Clients | Aptonym – New Ideas for Old Schools

Our Clients

No strategy can be effective until it comes to life in a school’s day-to-day program, its culture, and its business tactics. At Aptonym, once the strategic planning work is complete, we help clients initiate those projects that will most quickly and effectively bring their strategy to life.

St. Paul’s School
Concord, New Hampshire
550 students, 9-12, Boarding

For St. Paul’s, Aptonym led a comprehensive strategic planning effort and provides ongoing support for plan implementation. To assist in bringing the plan to life, Aptonym worked with SPS to completely rebuild its Employee Handbook, Faculty Handbook, and Student Handbooks, with emphasis on revisions that would positively shape school culture and drive strategic goals.

Currently, Aptonym is engaged in a complete renovation of governance materials for SPS, including new bylaws, committee charters, board policies, and a forthcoming Trustee Handbook.

Oregon Episcopal School
Portland, Oregon
875 students, K-12, Boarding and Day

Aptonym is working with OES to perform an internal and environmental scan examining the impact of school size on culture, operations, program, and brand, as well as a review and recommendation set for their External Affairs departments.

The Emery/Weiner School
Houston, Texas
520 students, 6-12, Day

For the Emery/Weiner School, Aptonym is providing coaching and professional development guidance, and is assisting in the integration of problem-based methods and learning outcomes in the math curricula.

Episcopal Academy
Newtown Square, Pennsylvania
1200 students, PreK-12, Day

Aptonym is working with the Episcopal Academy on comprehensive strategic planning.

Concord Academy
Concord, Massachusetts
395 students, 9-12, Boarding and Day

Aptonym performed an audit of enrollment, advancement, and general school communications and provided on-site work as interim director of communications and marketing.

After our time in the interim CMO role, we provided a detailed report of observations and recommendations covering communications and organizational management opportunities across Concord Academy’s external affairs operations.

Pembroke Hill School
Kansas City, Missouri
1,200 students, PK-12, Day

Aptonym is working with Pembroke Hill School in building proactive and responsible engagement with artificial intelligence technology.

Choate Rosemary Hall
Wallingford, Connecticut
850 students, 9-PG, Boarding and Day

Aptonym is working with Choate to develop strategies, policies, and practices for engagement with artificial intelligence (A.I.) in its school programs.

Hillbrook School
Los Gatos and San Jose, California
365 students, PreK-12, Day

Aptonym is providing Hillbrook School strategic support to the school’s communications and enrollment teams. Additionally, we are engaged in faculty development coaching for the mathematics department.

Asheville School
Asheville, North Carolina
295 students, 9-12, Boarding and Day

Aptonym worked with Asheville School to reshape student and faculty culture through the redesign of key policies in faculty, student, and employee handbooks.

In addition, Aptonym provided marketing communications support for admissions, building a suite of low cost, high impact materials and a series of templates and workflows for digital marketing.

Harpeth Hall
Nashville, Tennessee
724 girls, grades 5-12

Aptonym will present at and facilitate the Harpeth Hall Fall 2024 opening faculty meeting, with a session focused on the joy and centrality of teaching in complicated times.

Girls Preparatory School
Chattanooga, Tennessee
560 girls, grades 6-12, Day

Aptonym will facilitate a Board of Trustees retreat with a session on innovation in education for Girls Preparatory School.

United World College, Changshu
Changshu, Jiangsu, China
570 students, grades 10-12, Boarding

Aptonym is working with UWC Changshu within the mathematics department, providing faculty training; assisting with launching a new teaching fellowship program; and focusing development efforts on the use of IB Math Practices.

Canterbury School
Fort Wayne, Indiana
905 students, K-12, Day

Aptonym is working with Canterbury to facilitate parent conversations and faculty development around engagement with Artificial Intelligence across all school levels, while coordinating with school senior leadership in both tasks to align with institutional priorities.

Frontier Regional and Union 38 Schools
Northern Pioneer Valley, Massachusetts
~1,700 students, PreK-12, Day

Aptonym is working with FRSU38 Schools to harmonize, simplify, and streamline the combined-district’s Parent, Student, Faculty, and Employee handbooks.

Colegio Los Nogales
Bogotá, Colombia
980 students, PreK-12, Day

Aptonym worked with Nogales to review the school’s senior leadership and governance structures—and to provide a situational analysis of the competitive and market environment.

The Island School
Cape Eleuthera, The Bahamas
Middle School, High School, Visiting and Seasonal Programs

Aptonym worked with The Island School to increase organizational capacity through the creation of culturally aligned employee and faculty handbooks.

Woodstock Day School
Saugerties, New York
200 students, PreK-12, Day

Aptonym provided WDS with comprehensive strategic planning, leadership support, and marketing communications consulting.

The Windsor School

New Providence, The Bahamas
425+ students PK-12, Boarding and Day

For Windsor School, Aptonym provided assistance in moving the school to an AP curriculum and in the management of NCAA eligibility practices. In addition, Aptonym provided consultation and guidance on website development, and enterprise IT systems for student support.

"David’s deep expertise equipped him extraordinarily well to facilitate a compelling institutional vision and organizational alignment—ensuring that the Academy’s rhetoric was clearly linked to practice and echoed faithfully in its communications."

“Peter’s deftness as a strategic thinker is shown through his organizational skills. … He managed to lay out a clear plan effectively which the majority of the stakeholders deemed reasonable and were glad to follow.”

"I am so impressed with Peter's depth and breadth of expertise in education, I asked him to be part of my Center's advisory board. And of course, in spite of his own workload, and a fabulously well-curated newsletter, he manages to contribute cogently and gentlemanly. I look forward to many years of collaboration."

“Peter is a world-maker, a strategic optimist, and a creator of humane environments where people can thrive. He can both set the bar high for educational communities and continuously raise that bar as he helps others to grow thoughtfully and joyfully.”

"David Thiel is one of the best brand, marketing, and communications professionals in the business. He sees and links patterns in organizational culture way before others."

"I've worked closely with Peter over the last few years in his role as a speaker, advisory board member and LAUNCHed emcee for SXSWedu. He has proven to be a significant thought leader in the education space and has pushed the audience at SXSWedu to think more creatively about their work. Peter is diligent, hard working, thoughtful and dynamic, and has been a great partner since day one."

"David’s work facilitated key results on several levels. We clarified our mission and created an effective way to communicate it, we identified key sources of business, and we became better equipped to market our brand directly to prospective parents."

Deerfield Academy
Deerfield, Massachusetts
675 students, 9–PG, Boarding and Day

Deerfield Academy is a top boarding and day school in Western Massachusetts, founded in 1797.

Serving as Deerfield’s Communications Director and then Assistant Head of School for Strategy and Planning, Aptonym consultant David Thiel transformed the school’s brand, communications. external affairs methods, and strategic planning approach.

David’s leadership provided communications support for $400 million in fundraising and double-digit donor participation growth—both as a strategist and as an individual contributor of writing, photography, and videography.

David provided PR and crisis communications management to guide Deerfield through numerous instances of national news coverage, including the boarding school sexual misconduct crisis of 2013–2019.

Full Circle School
Bernardston, Massachusetts
23 students, K-6, Day

Working with the Head of School, Aptonym helped identify key points of difference for Full Circle School and authored its now long-standing “intelligence, innocence, and courage” value proposition.

King’s Academy
Madaba, Jordan
600 students, 6–12, Boarding and Day

Aptonym provided King’s Academy with support with strategic planning, design thinking techniques, research, and self-assessment.

University of Rochester
Rochester, New York
11,000 students, undergraduate and graduate programs

Then serving as a program manager in the UR advancement office, David Thiel worked to optimize the value of “membership” in the alumni association at the University, developed volunteer programs to increase alumni engagement, and steered the school’s use of new media/online tools to increase constituent engagement. Later, as VP and Creative Director of his own firm (Auragen Communications) David led the redesign of the University’s central websites.

Tilton School
Tilton, New Hampshire
215 students, 9-PG, Day and Boarding

While serving as Head of School at Tilton, Aptonym consultant David Thiel focused on turnaround work at Tilton: he reorganized the school, conducted zero-base budgeting, and developed a strategic vision that shifted capital investment and program design toward greater differentiation.

To bring that strategic vision to life, David recast the core value-proposition of the school’s “Mastery Approach,” rebranded the institution, and led a record-setting fundraising effort. As part of that effort, Tilton’s communications were entirely redesigned under David’s creative direction.

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