The Doors Are Open!
Today the paid tier launches. If you have been waiting for the details before deciding, here is everything you need to know.
One subscription gives you access to three series. You don't pick one and lose the others. You choose how you move through them.
The New Superintendent Field Guide covers the practical work of a superintendent's first years. Entry planning, relationships, culture, communication, and the early decisions that set the tone for everything after. Each lesson follows a do this, avoid this structure built around a simple idea. Central office exists to support schools. Principals exist to support teachers. Teachers exist to support students. Trust runs in the same direction as support.
The New Principal Field Guide covers the same ground from a principal's seat. I wrote the scenarios from that vantage point rather than adapting them after the fact. Entry planning gets framed against families instead of a board. The guide focuses on leading assistant principals rather than principals. The outside partners in these lessons are a PTA and a feeder school rather than a legislator and a community college.
If your role doesn't match either title cleanly, an assistant principal or a cabinet member, for example, pick whichever guide fits your situation more closely. The structure works either way.
Systems-Oriented Leadership goes a level deeper. Where the Field Guides teach you what to do next Tuesday, this series teaches you why your organization behaves the way it does. It builds around systems thinking, events, patterns, structure, and mental models, applied to budget and staffing, feedback loops, operations, and culture. Both Field Guide audiences share this series, because the patterns underneath a school and a district are the same. Many subscribers will move to this series once the basics from a Field Guide feel settled, but you're free to start here if that's where you already are.
How Lessons Release
All three series start later today, and lessons release weekly from here on a fixed schedule.
The New Superintendent Field Guide releases every Monday. The New Principal Field Guide releases every Wednesday. Systems-Oriented Leadership releases every Thursday. You'll always know when new material lands.
The Field Guides run 24 lessons each. Systems-Oriented Leadership runs 28. At this pace, the Field Guides finish in early February 2027, and Systems finishes in early March. Release weeks pause entirely around Thanksgiving and the two weeks surrounding Christmas, so nothing competes with your holidays.
What the Founding Rate Means
Standard pricing is $22 a month or $220 a year. Founding members pay $15 a month or $150 a year, and that rate stays locked for as long as you remain subscribed. It isn't a first-year discount that jumps to standard pricing later.
The founding window stays open through October 3. You have two months from today to decide, not just today.
The Community and the Calls
Each series has a monthly live call. The Superintendent Field Guide call happens the first Tuesday of the month at 7 pm ET. The Principal Field Guide call happens the first Wednesday at 7 pm ET. The Systems-Oriented Leadership call happens the third Wednesday at 7 pm ET.
Every call runs the same way. A short segment names the connective thread across that month's lessons. Then one or two subscribers bring a real, current situation from their own district or school, and the group works through it together for fifteen to twenty minutes.
If you want to bring something to a call, post it in the async community space as soon as the lesson that prompted it drops.
Getting Started
Subscribe once, and all three today's lessons will land this evening. From there, the weekly rhythm takes over. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday bring new lessons. Once a month, each series gives you a call to bring your own situation into the room.
If you've been reading the free content and wondering whether this is worth it, the founding rate is built to give you room to find out.
Dr. Sean Bulson is a practitioner-scholar, professor of educational leadership, and the 2024 Maryland Superintendent of the Year. He served as superintendent of Harford County Public Schools from 2018 to 2026 and Wilson County Schools from 2011 to 2016. Subscribe for weekly posts on educational leadership, equity, and district transformation.
