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PODCAST

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

Chanie Wilschanski

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

education management

All Episodes

20:52

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

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

2026/10/06

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

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38:32

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

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

2026/09/29

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

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25:39

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

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

2026/09/22

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

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16:29

317. Stop Blaming Your Team for This

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

2026/09/15

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

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16:10

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

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

2026/09/08

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,

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21:27

315. Your Staff Schedule Needs an Audit

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

2026/09/03

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

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21:53

314. The Community Habit Every School Leader Needs

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

2026/09/01

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

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19:52

313. How Global Connections Create Local Impact

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

2026/08/27

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

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24:11

312. Why You Feel Lonely Even With a Full Building

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

2026/08/25

You've got hundreds of kids in the building, dozens of teachers on your team, and parents lined up at pickup every single day. So why do you still feel completely alone?This week, I'm kicking off a brand new three-part series on the podcast all about the power of community, because nourishing the human spirit is just as important as nourishing your business. In this first episode, we're talking about embracing connection, the heartbeat of everything else we'll cover in this series.I've been running

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39:52

311. The Identity You Have to Grieve to Lead Well

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

2026/08/20

LaShawn Bridges has run Blessed Beginnings Learning Center in Detroit for 27 years. She's been through a recession. She's been through COVID. And she'll tell you the hardest season of her whole career wasn't either of those. It was learning how to stop being everyone's answer.I love bringing owners into this space because the shape of the story tends to rhyme, even when the details don't. LaShawn came to me in survival mode. She had policies. She had procedures. She had disciplinary systems on

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17:22

310. The 4 Silent Saboteurs of Enrollment

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

2026/08/18

You gave the perfect tour. The parent loved everything. And then they enrolled somewhere else.If that scenario makes you want to scream into a pillow, this episode is for you. In today's episode, I'm walking you through the four silent saboteurs quietly costing you enrollment: the first impression gap, the trust signals your team is missing, the confidence gap, and the follow-through factor. None of these have anything to do with your program quality. All of them have everything to do with how you

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13:03

309. Why Enrollment Can't Be One Person's Job

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

2026/08/13

I want you to think about the last stack of unanswered inquiries sitting in your inbox. The missed calls. The tour you meant to follow up on three days ago. If you're a school leader who feels like you're working harder than ever and your enrollment numbers still won't budge, this episode is for you.I've audited hundreds of school leader schedules over the years, and here's what I keep finding. The schools that are full, the ones with waitlists and a reputation that does the marketing for them,

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28:28

308. Decode Your Parents to Fill Your School

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

2026/08/11

You don't have one type of parent in your school. You have three, four, maybe five. And if your marketing, your website, and your enrollment tours are all speaking to the same imaginary "average" parent, that's exactly why some of your best families are scrolling right past you.In this episode, Chanie breaks down the Parent Archetype framework, a structured way to figure out who is actually enrolling in your center, what they care about, and how to stop guessing at your marketing and start speaking

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30:11

307. 3 Ways to Boost Enrollment This Month

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

2026/08/06

You don't need a bigger ad budget to fill your classrooms this month. You need a plan you can actually execute in the next 30 days, and that is exactly what I'm walking you through in this episode.Right now, you're probably in one of two camps. Maybe enrollment is humming along, you've got a waitlist, and you just raised tuition again. Or maybe you're in a season where things feel harder. Parent retention has dipped, you've had a wave of families leave, or you just opened two new classrooms after an

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15:04

306. The Enrollment System That Added 80 Families in...

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

2026/08/04

What if I told you one of our clients added 80 new families to her enrollment for the upcoming school year, and five more who enrolled on the spot, in under 30 days? Not through luck. Not through crossing her fingers and hoping tours would convert. Through a system.In this episode, I'm walking you through the enrollment gear: what it actually looks like to build an enrollment ecosystem instead of just doing enrollment activity. I'm sharing the real story of a client, Missy, who runs multiple

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30:34

305. Your Calendar Is Your Biggest Profit Problem

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

2026/07/30

You already know your enrollment is down. You already know payroll is eating you alive. You already know two of your best teachers just gave notice. But have you actually looked at your calendar?In this episode, I'm walking you through something I say to our clients until I'm blue in the face: every single problem you're dealing with in your center right now, profit, staff retention, parent retention, enrollment, traces back to your calendar. Not your marketing. Not your staff. Your calendar.This

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26:16

304. How to Prepare for the First Staff Meeting

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

2026/07/28

Ever notice how the first staff meeting of the year gets the ironed tablecloths, the good snacks, and the outfit you actually planned in advance... and then somehow still leaves your team overwhelmed instead of inspired?That's the paradox we're unpacking on this episode. As a new school year gets underway, it's tempting to use that first meeting to hand your team everything you think is mission critical, all at once. Handbook. Policies. Vision. Values. Classroom management. Every important thing

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42:47

303. How Kathy Built Five Centers (And Counting)...

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

2026/07/23

What happens when you've done everything right, built the SOPs, color-coded the calendars, created the checklists, and your business still finds a way to make you sick?That's exactly where this week's guest, Kathy Gray, found herself. Kathy is the owner of Creative Critters, a growing early childhood education company based in Virginia with five centers (and counting). She's been part of the Schools of Excellence community for years, and in this conversation, she gets real about what it actually

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01:09:13

302. You're Not Weak, You're Drowning in Invisible Labor

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

2026/07/21

A few weeks ago, I sat down with Jessica Hampton and Katie Dank on Child Care Confidential, and about ten minutes in, Jessica said, "You just described my life." That's usually how these conversations go.We talked about what's in This Can't Be Normal, and specifically about why a bigger team can still leave a leader feeling completely alone. We got into the difference between systems, standards, and rhythms, why "getting buy-in" is often a leader avoiding a hard conversation instead of building real

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31:40

301. Are You Neglecting Your Team Without Realizing It?

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

2026/07/16

Earlier in the week, we talked about micromanaging, the first thing that shows up in what I call the delegation dip. Today we're moving into the second thing: neglect.Neglect doesn't look like yelling or control. It looks like handing someone the reins and walking away, especially when they seem competent enough that you assume they don't need guidance. I want to share a story that plays out in schools constantly, where a leader hires someone highly capable, assumes competence means they don't need

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