Rochelle Bodie

I would say two things. Being a collegiate athlete instilled a lot of discipline in me and work ethic. My mother, who is still going at it, has had a non-profit since before I can even remember. She has had this goal and she's stuck to it. She really told me, like, if you believe in something, set your mind on that and be really great at something instead of dibbling, dabbling, and not being good at multiple things. And then my former supervisor, who gave me a chance when I didn't even know what Operations was and had only been working with him for a year, really taught me the importance of helping people grow and pushing people, and not getting stuck on having to replace that person. Because though it is tough losing someone really strong on your team, it's also worse when you hold that person back. So be okay with letting people move on and grow.

Network. The charter world specifically is very small. Although I work in Nashville, I'm connected with CEOs in California, North Carolina, Georgia, and New York. So just network. Get a great mentor, and it doesn't necessarily have to be someone within your role that is your mentor. Get someone that you can truly learn something from. You don't always want to be the smartest person in the room. You want to be able to learn from someone. A mentor or coach is great, but networking is key in the charter world for sure. And make sure you do right by people. You definitely can't burn bridges. Everybody literally knows everybody across the whole country. But also, too, really, if you're in this work, make sure you love it. Understand your whys. I know I do this work because I truly care about staff, students, and families. I want to make sure the communities that I serve are growing. I want to pour into those communities. I came from a community as such. So just really understand what your why is, and that's what really keeps you going on the tough days, when it gets really, really hard, because it does get hard, but you just have to buy back into why are you doing this work.

This is a challenge and an opportunity - it's probably AI. There are so many different ways AI could support education, and I just turned 40, and AI is very new to me. I don't have an understanding for AI. So it's definitely an opportunity to incorporate in some way, especially if you're in the data or student information systems. AI can definitely help there. Take a class, is what I would suggest, to really figure out how you can incorporate it. Be open-minded about it. A challenge for sure is probably money. I know it varies state by state depending on the funds, but just money. Being in a state where charters are not liked very much, that's a challenge. We always seem to get the bare minimum. Money is especially challenging when you talk about teachers being one of the least paid. It's sad, but that's the reality. But how do you keep really good staff members as the economy is growing? We have to think about salary increases. That's out of my wheelhouse, but that's one of the things that is a challenge because you have a higher turnover. Higher turnover creates a tougher role for ops because you gotta train more people to do all of the things.