As we approach Labour Day Weekend, schools that haven’t yet started (including one I know pretty well in my community) are primed to open next week. It’s a strange thing to watch the commercials, scroll past the social media postings, to feel the vibes of back to school—but not actually be going back to school.
For the first time in eight years, I’m not filled with excitement (or butterflies) about opening those doors to welcome parents and children into their classrooms. There’s a wistfulness in that—an ache, even—but also a curiosity about what it means to (re)experience September from a different vantage point.
I’ve toggled before between the micro and the macro. Two headships placed me squarely in the daily rhythms of children, teachers, and parents. My work at Schechter, then Prizmah, shifted me out a level, looking more at systems, networks, and strategy. A third headship allowed me to bring what I had learned from the macro back into the micro. And now, at Scott Goldberg Consulting (SGC), I find myself toggled again—back in the macro, but with the even-more-recent wisdom (and scars) of years in the micro.
Through each role I’ve been blessed to play in this field—head of school, executive director, grad student, DSLTI mentor, and now consultant—I’ve noticed that while my context changes, my north stars (yes, we’re sticking with “north stars.” Thanks, NoTosh!) don’t.
I believe in children’s boundless capacity to learn.
I believe leadership is about transparency, courage, and care.
I believe change is both necessary and possible, but only when it’s rooted in people and process.
Those convictions have evolved over time, but they remain foundational touchstones.
Which brings me back to blogging. For two months I’ve been sitting quietly, wondering: what is this space now? How can I write authentically when my job is not just to lead a single school, but to help others lead theirs? What stories are mine to tell, and which belong to my colleagues and clients?
At the same time, I find myself wrestling with new (old) provocations—questions that echo from my last toggle out of headship into the wider field:
- How does a process-oriented person thrive in a product-oriented field?
- How does someone who is naturally “quiet” (Susan Cain’s word, not mine) make enough noise to be heard in a crowded marketplace?
- How do you grow new business without becoming a “look-at-me” person?
I don’t have tidy answers. Maybe (likely) this blog is where I’ll explore them. Maybe (probably) this is where I’ll test ideas about leadership, strategy, and change—always with an eye toward the Jewish future, always grounded in the north stars that have guided me since the beginning.
And so here I am, in September, watching schools open their doors from a different vantage point. I feel the tug of the micro—the hum of classrooms, the smell of new markers, the nervous energy of the first day—but I know my work now lives more in the macro. I’m toggling again, as I always have, between leading in one place and serving across many.
Through every toggle—SSDS-LV, MJGDS, Schechter, Prizmah, OJCS, and now SGC—the truth has been the same: the particulars evolve, but the purpose does not. My work has always been about helping schools and leaders discover what is most true for them, and to grow into their best selves on behalf of the children they serve.
Which is why I’ve long said—and still believe—that there is a floor, but no ceiling. I’ve stood on many floors, and now I get to visit even more. But the ceiling? When it comes to children, leaders, schools, organizations, and communities, there simply is none.
So call this a relaunch, a reset, or simply a return. The questions may shift, the vantage point may change, but the why endures: to serve Jewish children, through Jewish schools, for the Jewish future.
Many floors. Still no ceilings.
Let’s go.