THORNWOOD, NY / ACCESS Newswire / October 30, 2026 / Vladimir Kuskovski has led schools on four continents. Over a career that took him from a classroom in Minnesota to head-of-school roles in Germany, Switzerland, India, and New York, he has arrived at more than one campus as the outsider in the room.

A New Country, a New Set of Assumptions

He describes the pattern the same way each time. A new head of school shows up with a plan, built from what worked at the last place. The plan may be well-meant, but it doesn't always account for the unique circumstances of a new school community.

When Kuskovski took on the Head of School role at Oberoi International School in Mumbai, after years running schools in Germany and Switzerland, he carried a set of instincts shaped by European and American systems. Those instincts were not useless. They were also not a map. The families, the staff, and the rhythm of the school year worked on different assumptions than the ones he had brought with him.

The Decision to Wait

Kuskovski says the choice he made early on was to slow down before changing anything. Instead of proposing fixes in his first weeks, he spent that time talking to teachers, students, parents, and staff who had been at the school longer than he had.

"Every school has its own established culture, shaped by the people who are part of it," he says. "Understanding the culture is an important part of working effectively in a new educational environment."

That approach is not unique to Mumbai. He has used it in every school he has led, from Hamburg to Basel to New York. He says the shape of the questions changes with the country, but the questions come first regardless of where the school sits.

Why the Habit Holds

Kuskovski points to his own education as part of why this habit stuck. His graduate work, including a fellowship at the Klingenstein Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, focused on how school leaders actually make decisions, not just what decisions they make. He says that distinction matters more than most new administrators realize.

"You can study governance and budgets and still walk into a building with much to learn," he says. "The part nobody teaches you is how to take the time to understand a new environment and the people who make it unique."

He also credits his board work, including his years with the Academy for International School Heads, with reinforcing the same lesson from a different angle. Sitting across the table from heads of school in other countries, he says, highlights the importance of understanding the local context rather than simply importing solutions from elsewhere.

A Habit, Not a Rule

Kuskovski is careful to say this is not a formula he applies the same way every time. Some schools need fast decisions. Some cultures expect a new leader to act decisively from day one. He says the judgment is in knowing which situation he is in, not in following a fixed sequence of steps.

What stays constant, he says, is the practice of asking before assuming. He traces the habit partly to experiences outside of work. He runs most days, a holdover from years of competitive rowing earlier in his life, and says the repetition of training taught him patience with processes that do not show results immediately. A school culture, like a training block, does not reveal itself in the first week.

Kuskovski has carried the same approach into every role since Mumbai, including his most recent years leading EF Academy in New York.

About Vladimir Kuskovski

Vladimir Kuskovski has led schools and academic programs in the United States, Germany, Switzerland, and India, and has served on the boards of the Council of International Schools and the Academy for International School Heads. He holds a Ph.D. from Capella University and completed a fellowship at the Klingenstein Center at Teachers College, Columbia University. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Association for the Advancement of International Education in 2024.

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SOURCE: Vladimir Kuskovski