About this podcast
The Mindful School Marketing podcast discusses topics relevant to independent school administrators and marketers for K-12 independent private schools and camps. The podcast offers a mix of discussions and interviews with professionals both within and outside of the independent school community. We will cover the connection between mindfulness and success at work and at home, and how mindfulness applies to effective independent school marketing and administration. Co-hosts Aubrey Bursch and Tara Claeys conduct casual and meaningful conversations to help their listeners discover new strategies, tactics, ideas and tools for improving their school enrollment and retention, productivity, and overall happiness.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 142 episodes
- 142. Enrollment Is Down. What Problem Are You Actually Trying to Solve? · 38 min · Episode 142When enrollment falls short, the instinct is often immediate. We need more marketing. We need more inquiries. We need more applications. But marketing isn’t always the real…
- 141. Beyond Wins and Losses: How the Changing Athletics Landscape Affects Enrollment and Marketing. · 44 min · Episode 141Your athletics program may not have changed dramatically in the last decade. But everything around it has. NIL (Name, Image, Likeness). Changing college recruiting and…
- 140. Is AI Recommending Your School? How Families Find and Choose Schools Now · 44 min · Episode 140Families aren’t just Googling “best private school near me” anymore. They may be asking AI detailed questions about their child, comparing schools across multiple platforms…
- 139. Marketing in Small Schools – Live Panel at the Small School Leaders Conference · 36 min · Episode 139As we kick off a new school year, I’m bringing back one of our favorite conversations, a live panel recorded at the Small School Leaders Conference. It captures something I hear…
- 138. Mindfulness and Resilience for Today’s School Leaders with Jason Craige Harris · 31 min · Episode 138As we head into a new school year, this is exactly the kind of episode I want school leaders to hear early. I sat in on Jason Craige Harris’s session at the LeadTeam Summit…
- 137. Rethinking Fundraising: Smarter Strategies for School Advancement with Barbara Barron · 36 min · Episode 137Every spring, schools pour weeks of staff time and thousands of dollars into a gala or auction because that’s what has always been done, even as the return on all that effort…
- 136. AI, Authenticity, and Reels: Smarter Social Media for Schools with Andrea Gribble · 34 min · Episode 136Andrea Gribble manages social media for around 85 schools across the country, so she’s usually the first person to notice when something is shifting for school communicators. In…
- 135. Doing Everything Isn’t the Job: Redefining School Leadership, Delegation, and Self-Worth with Rebecca Malotke-Meslin · 39 min · Episode 135There’s a version of busy that gets worn like a badge of honor in schools. Wearing a lot of hats, doing more with less, the kind of overload that gets praised right up until it…
- 134. Should This School Event Stay or Go? How Schools Can Evaluate Events and Programs with Miriam Stein · 40 min · Episode 134Should This School Event Stay or Go? How Schools Can Evaluate Events and Programs with Miriam Stein Schools are really good at adding things. A new event, a new tradition, a new…
- 133. How Schools Are Using Chatbots to Support Admissions · 41 min · Episode 133We put a lot into our websites. The pages look good, the content is thorough, and we assume families will move through it the way we mapped it out. Then we actually look at the…
- 132. What’s Actually Working in Enrollment Right Now? A Conversation with School Admissions & Enrollment Leaders · 55 min · Episode 132Enrollment looks different than it did even two years ago, and the pressure to figure out what's actually moving families from inquiry to enrolled is real. The COVID bump has…
- 131. Who Owns Retention? And Why That Question Is Hurting Schools Plus A Special Podcast Announcement · 28 min · Episode 131Retention conversations tend to spike at re-enrollment time, but by then, a lot of the damage is already done. Families aren't usually making their decision to leave in one…
- 130. Your School Website’s Most Important Pages in 2026 and How to Make the Most of Them · 32 min · Episode 130By the time a family lands on your website, they've already done their homework. They've Googled, scrolled your social media, and asked around the neighborhood, so when they…
- 129. How to Build a Parent Feedback System That Improves Retention and Marketing · 20 min · Episode 129Parent feedback doesn't have to wait until the end of the year when everyone is burned out and families have already made their decisions. In this episode, we talk about building…
- 128. Marketing Schools for Students Who Learn Differently with Alli Williams and Samantha Fleming · 43 min · Episode 127If you work at a school that serves students with learning differences, you already know your marketing has to do things other schools never have to think about. The families…
- 127. How School Leaders Can Beat Burnout with Brooke Carroll · 31 min · Episode 127Burnout in schools isn’t just about being busy or overwhelmed, and it’s not something a day off or better time management can fix. In this episode, we unpack what burnout…
- 126. Is Your Website Healthy? A Technical Checkup for School Marketers · 29 min · Episode 126A school website can look polished on the surface while problems quietly build behind the scenes. In this episode, Tara shares how school marketers can run a quick technical…
- 125. Mindfulness and Resilience for Today’s School Leaders with Jason Craige Harris · 31 min · Episode 125In this episode of Mindful School Marketing, Aubrey and Tara sit down with Jason Craige Harris, a strategist, conflict mediator, and mindfulness teacher who works at the…
- 124. Marketing in Small Schools – Live Panel at the Small School Leaders Conference · 36 min · Episode 124In this special live episode of Mindful School Marketing, we recorded a panel discussion straight from the Small School Leaders Conference. Tara and Aubrey are joined by…
- 123. Should Your School Say Yes to Vouchers? with Steve Salvo and Michael Christopher · 39 min · Episode 123In this episode of Mindful School Marketing, we dig into one of the most complex and timely questions facing independent and private schools today: should your school participate…
