Philly’s Education Leaders
Are Set Up to Burn Out
In Philly area public schools, it is common to throw new principals and admins straight into the fire. Former teachers are expected to transition into admin positions and suddenly turn on elite management skills. New leaders want to be great, but they are offered little time, training, or mentorship to develop excellent people management skills.
The challenge is only getting more complex as:
- Teacher turnover is at a record high and talent pipeline remains thin
- Teachers need coordination and exceptional culture building to achieve educational standards
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Parents demand higher standards of care and ethics
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Staffing budgets remain inflexible
Why It Matters
When principals and school admins turnover, burn out, or stumble forward, teachers, support staff, parents, students experience outsized shockwaves.
As educational standards rise, we need both stability and higher skill amongst school leaders.
This phenomenon actively fuels the deterioration of public education, ensuring our most vulnerable students are disproportionately failed by the system.
Train Managers to Thrive,
Not Just Survive
It's time to upgrade how we train managers on the hardest part: managing people and change.
What's Missing
1. Tailor Curriculum to People Managers in Civic Orgs
These are the people that need it most - those delivering the services Philly residents rely on every day.
From our experience, current professional development programs need a critical upgrade:
2. Help Managers Apply the Skills with Coaching
People managers need someone outside their organization - a coach - who can be an honest, persistent mentor helping them apply the skills they learn in trainings.
3. Teach Humility and Humor as a Core Competency
These skills are hard to teach, but worth the squeeze. They help managers overcome insecurity and conflict, transforming them into more confident, humane managers that people love working with.
A New Fellowship
We're building an eight-month fellowship to grow exceptional people managers for Philly's civic organizations and public agencies.
Our vision is to prepare leaders who:
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Feel confident and secure in their ability to lead other people
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Stay sharp, resilient, humane through tough situations
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Build lasting relationships with their coach and peers
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Defy the odds and stay committed to public service
Elevate People Management Skills
Fellows will experience group training and 1-on-1 coaching on these critical skills:
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Job design and performance management
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Addressing conflict proactively
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Critical thinking under high-pressure situations
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Active listening with others and yourself
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Incorporating frequent feedback into regular routines
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Motivating people that don’t think or look like you
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Using humor and humility to build trust
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Influencing change without being in charge
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Directing time, budget, and external vendors
Harness Comedy to Enhance Skills
Leslie Knope and other characters can help us see the truths about ourselves and our coworkers that are hard to see in the heat of our day-to-day jobs.
Join us as we experiment with snippets of our favorite TV shows and local comedy writers to practice realistic scenarios that we will encounter as people managers.
Fellowship Structure
An eight (8) month program that will require ~8 hours/week alongside your current job. It includes:
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Monthly cohort-based skill trainings (7-10 other Fellows)
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Weekly 1-on-1s with your coach to apply these skills in your current job
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Two formal observations and skill evaluations
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Informal peer exchanges and hangouts
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Occasional weeknight or Saturday trainings or events
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Independent reading time
It’s not designed to be easy - it’s designed to work.
Time, Cost, Accessibility
Tentative Dates
May - December 2026
Locations
Trainings will be a mix of remote and in-person, with on-site sessions held in Center City Philadelphia, accessible via SEPTA regional rail.
Fees
Free. Covered by local donors and foundations.
You may use professional development funds from your employer to off-set the costs, but it is not required.
Eligibility Criteria
We are looking for candidates who:
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Currently manage 2+ people or will be promoted within 6 months
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Indirectly supervise 4+ people on a daily (via contracts or org structure)
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Work for a non-profit, government agency, contractor, or B Corp focused on improving quality of life in Greater Philadelphia
Our Philosophy
To experience genuine professional growth and camaraderie,
Fellows must commit to these principles:
About Us
We're a collective of Philly-based non-profit managers and executives who have witnessed the squeeze on middle managers. We believe managing people, process, and change are essential skills that our region will always need - no matter how the economy or technology changes the nature of work.
At a time when there is an abundance of literature, training programs, MBA courses, professional development stipends, we are asking: how much of it reaches public servants who need it most?
We question whether existing programs are practical for the high-pressure, ethically complex world of public service.
Our goal is to experiment - to take risks with training and application techniques so that they meet the moment, not just pay lip-service to professional development.
Nominate a Fellow
Help us find the people who could thrive with this type of support.
Open a new door for their growth.
We'll contact nominees, walk them through the structure and interview process, and keep you updated on selections.
Take the Survey
Tell us about your experience! What's the environment like where you work? How equipped, supported to you feel in managing your staff?
We are taking an honest pulse from leaders like you about what it is like to manage people in civic organizations in Greater Philadelphia.
Your honesty here will help us design better training programs to support people managers in tough times.
Your responses are anonymous. They will not be traced back to you.
This survey will take approximately 5 minutes.