As the school year is now in full throttle, your Board can takes steps to foster a more productive relationship with your school’s faculty. Here are a few tips for bridging possible gaps between these two groups.

Bullying is a hot topic, and rightly so. In September, another teenager took his own life after being relentlessly cyberbullied (see the ABC News report on Jamey Rodemayer and Bullying http://abcnews.go.com/Health/jamey-rodemeyer-suicide-ny-police-open-criminal-investigation/story?id=14580832). Schools and school districts are ramping up anti-bullying programs to build support systems and build in consequences.

The relationship between education and earnings is a long-analyzed topic of study. Generally, there is a strong belief that achievement of higher levels of education is a well-established path to better jobs and better earnings. The “Education and Synthetic Work-Life Earning Estimates” report, published in September 2011 by the U.S. Census Bureau, provides one view of the economic value of educational attainment by producing an estimate of the amount of money a person might earn over the course of their working life, given their level of education. These estimates are “synthetic,” that is, they are not the actual dollars people earned over the complete working life of the person. But the data reported can spur some interesting discussions concerning how your school prepares its students for future success.

Blogs, forums, chat rooms, listservs—the list goes on and on. These are valuable resources to find alternative opinions and information about almost anything. From HR concerns to just needing a quick laugh to fuel the rest of your day, blogs can help remind you you're not alone in the all to often chaotic world of private-independent education.

Q: We offer faculty 10-month contracts (August 15–June 14). As a practical matter, though, we often ask faculty to stay a few days after the end of the contract in June to wrap things up after students have left for the summer, as well as having them come in for a few days over the summer for various reasons. I’ve heard a few faculty grumble about “not getting paid for this.” How can we address this?

School has been in session for almost two months now—leaves are changing colors; faculty, staff, and students have settled into the routines of the academic year; and you’re feeling that you can take a breather for a moment or two before budget season gets into full gear. You lean back and think … "now is the perfect time to rethink our faculty evaluation process.”

Stress, even mild stress, can have an impact on your health, and if the title of this article caused you to swallow hard, you’re already at your limit. A study published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health tracked more than 17,000 working adults up to the age of 64 in Sweden for about six years. During the monitoring period, 649 people started receiving disability benefits—203 for a mental health issue, and the remainder for physical health concerns. They concluded that those with higher levels of stress were up to 70% more likely to be rewarded long-term benefits.

Green Your Back to School Routine This article was originally published on theenvironmentalblog.org With all the craze involved in getting back to school…be it elementary school, middle school, high school, or college, it never hurts to take a different approach with the new school year. Greening your back to school routine is simple and can save you some money, too. Let’s go over some tips that will help benefit the environment and your wallet:

Having updated student medical records is one of the easiest ways to protect your students. Counselors, teachers, and administrators should be aware of a student's health condition in case of an emergency or sudden illness.

A question came up on the ISM Advancement listserv about foundation support as a source to secure funding for a school. There’s money out there that corporations and foundations just want to give away, right? Well, not so much.