At the heart of this episode is Canadian Accredited Independent Schools (CAIS), where Douglas Nelson talks with CAIS Executive Director Anand Mahadevan. Anand paints a vibrant picture of CAIS as a diverse archipelago united by excellence, continuous improvement, and a strong belief in student empowerment. He shares the unique qualities that define CAIS schools, emphasizing their focus on fostering confident, engaged learners. They discuss the challenges and opportunities facing independent schools, including funding, accessibility, and preparing students for an unpredictable future. Anand also reflects on the importance of storytelling, community, and the joy of learning within the CAIS network.
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Listen to the podcast here
Canadian Accredited Independent Schools (CAIS) With Anand Mahadevan, Executive Director
I am so excited to share my conversation with Anand Mahadevan. He is the Executive Director of the Canadian Accredited Independent Schools or CAIS. Before joining CAIS, Anand led teams of educators in school settings in both Ontario and Alberta. He’s won awards as an educator and an administrator, with experience teaching junior and senior schools in both Advanced Placement and IB schools. Anand is passionate about the power of education to improve society.
In our conversation, he talks about the role that philanthropy plays across CAIS’s member schools and the role that it can play in changing leadership now and in the future. He also serves on the board of the International Council Advancing Independent School Accreditation. He goes deep into the role of philanthropy and the role that education plays in creating a better future for Canada and around the world. Please enjoy my conversation with Anand Mahadevan.
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Welcome to the Discovery Pod.
Thanks for having me.
Understanding CAIS And Its Commitment To Excellence
It is great to have you here. We’re going to have a great conversation. I want to get into this. Our work here at The Discovery Group, we’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of your members and learn more about the organization. We figured, let’s go to the top. Let’s go to the guy who knows the answers. Let’s start the conversation, and let’s start with telling our audience a little bit about Canadian Accredited Independent Schools. What is CAIS and how do you do your work?
There are different ways of approaching it, but I’ll say you probably come to the bottom because we work on servant leadership within our organization. You’re not entering the sanctum sanctorum but more of the tradesman’s entrance. Canadian Accredited Independent Schools is the national accrediting body for independent schools in Canada and Bermuda.
As with many organizations, there’s a wonderful history behind it. We started off as most things. It’s the women who were leading the way. There were girls’ schools that came together in 1932 as an association to talk among the headmistresses of the girls’ schools. The boys’ schools came up with their own group. We had the Canadian Girls’ Schools Association and the Boys’ Schools Association. In 1979, they merged and created the Canadian Association of Independent Schools.
Around 1980 or so, there was another organization called the Canadian Institutional Standards Institute. That came together to raise the quality of our schools back then. These two organizations merged to create Canadian Accredited Independent Schools. That’s the history. Canadian Accredited Independent Schools, as the national accrediting body, our goal is to take good schools and make them better.
Canadian Accredited Independent Schools: Our goal is to take good schools and make them better.
What we have are educational standards, high standards of educational excellence. We believe in continuous improvement. What our schools do as a collective is choose to undergo a voluntary, rigorous, peer-reviewed accreditation process every five years. When we’re talking about accreditation, we’re not talking about inspection. We’re talking about a deep dive into understanding what makes an institution work and being vulnerable about, “These are things we do well,” and celebrating that, but also saying, “These are things we need to work on and grow as an institution.”
What that work does is reinforce trust with parents. It reinforces trust with alumni. It reinforces trust in the community. The CAIS mark on a school is a quality assurance to families that you’re sending your child to an excellent school today, but also, by the time your child graduates, it’s going to be an even better school.
It’s that commitment to improvement. It has been fascinating learning more about independent schools as a community across the country through our work here at The Discovery Group. I have observed that there is a fierce desire to talk about the uniqueness of every school. “Here is our unique advantage. Here’s how we approach education differently.” Even with similar curriculums, if they’re IB schools, they’re talking about how independent they are and how unique they are. You have a very special view in that you see how unique all of them are. Are they all that unique?
That’s a great question. I often describe our schools as an archipelago of islands across the great ocean that is Canada. As with all islands, all islands are the same, but all islands are also distinct and different. Some are volcanic, some have sandy beaches, some have cliffs, some have beautiful vegetation, and some are barren. That’s the difference among all the islands, but they’re all islands. At the end of the day, they’re all schools, which means education matters.
In some ways, having visited over 120 schools in the country, both CAIS and non-CAIS schools, there is a unifying factor to CAIS schools. When you walk into a CAIS school, what I have observed in my visits is I can tell a CAIS school because the kids are confident. They have agency. They feel ready to be able to talk to strangers. They have a presence. They know that they belong, and they feel that they are true owners and co-owners of their school, that the school is not being done to them but that they are a living engine within the school. That’s the unifying factor.
Every school is different, and every school is distinct. Sometimes, somebody will call me and say, “You must have a favorite school,” or, “What is the best school?” I often say that our schools are like a bouquet, a bouquet of very different flowers, leaves, and arrangements. I’m sure, Doug, you have probably heard about Ikebana. You have these arrangements and the arrangement itself is beautiful, but each element is distinct in its own way.
We are independent schools, and that independence matters. That independence comes from the values that each school is driven by, whether it’s their vision, mission, founding purpose, or the journey that the school has been on. I’m also going to say, like with human beings, how our lived experience shapes us and makes us who we are, some schools have gone through tragedy, and some schools have gone through extraordinary experiences that have shaped their identity. That also makes them distinct.
Just as lived experiences shape human beings, some schools have been shaped by tragedy while others have been shaped by extraordinary experiences. Share on XThe Role Of Philanthropy In Independent Schools’ Growth And Culture
Our work is often on the philanthropic side, as they’re looking to do, often, capital expansion and program expansion associated with it. Very much on the point you made, organizations have such a different history and a different culture around philanthropy. For some, it is expected, and everybody comes in knowing what they’re going to do. In other schools, this is the first time we’re going to our families since the founding. Two cases I can think of. This is the first time we’re asking for philanthropic gifts.
We’ve funded things through tuition, and that’s how I paid for things. This is a brand-new thing. One of the things that I’ve seen as the next best step in terms of building that philanthropic culture, getting ready for a significant fundraising initiative, is truly different in each environment. The culture is significantly different. What I find remarkable is the extent to which the heads of these schools seem to have a perfect instinct or near-perfect instinct about the right way to position it.
You’re so correct about that because if we don’t know our story, I would say that telling our story is probably one of the key facets of leadership that isn’t necessarily talked about in leadership books or leadership theory, but it helps people get motivated. At the end of the day, you asked, “Are the schools really that different?” Another way of thinking about it is we’re two men separated and talking across a distance. Are we different? Yeah. At the same time, so much is the same. You’ve got two eyes, I’ve got two eyes. You’ve got two ears, I’ve got two ears. Ninety-nine point nine percent of us are the same.
Our hairlines are a fair bit different.
Don’t worry, it’s getting there. I’m joining you. The stories we tell are what make us who we are. Each school has to find its story and connect to its community in order to make people be part of a movement. You’ve done a lot of these shows. I’m sure you’ve talked about social movements. I see schools as social movements. They’re a group of people who coalesce together because they want to make something better. They want a better outcome for their kids. They want a better outcome for their community. They want a place of gathering. What better way to gather than to tell a story?
Canadian Accredited Independent Schools: Schools are social movements. They’re a group of people who coalesce together because they want to make something better.
There is that desire in schools that are founded or founded later in that first generation after founding, that anchored-in-place like “This is our place.” There is so much value in anchoring a community in place. What I find inspiring in the work you get to do with independent schools is that it’s often the educators or the heads of schools that are reflecting the place of the school in something much bigger, whether it’s global issues, whether it’s the emphasis on equity, whether it’s the emphasis on climate change and the role that this generation of kids is going to play in inheriting the challenge. I’m still reasonably confident they’re going to play a significant role in solving and addressing this challenge so that the strength of place often gives these schools confidence.
The rootedness, I would say.
I like that.
Education is this funny business of always holding two conflicting, or more than two conflicting ideas at the same time. It’s key to be rooted, but you’re also trying to give your children wings. At the same time, I think it’s that combination, being able to have wings so that you can fly and look at the world and understand the context you’re in, but you still want to be rooted in your values. You want to be rooted in your sense of place to understand that you still have a local community, whether it’s my family, whether it’s my school, whether it’s my neighborhood, but I have this global perspective, which I can’t have unless I have wings and I climb up.
I like the idea of holding two conflicting ideas at one time. It’ll never work on social media, but it’s very important when it comes to education.
A hundred percent. I know we often talk about this. As educators, we have this awesome responsibility. As you said, we’re educating the next generation’s leaders. We’re talking about people who are going to be helping shape the Canada of the future, the world of the future. As heads, you have this responsibility, or this feeling of saying, “I am looking into a fog, and I cannot see what is down the road,” because that is what futurists do.
As you walk into the future, the fog clears, but only for a certain distance. As a head or a board, you’re being tasked to think about, what will the world be like 20 or 30 years from now. How can we make sure that the children that are in our care are set up to be successful in a world that nobody can predict? Let’s be honest, when you and I were in school, nobody had predicted smartphones. Nobody had predicted AI. Nobody had predicted a pandemic. Nobody had thought that you and I would be able to do this on Zoom.
I grew up in India, and it was lucky if news came by telegram and telex. We’re talking about a completely different generation. My parents and grandparents are now super happy Zooming, on their phones, talking to kids, and doing all these things, things that no one imagined were possible. How would you then go back to my teachers in the ’80s and have them say, “Prepare Anand for a world where he’s going to be on Zoom talking about world issues”? We turned out okay and we’re here.
How Schools Are Adapting To Changing Financial Pressures
We figured out Zoom, at least to do this conversation. I appreciate your perspective on this. It shows the deep thinking that goes into CAIS, the work you do, and the schools you work with. My experience with heads of school, and we’ve worked with some exceptional ones, I’m thinking of Jason McBride and Chad Holtham at Glenlyon Norfolk School, Craig Davis at Mulgrave, and many others, their days aren’t very meditative or thoughtful. These are incredibly busy people. The conversations that I get to have with them are often around the financial pressures and the changing financial pressures when it comes to independent schools. I’m curious about what you’re seeing changing in terms of those financial pressures, and how are schools responding.
It’s a great question. There is always the tyranny of the immediate. You’re always putting out fires in a leadership position. One of the things that I love about working with the same group of leaders that you’re talking about is that they have the ability to also take time away and think and feel and look over the horizon. They do that by being deliberate about pulling themselves away.
The reason I say that is because, at any given point in time, you might take a look at their moment and say, “No one has ever lived through this.” That can often be true. At the same time, the pressures have always been there. Many of our schools started off as a wish and a dream with very little financial heft behind them. Often, when people are like, “Are CAIS schools elitist?” I’ll tell them stories of how Southridge in Surrey started off in portables.
Havergal College, which is now an extraordinary institution for girls, started in a church basement in the nineteenth century. Everyone started off small. Everyone started off gritty. You take a step onto a Tweedsmuir school, a beautiful campus in Okotoks, but it started in the 1970s as a dream, again, with Quonset huts left over by the Canadian army. Finances have always been a challenge.
Certainly, when you look at Canadian schools compared to American schools, we’re talking about orders of magnitude of difference in terms of how well-capitalized schools are in Canada. I look at someone like Jason McBride at Pearson, who has such a phenomenal vision of wanting to bring peace to the world by connecting people and building understanding. You have to fundraise for that because you’re trying to bring people in from around the world who may not be able to afford a high-quality education.
What are you fundraising for is the question. Some people are fundraising for buildings. Some people are fundraising for programs. Some people are out there fundraising for endowments to support kids coming into schools because they already have the buildings and the facilities. Schools are at different ages and stages, like human beings. Sometimes you and I are takers. We need stuff. Sometimes you’re a giver. You have to give back.
You mentioned schools raising money for lots of different things. We’re seeing a lot of schools going into capital campaigns, that renewal of the infrastructure, and the donors are responding. It seems to be working. Why is that happening now? Is there something in the CAIS water that’s saying we need a capital renewal?
If you get a chance, I would invite you to see if you can talk to some of the heads in the Pacific Rim nations, Singapore, Korea, and China because what I would tell you in that sense is that it may look like we’re always adding buildings, but when we compare our facilities to truly top-notch world schools, and we want Canadian education to be top-notch and world-class. We’re looking at schools in China, for example, which have aircraft simulations in their school.
Kids are learning how to fly a plane, so they have the training that you might need for a pilot, for example. In Dubai, you’ve got Sunny Varkey, who has built the GEMS Network of Schools, creating a new school in collaboration with Google and Microsoft. They’re teaching kids eSports and looking at how they can reshape education. I would invite people to also think about the fact that, of all the industries that have seen evolution and revolutions, education is one that still, in many ways, is very close to its Victorian and Prussian roots.
The blackboard might have become a whiteboard, but you still have room. You still have desks. The desks may not be organized in rows facing a teacher, they might be movable, but they’re still desks. You can see that we’re still pretty close to our roots. We’re trying to be tomorrow’s schools. We need those facilities to be able to give that space. I would say the last word on facilities is this. Facilities are the third teacher. The environment is the third teacher. You’ve got the teacher in the classroom, the first teacher. Other kids around are also teachers for your child. The space in which your child is learning is also teaching that child. That’s the investment that schools are making.
If we're trying to be tomorrow's schools, we need those facilities to give a space, in which your child is learning, that is also teaching that child. Share on XThe way schools invest in that, the way they invest in the teachers, and the way they invest in the student experience all come down to three factors. You can take on debt if you’re established. You can raise tuition. You can raise money through philanthropic sources. There’s not a lot else.
Except in certain provinces where you also get government funding. Five out of our seven provinces do provide some level of support. You’re 100% right. Traditionally, for schools, tuition, and philanthropy have been the main sources of revenue. Certainly, now, schools have also gone from being 9- or 10-month institutions to being 12-month institutions, with summer programs, weekend programs, and evening programs.
Some schools are also looking at facility renewals as a way of diversifying revenue because then you can rent out your facilities to community groups. Also, I think, it helps dismantle what we used to call town-gown relations because there used to always be some level of tension in the relationship between a school and the community it lives in. It’s a choice as to how you build that relationship, to be a welcoming one that causes both to flourish or one that creates a perceived bias one way or the other.
With the cost of everything going up, I saw that in The Globe and Mail. Inflation is a thing. The costs associated with running an independent school, all of the pressures are up and quite significantly. Are schools nearing a cap or a ceiling on where tuition can take them?
That’s a great question. That’s a question that also varies from place to place. If we were to think about tuition, what is it paying for? Teaching and learning is a service industry. Education is a service industry, which means you have to pay for people to engage with and be with your children. When we look at teacher salaries, they’re quite low compared to what is necessary to live in areas like Vancouver and Toronto.
Schools are also trying to figure out ways in which we can attract the best teachers, people who are engaged in wanting to work with children, but who also want to raise families, have homes and live a quality life. They deserve that. They have every right to want a job that is fulfilling, not just in their heart but also in terms of a lived life.
Teachers are people too.
Teachers are people. We want our young people to learn from the best people. How do we set them up in a place so that we have that psychological safety? That’s the challenge with tuition, so much of it is linked to making sure that we create spaces where people are flourishing. In Vancouver and Toronto, tuition will go up because we need to find ways of making these livable salaries. At the same time, I’d also say there’s an extraordinary desire to go to school.
Let’s be honest, salaries have also gone up for all the other people, whether they’re dentists, doctors, lawyers, accountants, or all these other functions. Is it true? Yeah, it is a challenge. Schools are leaning toward folks who have a lot to give back and who have a desire to help their communities to make sure that they remain accessible to the communities that they serve. It’s a tough question because everything keeps going up.
The Importance Of Philanthropy In Creating A Margin Of Excellence
In the charitable sector, broadly defined, but certainly when it comes to education, the role of philanthropy is often that margin of excellence. What can we do over and above what we might be able to do through our other means of funding, to enhance, extend, and expand? That enhancement can be who’s at our school through scholarships and bursaries. It can be the innovation program delivery mechanisms.
What I’ve seen in the work that I’ve got to do with independent schools is that when they can articulate the margin of excellence and be clear on what the role of philanthropy is in their school, fundraising doesn’t look after itself. It’s still hard work, but it’s almost assuredly going to be successful when you can talk about the role.
The value that you can get out of investing in a young person and the impact that happens when that young person goes off into the world, there is a multiplicative factor to that philanthropy. I’ll give you a very clear example. We were very lucky, quite a few years ago, when we were running a summer program for students wanting to learn about the brain. That was something that, in neuroscience, was taught at the graduate and undergraduate level but not at the high school level. We were trying to create a summer program to get kids excited about learning about the brain. We were very lucky that we got some funding from the US embassy.
The value you get from investing in a young person and the impact that happens when they go off into the world has a multiplicative factor to that philanthropy. Share on XTo this day, that small pot of money, not insignificant, but still small in relative terms, has created a community of a hundred doctors, researchers, etc., that have gone off. It’s such a delight to hear from kids who used to go into that program 10 or 15 years ago, saying, “I’m a pediatric oncologist.” “I’m an OBGYN.” “I’m a neurologist at North York General.” Seeing this one little pebble having this ripple that goes out into the world, you can’t measure that. The impact of small, right-sized donations in the right place, in the hands of the right people can be truly transformative to the world.
How CAIS Supports Independent Schools In Strengthening Fundraising Programs
I wish I could bring you along to some of the donor conversations that our clients are having. I’m sure you are often asked by schools, particularly those that don’t have well-developed or advanced fundraising programs, or where the culture of giving isn’t quite mature, what works, and what advice to get. How does CAIS get involved, or does CAIS get involved, in helping strengthen the fundraising programs of independent schools?
It’s a great question. CAIS is both an accreditor and an association. We do accreditation, which is key to our work because you can’t be a member unless you’re accredited. We also provide research services. We provide benchmarking data because we want schools to have the data to be able to go back to donors to show that they are well-run. People want to invest in organizations and companies that are doing well, but they also want to know how you are doing relative to others.
If I had $10 to give to a podcast, why should I give it to the Discovery Group podcast and not Adam Grant or somebody else? We need to be able to tell our story not just with emotional heartstrings, but we also have to be able to tell a fiscally responsible story. That’s something that we provide services and tools for. The other thing that I’m truly very committed to as the ED of CAIS is helping grow the talent within our schools.
We do a lot of professional learning. You referred to Chad, Chad is a phenomenal expert at advancement. He knows what matters for his school. He knows how to tell that story. What he does is he chooses to come and teach for us, for a pittance, I’ll add because a lot of the work is done as voluntary work within our community. He’ll come in and teach people how to tell their story, what matters, what advancement is about.
In the same way, we’ve got people who talk about HR, finance, and faculty culture. What we’re trying to do is share our knowledge and help lift the work that we’re doing. As an association, we believe that a rising tide lifts all boats, and every boat is different. We don’t want the boats to look like each other, but it’s also important that people can learn, grow, and network with each other. Otherwise, we end up in our little echo chambers.
Canadian Accredited Independent Schools: It’s important that people can learn, grow, and network with each other. Otherwise, we end up in our little echo chambers.
We think we’re the best school, we’re the best podcast, we’re the best person, or we’re the best family, but we don’t have any comparison. We don’t know that. We start drinking our own Kool-Aid, which I think is a bad thing. That’s what CAIS does, leading, learning, and global perspective, all within a community that is collaborative and fiercely independent. We don’t try to take that away, but we are interdependent.
How Equity-Driven Philanthropy Enhances Accessibility In Independent Schools
You can be independent but recognize that we are all interdependent. That’s holding two opposing thoughts in opposite hands again. I grew up in Calgary. I’ve lived in Vancouver for most of my adult life. We work across the country. We have clients in the US and a number of international clients as well. One of the things that has jumped out at me in our work with independent schools is that the ones that feel most comfortable to me are the ones that are leading with equity, and philanthropy plays a significant role in making the schools more accessible. Who’s doing that well? Maybe not names, you can name whoever you want, but what are the elements that schools using equity as a part of their fundraising are employing to make them successful?
That’s a fabulous question. I’ll talk about a school that’s here in Ontario as an example because one of the things we talked about is facilities. This was a school that was in a pretty old facility. It’s a school that’s over a hundred years old. They were teaching in a historic building with the usual suspects, lead and asbestos, and everything else. People flocked to the school, pretty from the outside, but dilapidated on the inside. Why? It is because they saw the magic was the people.
The school underwent a full renovation project and modernization because that was necessary. There’s only so long you can live in a building that’s slowly, it’s over a hundred years old. What was fascinating was that this is a school that goes out and wants $60 to $90 million to refund the building. The alumni are like, “We don’t mind giving you the money for the building, but what is important to us is that it still be accessible because I was,” and then you’d get the story. “I came to this school when it was $400 a year to go here. It’s because of the school that I’m now running this company or having this impact.”
When you have people who can trace their flourishing back to the 5, 6, or 10 years that they’ve spent in that building, in that space, and they can be very honest that it’s the crucible of the people that matter, what ended up happening was that the school said, we need this building. If you’re an alum who wants to believe that the school needs to be accessible, give your money to this part. This part is going to be for scholarships. This part is going to be for accessibility.
This is a school that is unabashed about being a beacon for ADI work, for being accessible, for being equitable. One of the very few schools in their country that has a position, a very senior leader position, that is explicitly about anti-racism because we’re in the city of Toronto. We are in a space where literally half the world is in one city. How do we make sure that the work that is happening in the school is about elevating the city and this beautiful ecosystem that we have? It’s working.
I would say Toronto is one of the very few examples where you can say that when the world comes to your doorstep, you can have magic happen, but it doesn’t have to be violence, anger, and unhappiness. It comes down to, there are ways in which you connect with the stories of the community and the values of the community. If you can do that, then you truly flourish.
If you can connect with the stories and values of the community, then you truly flourish. Share on XMy experience from the fundraising side is that fundraising for those scholarships in some schools because it’s how they started it, is second nature. It’s a new muscle they’re developing. What has been satisfying for me to see over the last number of years is that, for those schools where that is a new muscle, the scholarships are new, or expanding the program is new, or building an endowment to support it is new, it’s seen as obvious once it’s in place, “Of course, we do this. We waited too long.” It could be the same board members who were not so sure it was a good idea three years ago. It is satisfying for me to see that as it develops, it is immediately viewed as part of the richness of the school.
I agree 100% with you. Sometimes you have to see it to believe it. We talk about representation mattering when we talk about equity. One of the great joys of being a CAIS member is that a head and a board can travel to another school and see how they do it and why it has worked because once you see it in action, you can’t unsee it. Also, once you see it, the mystery is taken out of it.
Oftentimes, we are human beings. We’re evolutionarily programmed to see danger. You and I could do 25 things right in this show. The one mistake that we made in this show, even though it can be edited out, is what’s going to keep us both up at the end of this conversation. We’d be like, “I wish I had asked him that question. I wish I had told that story.” This is human nature.
“I wish I hadn’t dropped so many F-bombs.”
That at least makes you very smart because there’s good research out there that people who swear are smarter than people who don’t. You’re doing well there. The French have a saying for it, esprit d’escalier. When you’re on the staircase leaving the party, that’s when you’re like, “That would have been the right comeback or the right statement to make. Everyone would have thought I’m such a gem of a human being.” That’s the reality of life.
Our job as leaders is to drain the fear out of our communities and infuse them with hope. In order to do that, I still believe that learning and knowledge are the most transformative tools. We do that not only for our kids but also for the adult learners in our space. If I were in a place where I’m trying to bring forward a new curriculum that no one has ever seen, let’s take people to see how it functions. How could it work?
Canadian Accredited Independent Schools: Our job as leaders is to drain the fear out of our communities and infuse them with hope.
You start a pilot with a few people, and you show people that this is not destroying anyone, or it’s not bringing the world down. In fact, it’s creating new growth. That’s how you get people, once they see it, they get excited about it. They ask questions. As leaders, we have to create space for questions. One of the most important lessons I ever learned was as a younger leader. I was like, I’m trying to make this change, and the old guard at the school won’t let me. This wonderful human being pulled me aside and said, “You care a lot about Indigenous learning.” I said, “I do.” They said, “I want you to think about the old guard of the school as the elders of the school.”
That one word and that reframing made me suddenly not see them as obstructions, but rather as human beings with their own perspective, from their seat on this shared bus that we’re all on. That made me a more inclusive leader and brought them into the conversation, which made for a much better idea than this one human brain could come up with. Sometimes we need that. We need that shift in perspective. That’s the learning. That’s why I love a good poem. A good poem is all about a shift in perspective. It changes the way you look at the world. You can never unsee it.
You’re talking about poetry, but weren’t you a science teacher?
I’m a dab. I’ve always loved liberal arts. My first degree was in biology and German. My second degree is going, neuroscience and creative writing. I’ve never been able to let go of the two parts of the brain. I think it’s important. That’s the other thing I would say K-schools do well, is we tend not to specialize. We are generalists.
There is this intense desire in this world to say, “If my child could learn how to be an AI programmer, blah, blah, blah, then they can be making $250,000 working for Sam Altman.” If you’re a generalist, you might be a late bloomer, but you’ll live a richer life than being someone who has only this one thing that they’re good at. I think that that’s a value of high schools and K–12 schools and K–8 schools because we’re making the whole human flourish, not just one aspect of humanity.
Looking Ahead: What’s Next For Independent Schools And Their Growth
I appreciate that. It underscores that. I think that’s what drives a lot of the giving, people wanting their children or other children to be exposed to that. As we come to the end of the conversation, I want to ask you, you in particular, I’m looking forward to asking my favorite question. What are you looking forward to?
That’s such a fantastic way. There are so many things. I feel very blessed to be in this position. There are days that I pinch myself because I came in 1996 with $500 in my pocket. I still remember the look that the immigration officer gave me. He was like, “Oh.” You could see that he was terrified for me. He was like, “This kid is not going to make it with $500 in Toronto.” He was also like, “I hope he makes it.”
What I’m looking forward to is the fact that we have this beautiful community. We have this beautiful country, and we have these beautiful kids. I’m looking forward to how we’re going to come together and create this future. Geopolitics is not necessarily something that people are feeling hopeful about, but I see our need in our schools as being even more important than ever before. The thing about our schools, we’ve got kids at Harvard and MIT and Oxford and Cambridge and all of that jazz. I know that that drives a lot of parents to our schools.
The thing about our schools is we are high-trust communities where people, once they come in through those doors, know that they’re among friends, that they are in a collegium. A collegium means that you are collegial with each other. You can talk about things, but you know that you belong. That feeling, when I go to every single school, even though, like you, I work remotely, but I look forward every single time to being welcomed into a school because I feel such a part of these 98 school communities spread across the country. That’s what I look forward to the joy of learning that happens in our schools.
We’ll leave the conversation there. That’s a great thought to end on. I’m so appreciative of the time that you’ve made and the wisdom that you’ve shared in this conversation and the work that you and your colleagues at CAIS do every day.
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the time that you’ve given and these great questions. I hope that it’s been helpful to you and that it’s enjoyable for people.
Important Links
- Anand Mahadevan on LinkedIn
- Canadian Accredited Independent Schools
- International Council Advancing Independent School Accreditation
- The Discovery Group
About Anand Mahadevan
Anand is a people-centered, data-informed association executive supporting the best schools in Canada and Bermuda in their desire for continual improvement. He tries to live the values of community, leading, learning, and global perspective every day with empathy.
An award-winning educator, school leader and writer based out of Toronto, he’s excited and humbled to lead the small but mighty remote team at Canadian Accredited Independent Schools (CAIS) to support independent schools in their diverse growth journeys united in their commitment to high standards for school governance, academic programming and student wellbeing.
When not working, Anand loves to travel, scuba dive, garden at home and cook for friends and family. One of his favourite ways to spend time is to meet up with former students and colleagues to learn about their current lives!
