PHPS: Who We Are — With Head of School Dr. Bell

In our debut episode of The PHPS Difference, Dr. Nicole Bell, PHPS Head of School, joins us to share the PHPS mission, vision, and what makes this community so special.

Dr. Bell's Reading List: 

Educational Read: Building Learning Power by Guy Claxton — Practical strategies for strengthening students’ learning habits and independence.

Pleasure Read: The Wager (Historical Fiction) by David Grann — A gripping, fast-paced survival tale based on a true maritime disaster.

Children’s Literature: The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton — A classic coming-of-age story about identity, belonging, and empathy.

Transcript

You're listening to the PHPS Difference Podcast, an inside glance into how our school celebrates students who learn differently. We share insights, stories, and strategies to help families in our community empower every learner to thrive.

Welcome to the first episode of the PHPS Difference Podcast. I am Lauren Marold, Director of Innovative Learning for PHPS, and I am so excited to be here with my co-host, Becky Barrett. And we are just going to share a bit about why this podcast is important and how we got to this place. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. I'm Becky Barrett. I am the Technology and Library Specialist here at Preston Hollow and to be completely transparent, I have done quite bit of podcasting with students and putting them behind a mic and software and letting them share their wonderful ideas and their interests. But this my first time so I'm excited to do this. Yeah, right? Yes. And I'm a little nervous too. And this is a big endeavor for us to try to communicate the important things that we do here at Preston Hollow, so we can't wait to do that. And I'm excited to work with you and see who we bring on as guests, right? I think that we have so many parent volunteers that get to be a part of our school day. And we also have a lot of parents that can't have that opportunity. So I'm excited to reveal more to them and provide resources they could listen to in carpool or on their way to work after they drop their kiddos off — to feel more connected and also hopefully learn more about what we’re doing. I think so too. I hope that it’s a way of opening up the doors of our community and making people feel like they are a part of it — parents, community members, maybe other educators — to see why what we do is so unique and special, but also hopefully to learn from community members that are not a part of Preston Hollow directly. And I think that you and I are in a unique position that we’re both parents and educators. But we're parents of students with learning differences. So we're in the thick of it just like our families at Preston Hollow. It’ll be a great opportunity for us to learn and grow and also share that impact with others. I agree. I'm really excited to look forward to what we're going to do. Here we go.

Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Nicole Bell. You are the Head of School at PHPS and we are just really excited to have you here and learn more about how you lead our school and the things that inspire you. But also, hopefully you’ll dive in a bit with us in a conversation around why our work is so valuable to the Dallas community, so we're excited to welcome you. Thank you. So excited to be here. We're thrilled to have you. Would you mind just starting and sharing a bit about you — just your educational experience and then what you like to maybe even do on weekends? Sure. Educational experience: I've always worked with kids with learning differences, so I've been in education I guess 25 years now. I started out at Parish Episcopal School down the street, and I was hired basically to start a learning support program for that school.

And this was back when independent schools really didn't have learning support programs for students and didn’t even really want to admit that they had students with learning differences. So, 1998. It was like a blank canvas to come in and build the program. It was wonderful. I was there 12 or 13 years and then I did school consulting — working with parents moving internationally and helping them navigate the educational landscape here, particularly families with students who had learning differences. And then in 2019, I got a call that Preston Hollow was looking for an Assistant Director, and I knew the school very well because I had referred many families to Preston Hollow. So I came on in 2019 as the Assistant Director and then moved into Director that same year. That was… well, COVID. I was just going to say — I think that was COVID. That was COVID, yes. And in education we have pre-COVID and post-COVID… Yes, right. Feels like just yesterday but also ten years ago. We learned a lot. Yes. What are some things that you enjoy when you're not on campus? I love spending time with my family and with my dog, Oliver. I love to garden, I like to be outside — when it's not 110 degrees. I like to run, and my husband and I will ride bikes together if we have a couple of hours on the weekend. I like to go to baseball games — as many as we can. And I love to read. We go to movies. Yes, that’s a lot to get in on a weekend! Yes. And you were saying that your garden has been prolific this year. So yes, pretty good.

As we think about your time here at Preston Hollow, how have you seen the school change and where do you see us going? Well, I think the biggest change was our location — moving from where we were for 63 years to a new location. So that’s probably been the biggest change. And also, we're adding a middle school. The school has always been K–6, but it's time to add a middle school. We desperately need a middle school that serves students with learning differences in this community. Our mission is: we believe our students are quite capable, and we don't want them to need us forever — but sometimes they need us longer than sixth grade. So I think that’s probably the biggest change. Becky and I are really excited about the middle school opportunity and just thinking about all of the possibilities for our students — growing executive functioning skills, all the opportunity in that age group. I think it's going to be a neat future for the school. It'll be unique and very appropriate for our students. Absolutely.

What do you see as the greatest community need outside of our middle school, as things have shifted in Dallas and more families move to the city and area? That’s a good question. I would say if I were a teacher, the answer would be yes — schools and teachers are being asked to do a lot more. As an administrator, I think the biggest challenge we face is pushing our students an appropriate amount to make sure they're ready for the next step — because there is always a next step.

PHPS is such a special place to all of us. We love working here and our students are so amazing. What would you say sets us apart from maybe another school down the street or another learning-differences school? Well, we're lucky that we have multiple LD schools in the area, but I think the biggest way we are different is our size and our mission. Like I said, we know students are capable — they just need to be taught in a different way. We provide the scaffolding they need but we all know we slowly take that scaffolding away because we don’t want them to need us forever. We want them to return to a mainstream learning environment. We don't know how long that will take or when it will happen — but it will happen for all students. We're a nonprofit, so we're very service-oriented. We want to give independence to our students. We’re not trying to just fill seats.

With admission season coming and our new building, we've had a lot of new faces during tours and parents eager to see what our school is like. Can you share a bit about how we support families as they explore the opportunity of their child attending Preston Hollow or another school? Any advice you typically give? I think the advice I usually give parents is that early intervention is key. The earlier you start, the better off your student will be. And to embrace the community — reach out to other parents because our parents are very supportive of one another. Everyone has been on the same journey. I think parents can find a lot of support in others. When parents first visit, they might be worried or anxious, but it doesn’t take long before they see confidence growing. They see their student happy again. That anxiety fades quickly. My advice: reach out to others in the community. Everyone has been on the same journey. Same for students — that first day they might be nervous, but by the second hour they are part of our community. Our kids have that shared experience of leaving a school and coming to a new one — they’re very empathetic.

Now that we're on our new campus and had the opportunity to design the space specifically for the students we serve, we have a unique vision for learning and the learning environment. What’s your favorite place we designed on this campus? Well, we all love the library — a space we didn't have before. But I also love how it's designed so students can use all the space — both buildings and the outside. It encourages older kids to interact with younger kids. I love that we have Huntley Hall — a place designed for being together. I like that everything encourages interaction. And even the colors, the wayfinding, the intentionality make the space warm and inviting. It truly feels like their home already. We’re very settled for how short a time we’ve been here. That’s a testament to the design.

As we're building the new middle school, it’s been fun to talk to students about what they love — even 10, 11, 12-year-olds talk about the light, how bright it is, how warm it feels. Coming from students says a lot. There’s not a room that feels cavernous or dark. Is there anything you'd want to share with the community that's important or unique that we haven't touched on yet, thinking about our podcast being called the PHPS Difference? I think the new campus allows us to build more community, which is really important. We have the ability now to have more on-campus activities and to reach beyond just our students — to siblings, to parents. We have Grandparents Day coming up this week. Building community is something we didn’t have as much opportunity to do in the past. So that's an area where we're growing. And as we expand to middle school — we will never expand to high school — but when we expand to middle school, there will be intentionality on preparing our students for high school. We design backwards: looking at high school expectations and designing the middle school experience to prepare them for that.

One of our favorite questions to ask guests is: What are you reading right now? And what’s something you read as a child or with your own children that made an impact? I know you still have all of your children’s literature in your home, so I know that’s special. So I’m still reading Building Students’ Learning Power — that’s my workbook right now. I love historical novels, so I just finished The Wager, which is a true story about a shipwreck in the 1700s. I love mysteries — my daughter recommended The Housemaid series, and I finished the second one last week. As I’ve mentioned before, the first book I ever read — the first novel — was The Outsiders in sixth grade. I don’t think I’d ever read a complete book before that. It was because I was in a reading class — not dyslexic, but not a strong reader. And this class was: you just read. I pulled The Outsiders off the bookshelf and read it. And by the end, I thought, “Oh… this is kind of fun.” I became a reader because of that book. Finding something kids are interested in — something that makes them want to turn the page — that was it for me.

Thank you so much for being our first guest on the PHPS Difference Podcast. We’re excited and hope you’ll come back many times to discuss topics important to our community. Thank you for your time. Yeah, thank you. Glad you know where to find me.

We're so glad you took the time to listen. At PHPS, we believe every child is unique and extraordinary. We hope you'll continue to tune in next time, as we celebrate the many ways our community learns and grows together.