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.
Your Faculty’s Role in the Admission Process
Volume 26 No. 5 // April 15, 2001
When a new student behaves poorly or seems unable to compete academically with peers, faculty members often ask the questions, “Why did we accept her?” and “Who let him in?” Teachers who do not play a role in admission or miscomprehend the process often view the entry process as a “numbers game.”
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Strategic Board Evaluation
Volume 26 No. 4 // March 28, 2001
In 1996, ISM identified 10 “ISM Stability Markers®” for use in strategic and long range planning. The Stability Markers, organized into a prioritized list, were derived from variables associated with a private-independent school’s capacity to sustain excellence. The top-ranked Stability Marker was, and remains, the Board’s self-definition. Boards viewing their mission as essentially “strategic” comprise the best indicator/predictor of institutional stability. These Boards focus on long-term financial viability, and are organized annually into “task units” (i.e., Board committees) formed to advance the school’s planning document. Boards viewing themselves as “current events/operations oversight” entities (the antithesis of the “strategic” Board) were associated with inability to sustain excellence.
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The Hunt for Lost Alumni: Four Strategies to Bring Them Home
Volume 26 No. 3 // March 8, 2001
In today’s fast and fluid society, your alumni can easily become “lost” to your school. Despite attempts to maintain a database of current postal addresses, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers, your Development and/or Admission Office will often find it difficult to track all of your former students. Unfortunately, many schools contact their alumni only during fund-raising campaigns; it’s no wonder many alumni drift away. Convince them that you are truly interested in their lives and concerns – not just their wallets. Enhance their sense of connectedness with and ownership of your school. They will reward your efforts with their valuable support, financial and otherwise.
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Board Bylaws, Institutional Dissolution, and Bylaw Changes
Volume 26 No. 3 // March 8, 2001
One aspect of the due diligence rightly expected of you, the Board President, is a periodic review of Board bylaws. You should have them reviewed at least quadrennially, for accuracy, relevance, and technical legal compliance with appropriate statutes. If you also aspire to implement ISM’s “strategic Board” concepts, you should have the bylaws altered to reflect those aspirations.
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What the Head Must Know About the Business Manager’s Work Environment
Volume 26 No. 2 // February 13, 2001
ISM recently surveyed Business Managers about their salaries and their work environments. We randomly selected 627 Business Managers from our I&P subscribers; 417 responded.The preceding issue of I&P focused on results from the survey concerning salaries for this position. This article discusses responsibilities, workload, and priorities – and how you, the Head of School, can best support your school’s Business Manager.
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The Business Manager Survey, 2000: Salaries
Volume 26 No. 1 // January 14, 2001
ISM recently surveyed Business Managers about their salaries and their working environments. We randomly selected 627 Business Managers from our I&P subscribers; 417 responded. (See “About the Respondents” last page of this article for more information on survey participants.) This article examines Business Managers’ salaries and implications for recruitment and retention; a subsequent article will focus on Business Managers’ responsibilities and work conditions.
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Comparative Salary Trends 2000: Faculty
Volume 25 No. 13 // October 15, 2000
Competitive salaries are an obvious component in attracting and retaining teachers. In addition, employees are increasingly looking for work environments that emphasize personal growth and professional development. Also, to keep your compensation package (salaries and benefits) comparable with other schools in your area, you need a strong faculty culture to make your school truly stand out. As you and your Board review your strategies for recruiting and retaining teachers, ask yourselves if you have both promoted your faculty culture and budgeted enough money to compete in a tough job market to attract and retain mission-appropriate teachers.
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The Edifice Complex
Volume 25 No. 12 // September 24, 2000
Private-independent schools have been on a tear of late, building grand buildings (to match the ostentation running amok in the housing sector) or remodeling old ones. All the while, they generally are growing their endowments through the use of tax-exempt bonds leveraged in a currently favorable investment climate. (Some schools do take the more conservative approach of raising money via capital campaigns before starting construction.)
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The RSM International Model Schools Project: Final Outcomes
Volume 25 No. 9 // July 20, 2000
This is the first article in a series that presents an overview of the International Model Schools Project, a summary of its major findings, and a discussion of its most significant organizational implications. These implications—which focus on how faculty culture affects student performance—have been refined, through school-by-school interaction, over the five-year period (1995-2000) since the end of the study.
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Tailor Benefits for the Individual Head: Findings From the 1999-2000 Head Compensation Survey
Volume 25 No. 2 // February 13, 2000
The trend in the corporate sector is to offer executives and senior managers more options in their benefit plans. Heads, perceiving an inequity between their benefits and those of corporate managers, are asking for more choices as well. According to the results of ISM’s 1999 Head Compensation Survey, a higher salary is not necessarily the item the majority of Heads would change about their compensation. When asked what they felt was missing, if anything, most Heads named specific benefits: e.g., higher retirement contribution, dental insurance, severance pay, financial counseling.
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