How many times this week did someone on your team come to you with something they could have figured out themselves?
A parent at the desk asking whether a late pickup fee applies. A teacher wanting to swap a field trip day. Something small that somehow still needed your answer. If that number is higher than zero, this post is for you.
In most schools, the problem isn’t a people problem. It’s a documentation problem.
Why Your Team Keeps Asking
Think about it from the staff member’s side. They’re standing at the front desk. A parent is waiting. They’re not sure what they’re allowed to say. What’s the safe move?
Ask. Walk back to the office. Send a text and wait.
Nobody gets in trouble for asking. Plenty of people get in trouble for guessing wrong. So the team defaults to asking. And every time they ask, the answer is probably exactly the one you’d give. You just keep giving it, because you’re the only one who knows it.
That’s not a character flaw in your staff. It’s a rational response to not knowing where the lines are.
And it costs more than you think. Every interruption pulls you out of the classroom walkthrough, the staff meeting, the budget review, the call you meant to return. Your team loses time waiting. The parent waits too — standing right there, watching how fast your school responds. When a decision lives only in your head, you’re not really leading a team. You’re the bottleneck.
What a Decision Guide Is
We’ve talked about who should own a decision — the lowest capable level, the person closest to the situation who can handle it well. This is about the step most leaders skip after they figure that out. Having the authority is only half of it. The other half is writing down what that authority actually covers.
That’s what a decision guide does.
A decision guide is a short document — one decision per guide. It says what the decision is, who owns it, what that person can do without checking with you, and when they need to bring you in. That’s the whole job.
What One Looks Like in Practice
Imagine a director named Sandra. She runs a preschool with a few classrooms. A parent calls asking whether they’ll get any credit on tuition after their child missed a week with an illness.
Right now, every one of those calls goes to Sandra. She answers well — but she might be in the middle of a staff meeting, a fire drill, or a conversation with a teacher whose car won’t start.
So Sandra writes a guide. It’s about one page. Here’s how it’s structured:
Tuition credit for illness absence.
Who owns it: the front office lead.
What they can do alone: confirm the credit policy as written, and process credits for absences that meet the written criteria — a doctor’s note, or a set number of consecutive days.
When to escalate: anything outside the written criteria, any request for a refund instead of a credit, and any family who has asked about credits more than twice this year.
What to tell the family: thank them, explain the policy in one sentence, and say the office will confirm within one business day if it’s a special case.
Last reviewed: the date, and who reviewed it.
That’s it. Sandra didn’t write a manual. She wrote a boundary.
Notice what she did. She named the owner. She named the limit. And she gave the front office lead a script for the hard part — the moment a parent pushes back.
A Few Things to Watch For When You Write Yours
Use the words your staff actually use, not the phrasing from your handbook. Nobody at the front desk says “tuition adjustment eligibility.” They say “can I give her credit for those days?” Write it that way.
Be specific about what’s alone and what’s ask. A vague guide creates the same problem you started with. A guide that says “use good judgment on credits” sounds helpful. It’s really just handing the question back to you with a nicer label.
Don’t try to write a guide for every decision you make. Start with the ones that interrupt you most. Those are the ones costing you the most time.
Store them somewhere your team can find them in a few seconds. A shared folder, a binder by the desk, a page in your staff system. If they have to hunt for it, they’ll ask you instead.
The Common Objections
“Every situation is different.” And that’s true. That’s exactly why the guide should cover the clear cases and tell people when to ask. You’re not trying to remove judgment. You’re trying to stop spending your judgment on the obvious ones.
“What if they get it wrong?” Sometimes they will. But a good guide lowers the odds. And when something goes sideways inside the boundaries you set, that’s a conversation about the guide — not a verdict on the person. Fix the guide, then support the person.
“Writing things down will make the school feel corporate.” I’d argue the opposite. Clear rules are a kindness to your team. They take away the fear of getting it wrong — and fear is what keeps people walking back to your office in the first place.
Where This Lands
Most schools don’t have an authority problem. They have a documentation problem. When the decision rules live in your head, your team will keep coming to you, and you’ll keep being the ceiling. When the rules are written down — short and clear — people can decide. And you get to stop being the answer to every question.
Start with one guide. Choose the decision that interrupts you most, write it on one page, and hand it to the person who owns it. That’s the whole assignment.
In the next post, we’ll talk about protecting your own time — because delegation only matters if you actually do something with the space it creates.
For training resources and consulting for preschool owners and directors, visit chelseareue.com.
