Ruckus Maker Spotlight: Kati Cahill

Kati Cahill checked into a hotel in her own town for a weekend.

She had one important question she needed to answer: could she keep doing this job?

Kati was about four years into leading Humanex Academy, a small private school south of Denver for neurodivergent students in grades 6 through 12.

But she was burning out.

For two days, she walked and thought it through.

By the end of the weekend, she had decided to stay.

Kati shared that story on a recent RUCKUScast.

She’s now spent 15 years at Humanex and is in her ninth year as head of school.

The admin team at Humanex is Kati and the school psychologist, Dr. Tom Welch. Humanex is independent, so her closest fellow principals are the ones she meets every week in the Mastermind.

Since that weekend, she has made four changes to keep the job sustainable.

Kati used to run admissions from memory and a stack of paper checklists on her desk. She built the schedule too, a job she kept when she became head.

Her big takeaway from the Mastermind was to start delegating.

She started by talking her processes through with Digital Danny until they became written playbooks any teammate could pick up and run.

Try it this week: Pick one task you run from memory. Talk it out loud, from start to finish. Write down every step. Then hand it off to a teammate.

Each year Kati builds a 90-day entry plan.

In the past, she drafted it alone in a Google Doc and followed her own thinking wherever it went.

This summer she went through each step with Digital Danny, working backward from the 90-day vision. She started with a list of everything she needed to do.

She ended with a list of teammates.

The plan has four columns: communication, academics, culture, and operations.

Each column has teammates attached.

Kati’s Ruckus Maker move was putting the meetings on the calendar before the first day of school.

This year, her teammates will help shape the vision so it belongs to all of them.

At the end of last year, Kati gathered every win she could remember, plus the ones staff raised in their checkout meetings.

They went into a simple template with three columns: the win, why it matters, and when to use it.

One story might be saved for a staff meeting when morale dips.

Another fits a tour with a prospective family.

A recent thank-you email from a parent went straight into the file, ready for the next in-service.

When Kati writes the school newsletter, the file is full of stories to showcase.

Humanex teaches ten personal growth skills, one each month, in a pyramid Kati and Dr. Tom built years ago.

This year she wanted a single idea sitting above all ten.

Her phrase for the year:

Kati wants every staff member and student to feel they belong. From there, students who struggled at other schools can start finding success.

You're likely holding systems in your head too.

Supervision schedules, bus duty, discipline — the list goes on.

Write one down this month.

And when your principal hands you a piece of the plan, create the playbook that goes with it.

There’s one thing to remember:

Every system on paper and every owner on the plan gives Kati more time with students and teachers.

That builds sustainability.

And it’s part of the reason she took the job in the first place.

Kati keeps a Digital Danny tab open all day.

When a conversation with a staff member is rattling around in her head, she uses it like a thought partner and talks it through.

Start where she did.

Take one system you run from memory and share it with Digital Danny.

He'll keep asking questions until you have a playbook.

Some thoughts play on repeat in your head, and they start to sound like facts.

"I got lucky." "It's faster if I do it myself." "I have to answer this tonight."

This week, notice when the script starts running.

Cue, catch, check

Make it a practice

Keep the same cue for a full week.

On day one, you might spot a single thought.

By Friday, you'll notice them coming in droves.

After a week, you'll know which sentence is living rent-free in your head.

Bring that one to a trusted colleague, coach, or Digital Danny and ask what they see.