A: ISM has long supported the use of contracts with two parties: (1) the Head of School (as the sole employee of the Board); and (2) faculty members. We do not generally recommend contracts for other employees of the school.
We support contracts for faculty members as an appropriate way to provide security to both the faculty member and the school. Teachers want and need to feel that they are secure in their position for the length of the school year. This benefits the school and its students, as well, by ensuring (as much as possible) that students will not experience a disruption in their learning due to a mid-year change of teachers.
Beyond this, though, we don't generally see a need for contracts for others—For administrators and staff, there is not the same continuity-of-classroom-instruction issue that exists for faculty. Too, the existence of a contract may somewhat limit the school's ability to act with regard to the administrator or staff member—i.e., since they would no longer be an "at-will" employee, the contract would govern the school's ability to discipline or terminate the employee during the term of the contract.
Be that as it may, there is an employee relations (or morale) issue if some administrators and staff are issued contracts and others are not (i.e., "Why does that support department get contracts and mine does not?"). On that basis, to reduce hard feelings, it is probably best if the school offers contracts to all administrators and staff—or none.
