OpEx for Education™ Lead Level Certification Day

Cost: $450 per participant
Audience: Heads of School, Assistant Heads of Schools, Business Officials/CFOs
(seats are limited to 30 participants)
Prerequisite: Associate Level. You can register for both days and complete Associate on January 26, then Lead on January 27. 

A PAIS, PAISBOA and NJAIS collaboration for a one-day, hands-on learning experience for school leadership teams  built around a proven framework for how schools can operate more efficiently, sustainably, and with greater clarity. OpEx will help you find the capacity that's already there inside your systems and processes.
Offered in partnership with the Centre for Education Operational Excellence (CEOE)

OpEx for Education™ is a practical certification pathway for the people who keep schools running. It's built on the CEOE Operational Excellence Framework and adapted for U.S. independent schools. It gives business office, operations, and leadership teams real tools for improving how work gets done, so more time and resources go back to the school's mission.

Why OpEx?
When results aren't where we want them, the instinct is to try harder: more hours, more effort, more checking. That helps for a while, then things slide back, because the system and the thinking behind it haven't changed.

OpEx starts upstream. We slow down to look at what our processes actually produce and question the "we've always done it this way" habits. Instead of firefighting the same problems every term, teams fix the root causes. Instead of relying on one heroic person, they build systems anyone can run.

It feels slower at first. It's also what makes the change last. Slow down to speed up.

Lead takes you past fixing a single process and into leading improvement across your school. Day 1 focuses on the systems that make that possible: how leaders set a steady operating rhythm, how to see your team's skills clearly, and how to balance workload against capacity so improvement work doesn't fall apart when things get busy.
Day 1 modules: Leadership Systems, Structured Week, Skills Matrix, Capacity Planning
You'll leave with practical tools you can use right away: a weekly rhythm for checking in on your team's work, a skills matrix to spot gaps and cross-training needs, and a simple way to plan capacity across busy seasons like admissions, budget season, and the start of the school year.

Who it's for: Business officers, operations directors, and anyone who leads people or processes across the school.

Not Sure Yet? Come Learn More.
Join us for a free informational webinar on Tuesday, November 17 at 10:00 AM ET on Zoom to hear what OpEx is, why it starts with how we think about the work, and how the levels fit together.
Join on Zoom

If you have questions, reach out to Liz Hofreuter at lhofreuter@paispa.org directly to talk through whether this is the right opportunity for your school.