By NJAIS COMMUNICATIONS | MARCH 27, 2026

NJAIS Executive Director Featured in MoonshotOS Podcast

The Executive Director was a recent guest of Peter Baron for a MoonshotOS podcast on mergers and acquisitions in independent schools.

For many boards and heads, the word "merger" enters the conversation far too late, loaded with fear, myth, and misunderstanding. In this episode, Kevin J. Ruth, Executive Director of NJAIS and a Certified Merger & Acquisition Advisor®, pulls back the curtain on what mergers actually look like in the independent school world, and why the schools that navigate them best are the ones that start the conversation before they have to.

Kevin breaks down the full arc of a school merger: from the strategic rationale that must anchor every serious conversation to due diligence, legal counsel, board governance, faculty contracts, and the loaded question of who leads the merged entity.

This is not a theoretical conversation. It is a practical, honest look at what it takes to merge two institutions thoughtfully, and what goes wrong when schools wait too long, move too fast, or skip the hard internal conversations about identity, mission, and culture.
Associate Membership | New Members
By NJAIS COMMUNICATIONS | January 24, 2026

NJAIS Welcomes 5 New Associate Member Schools

NJAIS is delighted to welcome five new schools to membership via its Associate Membership program--our very first Associate Members! As Associate members, these schools have a select slate of benefits that give access to our network, professional learning, resources, insurances, and more. This category serves to increase NJAIS's inclusivity, expanding access and opportunity across the Garden State. We are excited to welcome the following schools that serve students in highly individualized ways in vibrant communities: