The Table | The Deans' Roundtable Podcast Series

Dive into the world of K-12 education leadership with The Table Podcast Series. Host Bridget Johnson, a veteran educator with 20+ years of experience, brings you insightful conversations on innovation and best practices in student life.Each episode features thought-provoking discussions with top educators, administrators, and industry experts. We tackle pressing challenges in modern education, from crisis management to building inclusive communities, offering strategies that shape the future of learning.Whether you're a seasoned administrator or an aspiring leader, you'll gain:-Practical advice for navigating complex educational environments-Innovative approaches to student life management-Insights on creating impactful, resilient learning spacesJoin us as we explore cutting-edge ideas and time-tested wisdom to help you excel in your educational leadership journey. Subscribe now and transform your approach to K-12 education!#EducationLeadership #K12Innovation #StudentLife

The Table | The Deans' Roundtable Podcast Series is a education podcast hosted by Bridget Johnson, with 63 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Bridget Johnson hosts The Table | The Deans' Roundtable Podcast Series, a education show with 63 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #63

  Addiction Proofing Your School: What's Changed | Kriya Lendzion

  Aug 16, 202654 minS1

  Addiction Proofing Your School: What's Changed | Kriya Lendzion Content note: this conversation includes candid discussion of addiction and recovery, overdose, suicide, and sexual assault, including Kriya's own experience. If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by call or text. What if the substance use policy in your student handbook was written for a supply that no longer exists? Kriya Lendzion has spent more than 30 years as a licensed addictions clinician, prevention specialist, and school counselor, and she opens with her own story: a New England boarding school kid reaching for ways to feel comfortable in her skin, surrounded by adults who cared but didn't know how to intervene. She and Bridget Johnson work through what has actually changed in what students can get their hands on, why staff development is the entry point for everything else, and what it means to addiction proof a school. Kriya is blunt that today's products are engineered, packaged, and delivered in ways the adults around students were never trained to recognize, and she argues this can't sit with the health center alone. Her policy case is just as direct: state what the policy is for, review it every single year, ground it in science and care rather than prohibition, and protect the student who comes forward. The through line will be familiar to anyone in this work. The presenting problem is rarely the actual problem, and Kriya's example is the depression and suicidality workup where nobody thinks to ask about a student's THC use. In This Episode, You'll Learn: What "teen whispering" looks like in the room, starting with asking what a student already knows before the adult talks Why "inflicting help" shuts down the conversation you were trying to have How the supply has changed in potency, packaging, and availability Why every adult on campus needs this knowledge, not just the health center What a strong substance use policy names, and why annual review is the step most schools skip Why amnesty and safe-haven provisions decide whether a student tells a counselor the truth What no-tolerance policies produce, and what a wraparound response looks like instead Featured Guest: Kriya Lendzion has spent more than 30 years earning a reputation as a teen whisperer. She has worked as a middle school, high school, and college counselor, and she is a licensed addictions clinician and prevention specialist who has delivered drug and alcohol education to thousands of students and staff development to tens of thousands of educators around the world. She works directly with schools, staff, and parents, and partners with Soundcheck Prevention on larger, system-level engagements. Resources: 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988, 24/7): https://988lifeline.org SAMHSA National Helpline, free and confidential treatment referral (1-800-662-4357, 24/7): https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline Kriya Lendzion: https://www.kriyalendzion.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kriyacounselor/ Soundcheck Prevention: https://soundcheckprevention.org/ Visit the Deans' Roundtable: https://deansroundtable.org Student Life Assessment Program: https://deansroundtable.org/k-12-student-life-assessment-program-independent-school-evaluation/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deans-roundtable Email: bridget@deansroundtable.org The Table Podcast Series: Where student life professionals and K-12 educational leaders connect, learn, share, and grow together.

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  Episode #62

  Beyond Generational Labels in Schools | Dr. Unnatti Jain

  Aug 2, 202637 minS1

  Beyond Generational Labels in Schools | Dr. Unnatti Jain The friction between the adults in your building probably isn't generational. Underneath it, you'll usually find role clarity, workload, or norms nobody ever agreed on. Bridget Johnson opens this one with the skeptical question: how much of what we call a generational difference is really age, career stage, personality, or circumstance? Dr. Unnatti Jain, a speaker, coach, and behavioral change specialist who studies generational difference, says the answer is all of the above, which is why she works from four lenses at once: generation, age, career stage, and culture. Her own position is blunt, that generational difference should never be used as a lens to view or judge people. The research gives leaders reason to hold the labels loosely. Large reviews find that differences between generations in job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intentions, and work values are often small and inconsistent, because age, historical period, and birth cohort are intertwined. What replaces the label is a diagnostic move: when a staff conflict looks generational, it's frequently a role clarity problem, a workload problem, or a set of communication norms nobody ever set. Dr. Jain also names what Gen Z educators need as they move into teaching, advising, and coaching, and why adult belonging is the piece schools keep skipping. In This Episode, You'll Learn: The four lenses every read of a staff conflict needs: generation, age, career stage, and culture What the research actually shows about generational differences at work, and why it is smaller and less consistent than the discourse suggests Where generational tension really shows up in schools, from response times and meeting etiquette to work hours and parent communication How to tell a genuine performance issue from a different way of working What Gen Z educators need from a supervisor, and why feedback norms belong in onboarding rather than in the aftermath What adult belonging looks like in practice, and why it is the precondition for student belonging The first step for a leader whose team is already in tension: acknowledge it without assigning blame Featured Guest: Dr. Unnatti Jain is a speaker, coach, and behavioral change specialist whose work explores generational differences and how they affect relationships, communication, leadership, and collaboration. She keynotes on generational difference and belonging, and works with schools through a gap analysis process that moves from assessment and staff survey to tools and strategy built alongside leadership. She has launched a Generational Diversity Training Program for leaders and a Workforce Readiness Academy for early-career staff. Connect with Dr. Unnatti Jain: https://www.unnattijain.com/ Resources: Visit the Deans' Roundtable: https://deansroundtable.org Student Life Assessment Program: https://deansroundtable.org/k-12-student-life-assessment-program-independent-school-evaluation/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deans-roundtable Email: bridget@deansroundtable.org The Table Podcast Series: Where student life professionals and K-12 educational leaders connect, learn, share, and grow together.

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  Episode #61

  Why Women Leaders Struggle to Delegate | Rebecca Malotke-Meslin

  Jul 19, 202648 minS1

  Why Women Leaders Struggle to Delegate | Rebecca Malotke-Meslin Your head of school notices you are drowning and says, "You need to delegate more." That is the whole instruction. So why is it so hard to do? In this episode, Bridget Johnson talks with Rebecca Malotke-Meslin, founder of Pleasantly Aggressive Coaching and Consulting, about why delegation is rarely a time-management problem and almost always something deeper. Rebecca connects the resistance to socialization and perfectionism: women are praised for figuring it out alone, asking for help feels like admitting failure, and the people we hand work to get held to an impossible standard. Bridget names how the quiet internal refrain (Am I good enough? What will people think of me?) does its damage without ever being spoken. The conversation moves from a practical, staged approach to delegation, starting with what to eliminate before anything is handed off, into the systems around it: inclusive leadership training and succession planning. Rebecca is direct that the informal "tap on the shoulder" pipeline rewards the loudest, most confident voices, and shares her view that those are too often the men in the room. Her alternative is a system of proactive career conversations, equitable access to developmental work, and in-house leadership development that becomes a retention and recruitment tool. These are Rebecca's views on women in leadership and equity, offered to peers who already know the terrain. In This Episode, You'll Learn: Why "just delegate more" fails as advice, and what a real, staged process looks like How perfectionism and socialization make offloading work feel like personal failure Why the first step in delegation is deciding what to eliminate entirely How to delegate by outcome, and set check-ins that support instead of micromanage Why not delegating robs your team of the chance to grow into future leaders How the informal "tap on the shoulder" quietly shapes who gets developed How to start building an equitable succession plan when your school has none Featured Guest: Rebecca Malotke-Meslin is the founder of Pleasantly Aggressive Coaching and Consulting and co-host of the Confidently You: Women in Leadership podcast. After more than twenty years across sales, marketing, communications, and school leadership, including roughly fifteen years in admissions across three independent schools, she now coaches early and mid-career women in schools and nonprofits on delegation, boundaries, difficult conversations, and equitable leadership development. pleasantlyaggressive.com | Podcast: Confidently You: Women in Leadership Visit the Deans' Roundtable: https://deansroundtable.org LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deans-roundtable Email: bridget@deansroundtable.org The Table Podcast Series: Where student life professionals and K-12 educational leaders connect, learn, share, and grow together.

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  Episode #60

  Student Support as Infrastructure: Hidden Leadership | Sherann Alkins

  Jul 6, 202642 minS1

  Student Support as Infrastructure: Hidden Leadership | Sherann Alkins What if your counseling team isn't a service sitting next to the school, but the infrastructure the whole school depends on? In this episode, Bridget Johnson talks with Sherann Alkins, LICSW, CAGS, founder of Counselor and Concierge and a 20-plus-year school counselor, assistant principal, and principal, about treating student support as central infrastructure rather than a department or program. Sherann names the hidden leadership of these teams as two things, visibility and capacity, and explains why their data has to connect to achievement instead of staying siloed. Bridget and Sherann, who share a restorative-practices foundation, get specific about building trust across adults, giving counselors a seat at the leadership table, designing with people rather than doing things to them, and making advisory a true psychosocial space. They close on the harder questions Sherann now researches about AI, student voice, and student mental health. It's a conversation for anyone building strong student life systems and tired of doing it alone. In This Episode, You'll Learn: Why student support is central school infrastructure, not a standalone service What "hidden leadership" means, and how visibility and capacity unlock a counseling team How to make student support data translate to achievement, not just attendance Why counselors and deans belong on the leadership team, and how to claim that seat What "design with you, not for you" protects, and what breaks when schools skip the "with" Why advisory falls short, and what makes it a real psychosocial space What ethical AI integration demands when student voice and mental health are at stake Featured Guest: Sherann Alkins, LICSW, CAGS, is the founder of Counselor and Concierge and a former school counselor, assistant principal, and principal with more than two decades in student support, school culture, and leadership. A Doctor of Social Work candidate at USC, she researches school counseling leadership, trust and belonging, and the ethical integration of AI into student-centered practice. Connect with Sherann: @counselorandconcierge across all platforms Visit the Deans' Roundtable: https://deansroundtable.org Community: https://bit.ly/drt-community-profile LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deans-roundtable Email: bridget@deansroundtable.org The Table Podcast Series: Where student life professionals and K-12 educational leaders connect, learn, share, and grow together.

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  Episode #59

  Advisory Done Right: Why "Fine" Isn't Good Enough | Alan Brown

  Jun 7, 202647 minS1

  **Sign up for the Advisory Alignment Collective Program! Advisory Done Right: Why "Fine" Isn't Good Enough | Alan Brown What if your advisory program isn't failing because of your advisors, but because of how it was designed? Most schools have advisory. Far fewer have an advisory that works. In this episode of The Table, Bridget Johnson and her business partner, educator and former dean of students Alan Brown, pull back the curtain on the Advisory Alignment Collective, the program they built to help schools move advisory from a vague good idea to a meaningful student experience. Bridget and Alan name what so often goes unsaid: being an advisor is a real professional skill, and the presenting problem (advisors who "aren't cut out for it") is rarely the actual problem. More often it lives in the container, unclear purpose, no job description, design decisions that quietly pull advisory away from connection. Their answer is a two-phase model: an advisory audit for administrators and an advisory playbook for advisors, grounded in the difference between how to do advisory and how to be an advisor. In This Episode, You'll Learn Why "we have advisory" and "we have an advisory that works" are two very different things Why a strong teacher is not automatically a strong advisor, and which skills actually transfer How structural design decisions shape whether advisory builds connection or erodes it Why advisors so often feel lonely, and what alignment, connection, and support look like in practice How a clear purpose and job description reduce guesswork and stabilize a program Why uneven advisor experience creates real inequity for students What the Advisory Alignment Collective's two-phase audit and playbook involve Featured Guest Alan Brown is an educator, coach, and former dean of students, and co-founder with Bridget Johnson of the Advisory Alignment Collective. He brings mindfulness, positive psychology, and nervous-system-informed practices to his work helping schools build cultures of belonging, wellbeing, and connection. Resources Visit the Deans' Roundtable: https://deansroundtable.org Community: https://bit.ly/drt-community-profile LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deans-roundtable Email: bridget@deansroundtable.org The Table Podcast Series: Where student life professionals and K-12 educational leaders connect, learn, share, and grow together.

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