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.
DEIJB: Admission and Enrollment Management
Volume 48 No. 5 // May 1, 2023
Admission Offices face new challenges every year, from meeting enrollment targets to the pressure of balancing selectivity while expanding access to students and families with unique profiles. A well-run admission department should yield an incoming student class whose academic priorities and values...
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Fraught or Fruitful: The Complex Relationship Between Business and Development
Volume 48 No. 5 // May 1, 2023
The ISM Circle was designed to graphically depict the ideal management structure for an independent school. In the lower half of the Circle (see the accompanying graphic), you’ll find those administrative functions that lay the financial and operational foundation of your school’s mission (e.g., fin...
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Improve the Group Dynamics on Your Board
Volume 48 No. 5 // May 1, 2023
Group dynamics impact any organization’s successful operation. Your school’s Board of Trustees is no exception. Specific behaviors and roles are common in groups, and Trustees must always be cognizant of these group elements to keep your Board’s efforts on track and strategically productive. Often t...
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The Major Gift Toolbox: Donor Personas, the Donor Cycle, and the Giving Pyramid
Volume 48 No. 5 // May 1, 2023
To consistently build a productive major gift program, you, as Development Director, must learn to manage relationships with a broad spectrum of individuals who have varying attachments to your school. Development teams in private-independent schools are generally too small to have one or more indiv...
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Nine Critical Considerations in Your Approach to Faculty Compensation
Volume 48 No. 4 // April 1, 2023
Teacher compensation is an ongoing topic of conversation and debate in independent schools. It’s often the first “fix” schools look to when dealing with a negative faculty culture or teacher shortage, even though research shows school atmosphere and predictable and supportive leadership have a greater influence on a teacher’s choice of where to work.
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Determining Equitable Teaching Loads
Volume 48 No. 4 // April 1, 2023
A question we are frequently asked when working with schools during scheduling consultations is, “How do we determine the full-time teaching load?” On its face, this seems to be a straightforward question with an easy answer.
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Here’s How to Ensure the ‘Teacher Shortage’ Doesn’t Impact Your School If It Arrives
Volume 48 No. 4 // April 1, 2023
Your teachers are central to your school’s success. However, despite their importance and the platitudes our society espouses for teachers, it has become a profession fewer teachers desire to practice. The data making the case for a “teacher shortage” are alarming. Between 2005 and 2018, there...
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How to Dismantle Your AP Program: Four Essential Elements
Volume 48 No. 3 // March 1, 2023
As we have written in the past, standardized Advanced Placement programs often fail to meet your school’s Purpose and Outcome Statements. A better approach is to design a truly independent, mission- and core values-based curriculum.
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Board Orientation: Start Well
Volume 48 No. 3 // March 1, 2023
There is no doubt every private-independent school needs an engaged Board. As a nonprofit organization, the formation of a Board is an IRS requirement. “The Internal Revenue Service encourages an active and engaged board, believing that it is important to the success of a charity and its compliance ...
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Six Ways Board Members Fail in Their Roles
Volume 48 No. 3 // March 1, 2023
Being a member of a private-independent school Board is an honor for those invited to serve. This role also carries with it a definitive set of goals and behaviors that positively influence the Board’s culture and the school’s strategic direction.
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