Learn practical strategies to handle emerging trends and leadership challenges in private schools.
No matter if you’re a School Head, Admission Director, Development Director, Board member, or any other private school administrator—Ideas & Perspectives, ISM’s premier private school publication, has strategic solutions for the pervasive problems you face.
- Tuition not keeping pace with your expenses? In I&P, explore how to use strategic financial planning to create your budget and appropriately adjust your tuition.
- Enrollment dropping off? Discover how to implement the right admission and enrollment management strategies that engage your community—and fill your classrooms.
- Trouble retaining teachers? Learn how you can best support your teachers using ISM’s Comprehensive Faculty Development framework. Your faculty members will become more enthusiastic about their roles—which ultimately improves student outcomes.
- Fundraising campaigns not as successful as you’d hoped? Implement ISM’s practical advice and guidance to build a thriving annual fund, construct an effective capital campaign, and secure major donors—no matter your community size or location.
- Not sure how to provide professional development—for you and your staff? Learn ways to develop and fund a successful professional development strategy. You can improve teacher-centered satisfaction and growth, which in turn strengthens student-centered learning.
- Problematic schedule? You can master the challenges of scheduling with the help of ISM’s practical advice, based on our experience with hundreds of schools and our time-tested theories.
- And so much more.
I&P has shared targeted research, up-to-date insight, and sound theory with school leaders since 1975. More than 8,500 private school decision-makers find the answers to their schools’ administrative and governance matters in our advisory letter. We give you the strategic answers you need.
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See the articles from our latest issue of Ideas & Perspectives.
Meaningful Service Learning Programs: Serving, Not Saving
Volume 49 No. 3 // March 1, 2024
At many private-independent schools, community service is embedded in the mission or core values. That is one reason independent schools have long incorporated service learning programs in their cocurricular programming. Such activities give students the chance to engage in meaningful service to oth...
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Planning Holiday and Vacation Care for Your Students
Volume 49 No. 3 // March 1, 2024
Families need and value before- and after-school care for their children on regular school days. Some families may also require full-day child care for times when school is not in session—holidays, snow days, teacher in-service days, and during the summertime, outside of whatever academic sessi...
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Enhance the Effectiveness of Your Financial Aid Committee
Volume 49 No. 3 // March 1, 2024
The Financial Aid Committee plays a vital role in a school’s strategic enrollment management. ISM has recently updated some of its recommendations on the composition of this committee. The purpose of the Financial Aid Committee (which may alternately be called the Financial Assistance Committee) ...
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Student Well-Being: A Special Report
Volume 49 No. 2 // February 1, 2024
Student Well-Being: An Overview Schools are not just in the education business—they are in the child-development business. A school’s programs do not stop at core academics. Arts, athletics, advisory, assemblies, social-emotional learning, counseling, service learning, health classes, and food se...
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Cultivating Strategic Thinking: Developing a Strategic Mindset
Volume 49 No. 1 // January 1, 2024
Private-independent school Boards are made up of dedicated volunteers who bring valuable expertise from diverse backgrounds: education, finance, law, marketing, technology, and more. But some individual Trustees—and even a few entire Boards—lack experience in strategic planning and governance. These...
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Sharing Data Between Admission and Development: A Reciprocal Relationship
Volume 49 No. 1 // January 1, 2024
With responsibility for tuition, fees, annual giving, and endowment, the enrollment management and development functions account for nearly all a private-independent school’s operating revenue. However, these two departments often operate in distinctly separate and parallel lanes, with staff in each...
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DEIJB in Athletic Programs
Volume 49 No. 1 // January 1, 2024
Running a school athletic program that integrates concepts of diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and belonging (DEIJB) involves implementing practices to ensure fairness, accessibility, and a welcoming environment—not just for student-athletes, but also for coaches, supporters, and families. Pri...
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Overcoming Barriers to Strategic Thinking
Volume 49 No. 1 // January 1, 2024
The role of the Board in a private-independent school is to provide leadership at a high level. Boards focus on setting the school’s mission and envisioning its future, developing strategies for achieving that future, and putting policies into effect that undergird and support those strategies. The ...
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Factors That Affect the Student Net Promoter Score
Volume 48 No. 10 // December 1, 2023
Factors That Affect the Student Net Promoter Score A longstanding, robust finding from ISM’s interviews with parents and students is that the students themselves have a significant role in decisions about where they enroll and whether they remain at a school. In fact, middle-school students have ...
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Solving the Faculty Compensation Problem
Volume 48 No. 10 // December 1, 2023
Solving the Faculty Compensation Problem A concerning trend has emerged over recent years: Significantly fewer undergraduate and graduate students are earning teaching credentials. Enrollment in teaching programs has been steadily declining for a decade, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made things ...
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