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.

8 Things You Should Know If You’re a New Admission Director

Enrollment Management // February 17, 2022

Are you new to the role of Admission Director at your school? We rounded up several tidbits about what admission leaders should know, based on a question-and-answer session with Mary Yorke Oates, Director of Admission at Charlotte Latin School in North Carolina and leader of The New Admission Director workshop at Summer Institute 2022.

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A Case for Flexible Work Hours: An Educator’s Debate

School Leadership // February 17, 2022

If the last two years have taught us anything, it’s that flexibility isn’t “nice” to have, it’s a necessity—especially when it comes to overall well-being. Because of the pandemic, working from home and flexible hours are much more common—maybe even demanded by many of today’s employees.

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How to Use Mindfulness in the Classroom to Support Student Health

School Health and Wellness // February 17, 2022

In recent years, mindfulness in the classroom—sometimes referred to as “contemplative pedagogy”—has gained traction as a way to reduce stress and anxiety in students as well as to improve academic and behavioral outcomes. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to challenge our learning systems, with school closures, remote learning, physical distancing guidelines, and other unexpected changes negatively affecting children's mental health. Now more than ever, it is prudent for educators to apply evidence-based strategies that counterbalance the negative emotions that might otherwise thwart student progress.

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How Standardized Tests are Failing Your Students

Academic Leadership // February 1, 2022

With a Scantron test—multiple-choice, fill-in-the-bubble form scoring system common in standardized testing—and a sharpened No. 2 pencil in hand, what could go wrong for a student ready to demonstrate their knowledge on a standardized test? Quite a few things, according to education experts who believe that exams don’t successfully prove student mastery of a subject.

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Leadership Lessons: After the First 100 Days

School Heads // February 1, 2022

Reaching the 100th day of school is a huge milestone for younger students—creative classroom projects using “100” as the theme are featured and celebrated. That same time frame represents a different yet equally meaningful milestone for school leadership.

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Help Your Students and Staff Beat the Winter Blues

School Health and Wellness // February 1, 2022

With cold weather, shorter days, and a lack of sunshine usually comes decreased energy, sadness, and irritability. Known as the “winter blues,” these moods, common during the winter months, can negatively impact your school community.

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Four Tips to Boost Your School’s Overall Wellness Initiatives

School Health and Wellness // January 19, 2022

When school employees model positive physical and mental health behaviors, they are more equipped to support students’ health and well-being and academic success. Conversations about and methods of seeking wellness were given a new perspective and prominence emerging from the pandemic. Wellness programs are more important than ever in the workplace and especially in schools.

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How to Unlock and Understand Your School Faculty's Perceptions

Marketing Communications // January 19, 2022

Your faculty has huge credibility as promoters or detractors of your school. They’re on the front line, working with your students; and their feelings about your school affect everything you do. To determine if your faculty is successfully promoting your school, start by evaluating faculty culture.

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Five Sustainable Edtech Trends in 2022

Business and Operations // January 19, 2022

The use of technology in the classroom skyrocketed during the pandemic and countless programs were developed and quickly implemented. During the 2020–21 school year, districts with more than 1,000 students accessed about 1,449 edtech products online per month.

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