It’s a waste of your teachers' time as well as your school's resources to provide inadequate professional development, as what happened to some unfortunate Chicago public school teachers. In a video that’s gone viral, a participant secretly recorded a full 63 seconds demonstrating this district’s take on professional development.

Constant, reliable technology news about what’s important and pertinent to private schools can be difficult to find, much less rely on. (That’s why you subscribed to our e-Letters!) But sometimes you can find resources that, while only tangentially related, still help you keep abreast of conversations and imagine ways to take your school into the 21st Century. Take a look at these four ed-tech blogs and see if you’re not impressed and informed by each.

Tiered memberships. Financial incentives. Substantial rewards. These dangle like carrots tied to the proverbial stick, encouraging potential donors to reach for their wallets to make gifts to your private-independent school. But, are donor incentive programs really the way to drive donations?

Sometimes it can feel as though fund raising never stops. As soon as one campaign is over, another begins. Once the Parent Association raises enough money to send students to band camp, they begin another for basketball uniforms—and doesn’t the biology lab need new beakers? All of these requests can drown your families in a tidal wave of requests for money, leaving them exhausted by the time the annual fund comes around. An easy way to fix this is an “ask” calendar.

Remember when a “post on your wall” meant some strange form of graffiti and everyone had an AOL chat handle? In memory of some of our favorite social Web sites of days gone by, here is a list of three defunct social media sites, why they tanked, and what your school’s social marketing campaign can learn from their errors.

After days of maneuvering around stacks of unopened envelopes balanced on desks like paper Jenga towers and peering at indecipherable handwriting on recommendations and evaluations, you’ve done it. You have created the perfect incoming class for next school year. You are about to make some fortunate children (and their parents) incredibly happy. Now, to tell them the great news! Enter your acceptance packet.

How do you define “bullying”? Each state has a unique legal definition of what it means to bully, but what do you think of when you hear that one student has bullied another? Is it the boy who had his head flushed in a toilet, or the girl whose lunch money was taken? Sure, but bullying can also be more subtle and insidious. Take Colin, an eleven-year-old boy suffering from a sensory disorder similar to Asperger’s syndrome. Colin told his mother that he didn’t want a birthday party because no one would come. While indirect, this social ostracism certainly constitutes a sort of bullying—all the more difficult to combat because it’s so hard to identify.

In a recent Huffington Post article, young professionals regard teaching as a “starter job” rather than a career choice. It's something noble to do for a few years, but new teachers leave for other professions. Maybe you’ve struggled with a “revolving door” at your private school, resulting in expensive and morale-killing teacher turnover. In cases like this, keeping new talent in the classrooms can seem like an impossible task. The first step in retaining excellent teachers is to discover why they quit.

International students can be an enormous boon to your private-independent school, but are you taking full advantage of the opportunities they offer? Read on if you’d like to find three reasons why your foreign students’ presence can give your private-independent school a boost.

Two weeks ago, ISM's Deans e-List buzzed with some questions on elective requirements and offerings. As you learn more about the talents of your students and faculty to prepare programs for the next academic year, now is the perfect time to consider adding dynamic new electives.