Virtual & Onsite Consulting Services

Onsite Consulting
Onsite Consulting

Ensure that your school’s governance and operations support your mission.

We work together with your leaders, teachers, staff members, and students to understand your school’s unique needs, strengths, and challenges. We help you create a plan to help you meet your goals.

Your team can then put these mission-appropriate recommendations into action to achieve increased cash reserves, higher enrollment levels, and long-term stability. At the end of the day, we all have a singular purpose—advance school leadership to enrich the student experience.

We offer personalized consultations for many leadership divisions of a private school—the Board of Trustees, School Heads, the Business Office, the Development Office, Enrollment Management professionals, Marketing professionals, and Academic leaders. Select the area of school leadership you’d like to further explore.

 

Our Consulting Services

School Head

Whether you want to ensure that all school functions run at peak efficiency or are considering implementing new strategies and initiatives, lean on a trusted source of knowledge to increase the likelihood of long-term success.

Business & Operations

Take advantage of a full range of planning, facilities, and operations consulting services that give your school a solid footing for the future. Examine where your key operations work well, and where they can use improvement.

Academic Leadership

Your programs set your school apart. Explore how to create and build programs that pull families in and give them an experience they couldn’t have at another private-independent school.

Admission & Enrollment Management

ISM’s data-informed approach pinpoints what attracts families to your school and inspires them to stay. Receive customized solutions based on your school’s unique marketplace stance, challenges, and opportunities.

Fundraising & Development

Learn how to develop successful strategies to engage and bring donors closer to your institution. No matter your school size, history, or pedagogy, explore how to plan, implement, and evaluate your fundraising strategies to realize your full potential.

Marketing Communications

Explore how to share exceptional stories of student learning, engagement, and outcomes, and illustrate how these can become differentiators that distinguish your school from your competitors.

Board of Trustees

The Board must focus its efforts on governing, planning, and financing your school's future, while leaving everyday decisions to competent administrators. To do that successfully, your Board must think, plan, and act strategically.

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See articles for School Heads, Business & Operations, Advancement, Academic Leadership, and Trustees, in addition to Private School News.

Wait Pools: Not All About the First in Line

Advancement // January 22, 2013

Admission at your school is either fixed date, rolling, or a combination of the two. Whatever your method, you are going to be sending each applicant a letter of acceptance, a deferral until some criteria is completed, a regret, or placement into the waiting pool of candidates.

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Parent Lawsuits

Business and Operations // January 22, 2013

Part of your job as Risk Manager (or Business Manager, or School Head) is to protect your school from lawsuits—and there are so many ways your school can be the center of a lawsuit.

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Staying Creative in a Routine Role

Advancement // January 22, 2013

As Admission Officer, your position requires you to always be thinking outside of the box. You’re constantly looking for new ways to connect with potential families, to virally spread your school’s mission, and keep your current families engaged. Perhaps your role includes managing social media, or working parallel with the Development Office on its mission, or both, plus any number of other possible work combinations.

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The Skinny on the “Crowd”

Advancement // January 14, 2013

In 5 Things That Will Change the Way Nonprofits Work in 2103, the Chronicle of Philanthropy listed “crowdfunding” first. “Tools like Catapult, Gofundme, Indiegog, and Kickstarter have made it easy to issue appeals for financial support. Increasingly, nonprofit workers may need to demonstrate savvy when it comes to using such ‘crowdfunding’ networks.”

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Re-recruiting Your Donors at Small Events

Advancement // January 14, 2013

When it comes down to it, your school depends on current families returning year after year. The first grade you offer should be the only grade where, in effect, you are recruiting an entire class. After that year, you are filling available seats. Logically, your school needs to actively re-recruit your current families to maintain full enrollment.

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Green Corner: The Truth About LED Lights

Business and Operations // December 27, 2012

Light Emitting Diode (LED) light technology has been around since the 70s in most electronics such as alarm clocks, VCRs, and microwaves. Although it’s been known that LED lighting is more cost effective, low luminosity and high cost of manufacturing has kept it from becoming a main source for home lighting.

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Newtown School and Your School

Business and Operations // December 27, 2012

Most of us continue to attempt to “get our heads around” what happened at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. As we grieve for the children lost, the families, the community, and for the general “innocence lost” for all, we wonder if any good can come of this.

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After a Tragedy

Business and Operations // December 27, 2012

The shootings in Newtown, CT, have certainly shaken us all. Schools are taking a step back and wondering how they would react if such a tragedy affected their campus. On the ISM e-Lists, schools are chatting about crisis and evacuation plans, and how to communicate the events with students, while sending prayers and blessings to the victims.

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Knowing When You Need to Let Someone Go

Business and Operations // December 27, 2012

You’ve had a wonderful holiday break—lots of quality time with family and friends, special meals and celebrations, and even a little quiet time to reflect on the events of the year. You feel very content and relaxed—except for one thought that’s nagging at you. “I’ve really got to do something about Dolores (or Bob).” The thought makes you anxious and sad at the same time, and you push it from your mind (at least for the moment). But eventually, you know you need to deal with the issue. Here are a few thoughts to help you start down the path that you know in your heart of hearts is necessary for all concerned.

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Warding Off The Flu

Business and Operations // December 27, 2012

The buzz of the holiday season is concluded for yet another year. The hustle and bustle of holiday shopping, seemingly never ending merriment, and feast preparations have come to a sudden halt. It’s post-holiday crash time!

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