From time to time we hear rumors about schools moving to longer days as a way of expanding their learning programs. It has certainly been thrown into conversations that revolve around four-day school weeks. Now, however, it seems that public schools in the Chicago area could be taking action on the idea.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, about 2.6 million tons of e-waste ended up in landfills in 2007. That's 86.4% of the total discarded electronics! If Americans alone recycled their old cell phones (more than 100 million are no longer in use), the amount of energy saved would be enough to power approximately 194,000 U.S. households for one year.

Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov (Amazon.com $16.34) This is the product of a decade of research going into classrooms and videotaping teacher practice. Don't expect high-sounding theory or clever philosophy. Lemov states that his litmus test is whether students sit up and pay attention to a teacher, and then do well academically (are prepared well for college). Great teachers, he says, do these things.

Is your faculty evaluation system based on showing up in the classroom for observation? Is it something your faculty dreads? And does it truly give you a picture of how each teacher impacts the students—and the school? Summer is a great time to really examine just HOW you make sure your faculty members are delivering your mission and contributing to your school culture.

Just about everything we do in developing each HR e-letter is directed toward helping you understand how HR issues apply in schools. At the same time, we recognize that fresh ideas from other fields are often helpful in spurring creative thinking—and what better time to let the mind wander and be creative than summer? To that end, we wanted to highlight a few HR blogs that cover a range of HR topics that might be of interest—with interesting twists and perspectives to keep things fresh:

Last month, we offered the first six tips from a Top 12 list of tips and action items to help you enhance your HR practices this summer. We'll present the final six this month before taking a break for the summer.

Your campus may seem quiet during the summer months, when your students and faculty are away; however, your Admission Office is probably looking to fill those last few seats for the fall. That means summer admission and campus visits. If you have a summer program, your campus will have some activity, but it's not what goes on during the school year. Here are some tips to prepare your campus for summer visits that will give your prospective families an idea of what they will experience when school is in session!

The term "assistant" logically denotes "aide." Your Assistant Head can take the pressure off you by tackling some of the many—and growing—demands on your time. Unfortunately, the role of the Assistant Head is often somewhat nebulous which hampers success.

Cross-channel marketing (or integrated marketing) is a core principle in today's marketing. There are simply more ways to reach your target audience than there were a decade ago. However, more channels of communication doesn't necessarily mean more reach to potential students. With more ways to communicate with families, it's essential that your school's message stays consistent across mediums. Seems like it would be easy enough to post the same message in the same tone on different platforms, but even large marketing firms struggle with cross-channel marketing.

It's true: the economy is making a slow recovery—a very slow recovery. Analysts' predictions are all over the place, but if you take everything they're saying and find a happy medium, it's safe to say the U.S. is on a track to recovery—it is just going to take longer than some of us (most of us) had hoped. As the economy takes its' time recovering, international students trying to cover new university costs are struggling to find work opportunities.