No Trust Falls Required: Purpose, Direction, and a Board Retreat in Bahia

 

After many years in education, I have attended more workshops and retreats than I could possibly count. Some challenged how I thought, a few changed how I led, and most simply left me with a new pen and a greater appreciation for the coffee break. To be fair, Brazil has made the coffee break substantially better: a cafezinho arrives in a cup small enough to make a third serving feel like restraint.

A workshop or retreat is only as strong as its participants. Of course, the agenda, setting, and facilitator matter, but the people in the room ultimately decide whether the day becomes meaningful or simply a long day away from their inboxes. Earlier this week, the Board of Trustees of the Pan American School of Bahia (PASB) set aside its regular meeting format for a full-day retreat facilitated by Carolina Queiroz. The photograph we shared afterward shows ten smiling people standing in a row. It is a great picture, but it does not quite capture the day.

The people in the photograph deserve to be named. From left to right are trustees Gonçalo Moura, Ricardo Chalhub, Manuela Gordilho, Diana Mesquita Cavalcanti, and Priscila Rusch; me (the bald guy and PASB’s superintendent); our retreat facilitator, Carolina Queiroz; trustees Patrícia Brito and Matthew Fernandes-Vogel; and former trustee Rodrigo Lobo. Not pictured, but very much part of the Board and this work, is trustee Camila Vasquez.

What the photograph cannot show is the concentration and thoughtfulness, the respectful differences of opinion, the moments when someone caused the rest of us to pause and reconsider, or the laughter that made a long day feel much shorter. Most importantly, it does not show how seriously this group takes its responsibility to PASB. The day also carried something I have come to value deeply about working in Brazil: seriousness did not require stiffness. We could concentrate, disagree, laugh, tell a story, and return to the question without treating the human part of the meeting as wasted time.

I arrived in Brazil with a deeply ingrained respect for efficiency. I still value it, but Brazil has complicated my understanding of what efficiency really means. Speed and progress are not the same thing. Time invested in relationships is not time stolen from the work; very often, relationships are what make honest work possible. That was one of the central lessons of the life I found during my first year in Brazil, and I could feel it in the room during our retreat.

Our trustees came ready to work. We spent part of the day looking at our strategic plan, not as a document to admire, but as a commitment that must eventually show up in real choices. I wrote last year about why strategic planning matters at PASB, and this retreat brought us to the essential next question: How do we make sure the plan continues to live in the decisions we make?

Schools rarely suffer from a shortage of important work. The challenge is that priorities do not usually compete as “important” versus “unimportant.” They compete as important versus important. We considered where PASB is now, what requires sustained attention today, what must be thoughtfully sequenced, and what should shape the next phase of the school’s future. Choosing what receives attention first is not a declaration that the other work matters less. It is an acknowledgment that trying to make everything first usually means that nothing truly is.

That kind of prioritization requires candor. The trustees were willing to speak honestly, listen carefully, and remain focused on the school rather than on individual preferences. That sounds simple, but anyone who has spent much time in a meeting knows that it is not. A room full of intelligent and accomplished people can generate an impressive number of ideas and an equally impressive number of side roads. The real work is turning those perspectives into shared direction.

Carolina helped us do exactly that. She guided the conversation with warmth and confidence, asked questions that could not be answered with a polite nod, and knew when to push us, when to let a silence sit, and when to keep us from wandering too far down one of those interesting side roads. Her work reaffirmed something I explored in The Strategic Planning Process in School Leadership: the right outside facilitator can bring focus, neutrality, and questions insiders might not think to ask. Carolina did not try to become the center of the day; she helped the group do its best thinking.

The timing of the retreat was especially meaningful to me as I begin my second year at PASB. It felt like another marker of that transition. The first year in any leadership position involves a great deal of learning. You learn the organization’s history, culture, strengths, tensions, traditions, and unwritten rules. You learn which “quick questions” are never actually quick. You learn the language of the institution. In my case, I am still learning the actual language, which appears to be following a strategic timeline of its own. In year two, we have enough shared experience to move beyond introductions and explanations, but we are still early enough in our work together to think ambitiously about what comes next.

I left the retreat with what felt like the perfect combination of purpose, direction, and ambition. Purpose came from repeatedly returning to why PASB exists and whom we serve. Direction came from greater clarity about where we are going and how the Board and administration can move there together. Purpose without direction can remain a very nice conversation; direction turns conviction into choices, priorities, and action. Living in Salvador has also made me more attentive to rhythm. Direction does not always mean rushing. Sometimes it means knowing when to move forward, when to listen longer, and when to give a conversation enough room to reach the question beneath the first question.

Ambition may have been the most energizing part. I do not mean ambition for recognition or growth simply for the sake of growth. I mean a shared refusal to become complacent. PASB has much to celebrate, but gratitude for what is good should never prevent us from imagining what could be better. The strongest institutions can appreciate their success while still asking more of themselves.

We did not leave with every issue resolved, and I am glad we did not pretend otherwise. What we did leave with was more valuable: greater clarity, stronger relationships, important questions, and confidence in our ability to address them together.

That matters because good governance is often nearly invisible. Students do not arrive at school the morning after a Board retreat and immediately notice a difference. Most families will never see the hours trustees spend reading, questioning, listening, and weighing decisions. Yet this quiet work creates the conditions in which a school can thrive. A strong Board does not run the school, but it helps ensure that the school is well governed, mission-focused, strategically directed, and prepared for the future. It gives school leaders both accountability and support. At its best, the relationship between a Board and superintendent is neither passive agreement nor constant friction. It is a partnership built on trust, candor, clear roles, and a shared commitment to something larger than anyone in the room.

I left Tuesday’s retreat tired but energized. That combination is usually a good sign. I am grateful to Carolina for her excellent facilitation and to every trustee for the time, judgment, and care they give to PASB. Board service is demanding and mostly occurs outside the spotlight. Our school is stronger because they are willing to do it. Most of all, I am grateful for the feeling I carried out of the room: we know why we are doing the work, we have a clearer sense of where we are going, and we are not afraid to be ambitious about the future.

No trust falls required.