Jan 21, 2025
Late January is one of my favorite times of year, as I have the honor of announcing the 2025 NBOA award recipients who are recognized during the NBOA Annual Meeting annually. These awards include: the Ken White Distinguished Business Officer Award, the Sarah Daignault Outstanding Support of Independent Schools Award and the Jeffrey Shields Innovation in School Business Operations Award. I know the NBOA community enjoys recognizing our colleagues as well because, historically, this is one of your favorite blog posts of the year — our web analytics show it.
Without further ado, on behalf of the Awards Selection Committee comprised of previous NBOA Award recipients and the NBOA Board Chair, let’s celebrate the worthy individuals and schools receiving these prestigious national awards!
The 2025 Ken White Distinguished Business Officer Award will be presented to Sandi Pierce, assistant head, finance and operations, at Cate School. Since 1991, Pierce has served as the chief business officer at Cate, a boarding and day school for 310 students in grades 9-12 in Carpinteria, California. Pierce served on the NBOA Board of Directors from 2012-2018 and chaired the finance and audit committee 2016-2018. A colleague valued by other business officers nationwide, she served on NBOA’s Business Officer Institute faculty three times and authored the chapter on budgeting and financial reporting in NBOA’s book on business office essentials, “The Business of Independent Schools: A Leader’s Guide.” Most recently she served on NBOA’s Boarding School Working Group to help NBOA provide optimal support to business leaders at schools with a boarding component. She has also contributed to Net Assets articles and presented at the NBOA Annual Meeting and for other independent school organizations. She will be co-leading the Hot Topics for Boarding School session this year in New York. I look forward to sharing more of her noteworthy contributions to the independent school business officer community in New York City.
The 2025 Sarah Daignault Outstanding Support of Independent Schools Award recipient is John Gulla. Before leading the Edward E. Ford Foundation, Gulla taught and led independent schools for more than 30 years, including 14 years as head of school at the Blake School in Minnesota. In 2013 he became executive director of E.E. Ford, which seeks to improve secondary education by supporting U.S. independent schools and encouraging promising practices. Gulla leads the Foundation’s board in distributing grants to schools and associations as well as occasional multi-year grants to support collaborative innovation and projects that have the potential to influence secondary education more broadly and to positively affect our democratic society. E.E. Ford awards approximately $2.2 million in grants annually. During Gulla’s tenure, the Foundation has supported the development of NAIS’ Market View tool tool and NBOA’s Mission-Anchored Compensation Strategies research among many other high-profile projects. He also authored the forward to NBOA’s book, “Effective Financial Governance for Independent School Trustees,” and will keynote the 2025 NBOA Annual Meeting Pre-conference Workshop on that topic.
And, I’m particularly proud to announce the two schools that will be recognized this year with the 2025 Jeffrey Shields Innovation in School Business Operations Award.
Graland Country Day School, a preschool through grade 8 day school enrolling more than 700 students in Denver, Colorado, developed and advanced a distinctive banded compensation system. Graland moved their faculty compensation system from a step-and-lane salary scale, which rewarded teachers solely on education and years of experience, to a system that more fully reflected what the school values in its teachers. A task force developed criteria that defined faculty excellence and empowered teachers to steer their professional growth and associated compensation. The resulting “sphere” model of four compensation bands was launched in 2019 and revised in 2023 based on teacher feedback to include more support for faculty seeking to move up bands and transparency about financial rewards. Among many excellent innovations in faculty and staff compensation models, Graland’s stood out and its impact on the school has been measurable.
The Kinkaid School, a preschool through grade 12 day school enrolling 1,470 students in Piney Point Village, Texas, has been a pioneer integrating AI safely across the school for many years. Kinkaid has been considering best practices in AI since 2019, leading to a current adoption rate of the technology by 90% of faculty and staff. The school has long integrated AI across academics and operations, alongside thoughtful risk management policies, including a set of AI principals as well as family and employee policies within their respective handbooks. The school supports a faculty and staff research group, provides access to professional development and vetted tools, and encourages “purposeful play” staff and faculty wide. Kinkaid’s seven steps to adopting AI systematically may be replicated by other schools.
Congratulations to Graland Country Day School and The Kinkaid School!
We will celebrate these exemplary leaders and trailblazers at the 2025 NBOA Annual Meeting, February 23-26 in New York City. Last week, the Annual Meeting reached capacity for in-person attendees. We know there is additional demand, and we wish the capacity were larger! We contracted with the New York Marriott Marquis many years ago when NBOA was a smaller organization, and then had to delay our meeting in the city a further four years due to the pandemic. For those who haven't yet registered but would like to see recordings of all keynote, deep dive and concurrent sessions, the on-demand option remains available. Videos, slides and presentation materials will be available March through June 2025. Please note, the on-demand option does not include live virtual interaction.
Whether you will be in New York in February to see the award presentations live throughout the Annual Meeting or learning from the comfort of your home or workplace, I hope you will join me in congratulating the outstanding individuals and schools that have received NBOA awards this year!
Follow NBOA President and CEO Jeff Shields on LinkedIn.