Connor Associates kicked off its work with Oakbrook Preparatory School beginning October 2024.

Connor Associate’s President Mike Connor visited Oakbrook Preparatory School in October 2024.

Connor Associate’s President Mike Connor visited Valor Christian High School in September 2024 and returned with a surprising desire to reprise his career as a professional musician! 

80% of the nation's prison population are public high school dropouts. What can independent schools do to disrupt the dropout pipeline to crime and imprisonment?

To get a better handle on how to discover and communicate educational value, we created a model to make the case. Using Montessori schools as a case study, we also included a value graphic, among the best I’ve ever seen.

Internal strengths and weaknesses of your school are important to identify. Those tell you who YOU think you are. But when you compare yourselves to how others outside the school see you, THAT is where great marketing plans are born. Without knowing external perceptions, you’re just navel-gazing.

When a Head of School leaves or is let go, the board often defaults to the decision that it must find a new leader as soon as possible so that the school doesn’t appear weak or its reputation damaged by the departure. We think there’s a better way.

In the daily uphill scramble over wet boulders that describes school marketing and communication these days, you can count on there being more challenges ahead. In marketing and communication, our success depends not so much on the means we use to communicate, but on the ends, the outcomes, and the proven deliverables. Can we prove that what we are 'selling' has overwhelming value to the lives of the families investing in it—as THEY define value?

 Congratulations to all of you who this year are entering the two best jobs a school can offer.  I’ve been there! Here is some hard-won advice for your journey.