

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Have a fantastic holiday, everyone! We’ll be back with our regularly-scheduled weekly emails on December 31st!

Talk soon,

Mike