Updated January 2007

Alumni Profile: Don Leisey, Ed. D. '73

from The Magazine of the USC Rossier School of Education, page 43

For most of his professional life as a teacher, superintendent, owner of private schools and as an educational entrepreneur, Donald Leisey tried to improve education. He continues to pursue that goal, but in perhaps the most unusual way yet. Leisey (Ed.D ’73) is developing a project called “educational intrapreneurship” which calls upon public school systems to help all employees advance creative ideas that aid learning. “We have developed a process for prospective educational ‘intrapreneurs’ within the schools,” Leisey says, “that is similar to what entrepreneurs do in the private sector to get ideas off the ground.” More...

Dr. Don Leisey's Speech To University of Southern California School Business Management Students
May 5, 2006

It is a real pleasure for me to be able to address you this evening. I am impressed with the size of these two cohorts and the distance many of you have traveled to attend the School Business Management Program. I would like to talk with you this evening about how the school business management certificate program influenced my career, the book I co-authored about educational entrepreneurism, and educational intrapreneurism which can be used as a tool for change in schools.

It seems like yesterday that I was taking courses toward a school business management certificate at USC. I treasure the School Business Management Certificate that I received at USC, and consider it the corner stone of my career. I believe I was in the first group to receive a School Business Management Certificate from USC. I commend Dean Karen Gallagher for making this valuable program available again for prospective business officials in the State; Dr. Carol Wilson for organizing and putting the program together; and Ken Hall for his leadership in implementing the program and making it work. One of my closest friends, Dr. Bill Cunningham, former executive director of ACSA, Educational Secretary under George Deukmejian and Superintendent of the Sacramento County Schools states, " Ken Hall is the most knowledgeable person in the state on school finance, and USC is certainly fortunate to have his leadership, expertise and talent leading this program." The School Business Management Certificate Program in which you are enrolled is much richer than the certificate program I completed in the 70s because it is more comprehensive and is taught by highly successful business officials.

The business division is the "life line" of the school district and the people working in it are usually the "unsung heroes" of the district. Whether you are in accounting, maintenance and operations, food service, transportation, or any other department, you are playing a major role in the operation of the school district. How well the finances and the support programs of the district are managed determines how well the district can achieve its goals. Look around the state and you will see that those districts that have managed their funds well are usually very successful districts academically. Those districts that have not managed their funds well usually do not perform well academically, and frequently have poorly trained and weak business managers.

We need well-trained business managers who will make the tough decisions and are willing to put their jobs on the line. We need business managers who can effectively communicate the fiscal conditions of the district, can ask the tough questions, can say no when funds are not available, and who have the courage to blow the whistle on people who are abusing the system. You know as well as I that it is not the amount of money spent per student that guarantees academic success, but how well the money is prioritized, allocated and managed that assures the opportunity for success.

I believe that I was a better superintendent because I had experience as a business manager. Many superintendents get into trouble because they have limited or no training and experience in the business side of a school district. More districts should be looking at elevating successful business managers to the position of superintendent, and superintendents should be required to have a more extensive background in school business management.

I question where my career would have gone without the School Business Management Certificate Program. From the day I started my career in education, my goal was to become a school superintendent. I thought my path for advancement was via curriculum or personnel, and that was the way I was preparing myself prior to learning about the USC School Business Management Certificate program. Up until that time I had been fortunate to have assignments as a school principal in Pennsylvania, Japan with the Department of Defense Dependent Schools, and in the Lennox Elementary School District in southern California.

Shortly after I began the Certificate program at USC, the position of assistant superintendent for business opened in the Lennox Elementary School District and my superintendent encouraged me to apply for the position. I was selected for the position at age 30, and continued the course work in the Certificate program while working on an Ed.D at USC. In effect, the School Business Management program helped me become an "instant business manager." I was fortunate to have as my mentor, Dr. Wes Colby, Superintendent of the Lennox Elementary School District, who served as business manager for the district prior to becoming superintendent.

After three years in Lennox, USC encouraged me to gain experience in a K-12 district as a business manager. With the help of the USC Placement Office, I was appointed business manager of San Rafael City Schools in Marin County. San Rafael is a common administration district with a single board of education overseeing the San Rafael Elementary School District and San Rafael High School District. At that time the enrollment was approximately 10,000 students. After a year and a half as business manager of San Rafael, my superintendent resigned to take a position with the Singapore American School. After a nationwide search, I was appointed superintendent at age 35. I believe I was appointed superintendent because of my business management background. San Rafael was projecting a serious downturn in its student population due to the decline in birth rate and the high cost of living in Marin County which precluded young families from moving into the area. During my six years as superintendent we closed seven elementary schools and a middle school. In 1978, on top of the declining enrollment problem, Proposition 13 was passed by the electorate of California. I guided the district through the additional cutbacks which were necessary to implement Proposition 13, and then took a long look at where my career was going.

I had just turned 41 years old and was suffering through a "mid-life crisis" wondering what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I decided to try my luck in the private sector. After looking at a variety of opportunities in insurance, banking, real estate, and sales, I took a job as vice president, northern regional manager, for American Learning Corporation which specialized in publishing educational materials, operating tutorial centers, and conducting private summer school programs throughout the state to fill the summer school void created by Prop. 13.

After a year with American Learning Corporation I was invited to move to Orange County to the corporate office which I declined, and became an educational consultant for a year prior to establishing an educational company specializing in private schools. Initially I joined up with a friend, Chuck Lavaroni, who at the time was the Dean of Education at Dominican College, to purchase Kittredge School, a small, grades 1 through 8 private, for profit school in San Francisco.

The following year, January 1981, Chuck and I purchased Merryhill School, a 200 student, kindergarten through sixth grade, for profit school on Eastern Avenue in Sacramento, which we renamed Merryhill Country School. Through the acquisition of adjacent properties, the campus was expanded to 600 students within two years by adding a preschool and a middle school. We knew we were doing something special for children when many of the employees at the state department of education, politicians, and public school teachers and administrators began sending their children to Merryhill Country School.

We began expanding the Merryhill program to other areas in northern California. Merryhill Country Schools' niche was to cater to children of working parents by being open from 6:30 am to 6:00 pm and operating year round. From 9:00 am to 3:30 pm, we offered an outstanding academic program, along with a wide selection of creative arts. Before and after school we provided programs on campus which the working parent might have difficulty getting their children to including: tutoring, supervised study halls, ballet and tap dancing, instrumental music lessons, piano lessons, acting, athletic programs including soccer, basketball, and baseball, computers, art programs, and all levels of Boy and Girl Scouting. We took the guilt out of working parents by providing programs on campus in which their children could participate.

We did something that is unheard of in private schools. Parents were only obligated to a month-to-month tuition, and did not contract for the entire year. We had to do a good job because if we didn't, parents could withdraw their child(ren) thus putting extreme financial pressure on the program.

At the time Merryhill Country Schools were sold to a public company from the East Coast in 1989, we had 22 locations in northern California. I believe the training I received in the School Business Management Certificate program at USC assisted me greatly in my success as an educational entrepreneur.

I would like to switch gears and discuss the book, The Educational Entrepreneur: Making a Difference, which Chuck Lavaroni, a friend for over 30 years, and I wrote a few years ago. The book has USC ties in that Dr. Gib Hentschke, who was the Dean of Education at the time, wrote the Foreword and features Drs. Barbara and Roger Rossier, for whom the USC School of Education is named.

Chuck and I have had similar careers. We were both classroom teachers, became school principals at a very young age, were assistant superintendents and superintendents in the public school system, owners of private schools and share a strong passion for education. Over the years we became business partners in numerous educational and real estate ventures.

One day we were having lunch and reviewing our careers, especially our entrepreneurial activities in education. We discussed how we could encourage other educators who had worthwhile ideas for improving education to become entrepreneurs. We decided to establish the International Academy for Educational Entrepreneurship to identify, encourage and support educators in the entrepreneurial process.

As a first step in the process we thought we should identify some successful educational entrepreneurs throughout the country to serve as models for others interested in testing the water of entrepreneurship. We wanted a broad representation of educational entrepreneurs involved in a variety of educational businesses. We define an educational entrepreneur as an educator who has invested time, energy, and capital to create, develop, and market educational programs, products, services and technologies.

Our book includes 22 educational entrepreneurs from 18 states. We either knew these people or they were recommended to us by friends. We feature a variety of educational businesses in our book including private schools, tutoring programs, academic and sports camps, educational software development, educational travel, preschool programs, educational publishing, home and charter schooling, educational retail stores and educational consultants. I would like to highlight a few of the individuals in our book:

In 1980, Barbara and Roger Rossier, both of whom received their doctorates from USC, and were very successful in public education, purchased a small private school in southern California with 40 students having significant academic, social and emotional delays. Over the years their school's enrollment grew to 200, and became the focus of Rossier Educational Enterprises, Inc. By the time the Rossiers sold the school in 1998, it was one of the largest therapeutic schools of its kind in the country and was noted for its high academic standards and top-flight vocational program. Their first step into entrepreneurship led to others. Over the years, the Rossiers also established a profitable real estate and leasing business, became involved in educational publishing, and operated an educational travel agency. In addition, the Rossiers committed an impressive amount of time, energy, and financial resources to educational, civic, and philanthropic causes. Their $20 million gift to USC was the largest ever made to a school of education in an American college or university.

Dr. Jan Davidson, a former English teacher and known in the software industry as the pioneer of educational software, started Davidson and Associates with the $6,000 she and her husband, Bob were saving for their children's education. Early on Jan almost sold her educational software ideas and programs to a publisher, but when she was due to meet with the publisher, he mistakenly went to a restaurant with the same name on the other side of San Clemente. This gave Bob, an executive of an engineering company, the opportunity to encourage Jan to publish her software ideas herself, including the ever popular "Math Blaster." In 1996, the Davidsons sold their share of Davidson and Associates for more than a billion dollars with a "B".

Today Dr. Davidson is dividing her time between philanthropy and helping new education-related businesses. She and Bob have formed the Davidson Institute for Talent Development to provide individualized educational and developmental programs for profoundly gifted young people.

Kay Fredericks, a Minnesota kindergarten teacher developed life size cutouts for her classroom bulletin boards which were greatly admired by her fellow teachers, especially at back to school nights. While in the hospital, recuperating from an auto injury and worried that she might not be able to continue teaching, Kay began planning how she could make money producing her bulletin board ideas. Starting in a friend's garage and withdrawing $700 from the family savings account, today her company, Trend Enterprises has more than 200 employees producing more than 1,000 products, sold in more than 40 countries, and generating sales of over $40 million.

Frank Schaffer, needed to get a second job to supplement his elementary school teaching salary. He took a part-time instructor's position at Pepperdine University which planted the seed for Frank Schaffer Publications. In 1994, he sold Frank Schaffer Publications for $54 million.

I could go on and on, but time does not allow. Let me summarize the book by stating that all the educational entrepreneurs featured are unique individuals from different age groups, backgrounds and socioeconomic situations. Some of their businesses have been in existence for 25 years and some for as little as 5 years. Many had some false starts and most have watched their businesses transform to meet changing needs. All of the educational entrepreneurs in the book enjoy and appreciate the freedom and autonomy which comes from their own initiative. While in all cases, the monetary rewards have been enough to keep the businesses profitable, money has never been the major motivator for any of them.

As we focused on the lives of these educational entrepreneurs, we found two important common threads. First these educational entrepreneurs did not ask, "How can I improve schools?" which makes the question of education too limiting. Instead they asked, "How can I improve education and learning?" which focuses on processes, opens up many new ideas, new possibilities, concepts, applications of human resources, and structures for organizing educational delivery systems.

Second, none of these educational entrepreneurs changed their goals: they merely altered their strategies in achieving those goals. Without exception, these entrepreneurs chose education as their profession, and their goal was to improve the lives of children and society. They did that as educators and they are continuing to do that as educational entrepreneurs. They still make a difference, but today they are doing it in more innovative ways and for more people. How does entrepreneurship apply to public education? You have probably heard the terms intrapreneurship and social entrepreneurship. These terms generally apply to using entrepreneurial processes within an organization - usually in public and non-profit structures. Chuck and I are currently developing a model for educational intrapreneurship for use in schools and school districts.

According to Gifford Pinchot, who has written extensively on this subject, "an intelligent organization develops and engages the intelligence, business judgment, and wide system responsibility of all its members. By using the intelligence of every employee, an organization can respond far more effectively to customers, partners, and competitors."

We know there is a large turnover in education, especially teachers. We believe that encouraging and allowing teachers and other employees to engage in educational intrapreneurship, much needed changes in education can be achieved. Chuck has developed a process which involves the prospective educational intrapreneur to go through a similar process as entrepreneurs do in order to get their ideas off the ground and into the marketplace.

We are organizing a process to be approved by boards of education and administrators, and for school employees to follow in submitting programs for approval. The process is similar to a business plan in that it addresses the key questions: where, why, how, when, who, and what. It will provide the opportunity for interested individuals to translate their ideas and thoughts into writing, to research their ideas, to develop goals and objectives, determine how much their idea will cost, determine personnel requirements, facility requirements, legal requirements, evaluation plan, marketing plan to students, parental involvement, impact on the school, etc.

I would like to close with a quote from Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay, Inc.:
"When you reach an obstacle, turn it into an opportunity. You have a choice. You can overcome and be a winner, or you can allow it to overcome you and become a loser. The choice is yours and yours alone. Refuse to throw in the towel. Go that extra mile that failures refuse to travel. It is far better to be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure."

Thank you and good luck. I invite your questions.

The Academy is proud to have had some influence in the formulation of West Chester University of Pennsylvania's Institute for Educational Excellence and Entrepreneurship (3E Institute) which became operational last fall. According to Pat Roberts, Executive Director, "The 3E Institute will serve as a global center for identifying, supporting and mentoring entrepreneurial educators." Dr. Don Leisey, represents the International Academy for Educational Entrepreneurship on the advisory board for the 3E Institute.

IAEE Director, Dr. Don Leisey is a member of the Board of Councilors for the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, and the Fund Board of West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

Don and Chuck have been presenting workshops on "How to Make Money on Your Teaching Ideas" at A+ The Report Card stores and the Sacramento County Schools Office's Beginning Teachers Support and Assistance Program. Anyone interested in having Don and Chuck present this workshop should contact them at 415-459-6019.

IAEE Director, Dr. Don Leisey continues to own A+ The Report Card, educational resource stores located in Citrus Heights, Elk Grove, and Fairfield, California. Leisey began the business in 1991.

A+ The Report Card carries a wide selection of high quality learning materials for students in preschool through high school including: classroom and student supplies; reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, and foreign language products; test preparation materials; children's literature; developmental toys, arts and crafts products; videos, tapes and CDs; professional resource material; educational games and puzzles; gifts for children and teachers.

Go to www.reportcard.net to shop for educational materials or to gain more information about A+ The Report Card.

INNOVATIVE ASSESSMENT, Inc., a company organized to create new and exciting ways to collect behavioral data about teaching and learning, has "closed its doors". Chuck was one of the nine teachers and administrators who formed the company in the early 1990s. IA developed a very successful computer program that created a series of observation forms which made it possible to collect, organize and report data on such diverse and important behavioral skills such as CRITICAL THINKING, SOCIAL PARTICIPATION, VALUING, and TEACHER-LEARNING INTERACTION.

The last one, "The Teacher Learning Matrix" is still in use in the El Dorado Office of Education, Charter Community School, in Placerville, California. The TEACHER LEARNING MATRIX has been developed over the past 10 years under the direction of Ms. Marta Reyes. It has been her constant belief that the most important way to bring both change and stability to a specific educational mission is through the self-evaluation of the staff in relation to that mission. The IA program provided the template on which Reyes and her staff, along with the help of Chuck Lavaroni and another former IA Director, Peter Beldon, have built their Assessment and Evaluation Program. Chuck and Pete are currently working with Reyes and her staff to complete a Television CD that can be used for the continued training of new staff members as well as to disseminate the workings of the program to others.

At a time when so much money and energy is being spent on Standardized Testing, this completely different emphasis on assessment and self evaluation is seen as great import to Reyes and the staff. Obviously, Chuck and Pete agree whole-heartedly.

Directors Leisey and Lavaroni are agreed that for entrepreneurism to really occur within the schools and protect the teacher or administrator who test their entrepreneurial wings, there must be a recognizable organizational support system in place. Without that system it is very easy for the entrepreneur to become a target for jealousy, frustration, and distrust. This is especially true on those occasions where the efforts of the entrepreneur are in conflict with the mission and expectations of the school or district. We call that support environment an INTRAPRENEURIAL one. People who develop a product, program, technology, or service to improve learning within that system are INTRAPRENEURS. The intrapreneur in Kentfield is Superintendent Bob Caine. Working with the Board and his staff for the past 5 years Bob has developed a total school district Character Education Program. This program includes the use of a self-evaluation, assessment rubric developed to insure student participation in awareness and reflection of their own character behaviors. This rubric has been presented at two California School Boards Association conferences as well at other local workshops and seminars. Chuck Lavaroni has been an active participant in this project since its inception. He along with two former Tamalpais High School School Board Members, Sue Loar and Ellen Rosen, have been instrumental in the continued development and improvement of the rubric. Bob Caine can be reached at 415-925-2233 for further information and copies of the rubric.