Consulting and coaching for Christian K-12 schools
I am Paul Harrell. Fifty years in education, twenty in Christian schools, eleven as head of school. I coach heads of school and boards, and I help new Christian schools open right.
The road to Emmaus
Paul's favorite story in Scripture is the walk to Emmaus. The disciples watched everything crash down and decided the story was over. They could not see that it was still unfolding. Schools in trouble live on that road. The board is weary, the money is tight, families are leaving, and everyone quietly wonders if the story is over.
It is not. But rebuilding takes what Nehemiah had: honest assessment of the broken walls, a plan, steady work, and the conviction that the work belongs to God. That is the whole practice here.
Diagnose honestly, repair in the right order, and do not quit.
Diagnosis first
Before anything else, Paul asks every school for three numbers:
Those three show a school that is healthy or a school that is upside down. The School Health Check walks you through all three, plus the two other checks he runs, free.
Money problems do not cause your problems.
They reveal them.
Most schools that call about a budget hole actually have a trust, leadership, or mission problem wearing a budget costume. Fixing the real one fixes the money.
Services
Every service below runs on the same named frameworks, and every one is available at three published engagement levels.
Leading a school can be lonely. Paul offers an experienced listening ear and thoughtful support for the decisions you face.
A board has three jobs: guard the mission, encourage and evaluate the head, own fiduciary responsibility. Everything else is meddling.
The founding sequence in the right order, before the first family enrolls.
A plan the board actually uses, built around the mission instead of around the fear.
Parents say they want faith; they want safety first. Deliver safety, pour in the faith, and let retention do the marketing.
Financial stewardship built honestly, fundraising and development done plainly, and hiring and staff culture built on heart and longevity.
Trust first, then tactics. Marketing a bad school is like selling a house you slapped paint on.
Six schools and counting. Diagnosis, the monthly math, and the rebuild.
Results
One school Paul served needed $500,000 by February or it would close. It finished the year $130,000 in the black, with a rebuilt board, a new head of school, and its first strategic plan.
About Paul
Paul Harrell started as a math teacher in 1976. He has been a coach, an admissions director, a development director, an advancement director, and a head of school for eleven years. He has been hired and he has been fired, and both taught him. He built True North because after fifty years, he knows how to succeed, he knows how to fail, and he knows how lonely the chair is. Read Paul Harrell's story.
they had a heart for people, and they never let it go.
True North is a consulting and coaching practice for Christian K-12 schools, run by Paul Harrell. The work covers enrollment and marketing, board building and training, money and fundraising, hiring, head of school coaching, and full turnarounds. Every engagement starts with diagnosis: three numbers that show whether a school is healthy or upside down.
Heads of school, board chairs, and school leadership teams at Christian K-12 schools across the United States. Some schools are in crisis and need a turnaround. Some are healthy and want to stay that way. Some just have a head who needs one honest, experienced voice in their corner.
With a conversation, not a proposal. Run the School Health Check, bring your score and your three numbers to a call, and Paul will tell you what he sees. If True North is not the right fit, he will say so, and you will still leave the call knowing more about your school than you did.
True North publishes its prices. Strategic Advisory is $2,500 a month for focused coaching and counsel. The School Development Partnership is $4,000 a month for board, head of school, and planning work done alongside you. Hybrid Head of School Leadership is $12,500 a month for active executive leadership. See what each engagement level includes, and bring the question of fit to a first call.
A fifteen-point self-assessment built on the diagnostic Paul runs on every school: the Three Numbers, the Monthly Three, and The Three Roles of a board. It takes about fifteen minutes and costs nothing. Your score shows where your school stands and which problem to fix first, and it gives you something concrete to bring to a first call. Get the School Health Check.
It depends on the engagement level. Hybrid Head of School Leadership includes regular onsite presence, because at that level Paul is part of your school's leadership, not advising it from a distance. For Strategic Advisory and the School Development Partnership, scope and working cadence are set on the first call, based on what your school needs and the season it is in.
Turnaround work today runs inside the School Development Partnership level ($4,000 a month): diagnosis first, then the monthly math, a board rebuilt and trained, head of school development, a strategic plan the school actually uses, and implementation support until it holds. Paul has led six turnarounds across fifty years. See how school turnarounds work, or read the Turlock Christian School case study for one told start to finish.
Start here
Run the School Health Check on your school this week. Then, if you want a second set of eyes, bring your score and your three numbers to a call. The first call is a conversation, not a pitch: your three numbers and what they say, the one problem you most want gone, and whether True North is even the right fit to help.
Fair, knowledgeable, honest. Underpromise and overdeliver. If the honest answer is that you do not need True North, you will hear that too.
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives generously to all without reproach.”
