We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Matthew Ebert a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Matthew, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

There were a lot of times when I was a School Principal that I needed help. Most often, it was help with the “gray spaces.” I had been fortunate to have a small network of leaders who I could contact sometimes when I needed that kind of support but for the most part I was on my own. School districts are big and busy which can leave the people on the ground feeling lost and lonely when they need support.

As I was planning to step away from my role, I began to connect with other veteran and former Principals to see if they felt similarly to how I did when it came to the isolation and need for ongoing support. Many of them reported that they did. They shared that they wished that they had someone who they could have reached out to consistently, who could have helped them think through the challenges with nuance, and someone who had been in the same role so they wouldn’t have to spend time explaining the realities and constraints.

Those conversations led me to think about the other parts of the job where I would have liked to have more support. Someone I could reach out to or who could take one of the many responsibilities off of my plate. Someone who could have made my job just a little bit easier so I could focus on the priorities.

Turns out, Principals and Executive Directors were happy to have that kind of support when it was offered. Just like I would have been.

Our small team first helped a School Principal with creating a schedule that was better aligned to their school’s mission and vision. Since then, we’ve supported schools going through Charter School Renewal. We helped to fill in the gaps, organize information, and meet with schools to discuss all the aspects of Renewal that are important and how they can best prepare for them. We’ve worked with schools to craft schedules and structures that support work around Universal Design for Learning and Inclusion.

All the while, I’ve been able to work directly with Principals and Executive Directors as a Leadership Coach by holding regular conversations with them, sharing resources for them, and setting up visits with other leaders focused on professional learning. My decade of experience lends itself to shortening the learning curve for new leaders and easing the pain points for veteran ones.

While I know that I won’t be solving all the challenges we face in education, I am certain that our work has made leadership less lonely for the adults and allowed them to focus on the work that matters most.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was a teacher and school leader in Boston for ten years. Then, I was a Principal in Baltimore City for a decade. When I stepped away, it was because I was ready for my next adventure and the school was ready for its next leader. I am incredibly proud of the work that our team did during my tenure and I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to step away when I felt ready. My experiences, the mistakes, and the things we got right have provided me the chance to help other leaders who are experiencing the same situations.

School leadership can be lonely and is filled with responsibilities for which no one prepares you. Oftentimes, Principals get the keys to the building and are wished the best of luck. They are left to their own devices to “figure it out.” This problem doesn’t stop after the first three years. Educational leadership programs focus heavily on data, compliance, and instructional leadership. While all of these are important, they often leave out the most important part — How to lead and manage people.

That is where we come in. We support leaders so they can focus on what matters most. We offer leadership coaching, project management, and professional development. We’ve worked with schools on projects from scheduling, to Charter school renewal, to designing inclusion focused special education programming, and more. Our main goal is to be responsive to each school community by focusing on taking care of the adults who lead it.

How’d you meet your business partner?

While I am the sole owner of Ebert Educational Consulting, I have several team members who support the work in various ways. I asked each one of them to join after working with them previously. Here’s why…

Every team has all stars and this includes people in education. There are always teachers and administrators in a school finding a consistently high level of success in their roles. I’ve had the chance to work with some of the best and when I began considering putting together a new team, I knew exactly who I wanted to be on it.

While each member of our team is a wonderful all-around educator, they also have specific skills and have invested the hours to become an expert. My goal when asking them to join me was to see if they could bring that expertise to others and they have!

Our finance and operations associates have worked in multiple schools and have been responsible for ensuring that a school’s schedule meets district and state requirements while also hitting the mission. This is true for special education leaders as well. In fact, it’s true for each person on our squad. They’ve done the work and they have the lived experience to make others’ lives easier.

That is what we aim to do.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When I was leaving my role as Principal, I wasn’t sure what I would do next. After a few conversations and interviews, certain things became clear.

Firstly, organizations didn’t seem to care a great deal about whether or not I’d had success as a school leader. They cared if I could do a performance task or say the right words during a five minute role play. Neither of these spoke to the work I cared about doing nor the nuance that leadership requires. It was truly disappointing to come to terms with the fact that outside the kids, families, and staff at my schools — no one else understood the impact of my experience.

Secondly, I found that I didn’t want to be a director of something. I knew that I was always adverse to unproductive meetings and endless compliance paperwork, but I recognized that if I couldn’t explain the job in one sentence then I didn’t want it.

So, I went back to the idea of what would I, and others who held my position, would have wanted for ourselves. Then, with the support of my incredible wife, I decided to try it on my own. If others didn’t want me or appreciate me, I would build my own world outside of theirs. It didn’t matter that I lacked experience or business.

Educators are forced to be resilient every day. We rarely have the resources we need and we live in between the worlds of kids and adults. I knew there was a need for the work that I wanted to do even if others didn’t see it. I just had to be willing to give it a try.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://eberteducationalconsulting.com/
• Instagram: @eberteducationalconsulting
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/matthew.ebert.12/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewebert1982
• Twitter: @eberteducation

Image Credits

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