NAIS Leadership Through Partnership (LTP)

Registration for the 2025 NAIS Leadership Through Partnership (LTP) is now open.

2025 NAIS Leadership Through Partnership
September 17–19, 2025
Chicago, IL

The most effective schools are led by a cohesive, collaborative team at the top. NAIS Leadership Through Partnership (LTP) is designed specifically for heads of school and their board chairs to invest in their leadership relationship, align around mission and strategy, and develop the tools to govern with purpose and clarity.

A core part of the Leading for Influence track within the NAIS Leadership Academy, LTP offers a rare opportunity to step away from the day-to-day to focus on what matters most: building a high-functioning, trust-based partnership that can lead your school through today’s most complex challenges.

Here’s what past participants say about LTP:

"Attending LTP provides the opportunity for focused, intentional work with your board chair that you are unlikely to get in other ways."

"It is important 1:1 time and there is so much added richness by experiencing that time next to others cultivating similar relationships."

"It was a great opportunity to meet other heads and chairs and learn from their experiences. It also made me feel less lonely as a chair."

Audience

LTP is an event for a head of school and their board chair/trustee. For the newly appointed head, board chair, or trustee, LTP proves particularly valuable to forge a positive and effective relationship and support leadership sustainability. For the trustee and school head with a well-established relationship, LTP offers an opportunity to gain fresh perspectives on styles of collaboration in the context of new challenges and priorities.

Topics Covered

LTP offers a variety of learning opportunities and approaches to support the working relationship between the head of school and the board of trustees.  

Through several interactive sessions, LTP will help you:

• Understand your shared conceptions of school leadership that includes the vision of both the head of school and the board chair.
• Experience and learn the structure, strategies, and approaches to effective independent school governance.
• Strengthen the overall board-head working relationship by working through real-life scenarios that challenge shared leadership.
• Develop a communications roadmap for working together on both planned strategies and unforeseen challenges.
• Investigate data trends and how they may impact the work that your school engages in.
• Generate resources that will support concepts like developing a cadence of feedback and communication, head of school and board evaluations, and understanding the governing rules of the board.
• Place your school in the larger national independent school context.

Registration Information