Last month, we talked about the benefits of having monthly “Head talks,” during which you’d make yourself available to chat with parents and families in an informal setting. We still believe they’re a great tool for building rapport with families and community stakeholders. There are, however, some problems that may arise in such a program, should you not take care.

Unexpected events come, well, unexpectedly. Caring for family members, healing from extended illness (or bus mauling), property destruction from fires, floods, and the apocalypse—life often forces professionals to take unexpected leaves of absence for numerous reasons. While you can’t know when you might have to step away from your office for a while, it’s a good idea to have what we’ll call a hit-by-a-bus plan ready for someone to take over your tasks while you’re gone.

Q: I have heard that they are changing the overtime rules, and I'm getting worried. Will these changes greatly increase our budget?

We’ll be coming into hiring season before too long, which means you’ll be inundated with resumes to fill vacant faculty, staff, and administrative positions. While it’s hard to gauge a candidate based on a piece of paper, a résumé can tell you a lot about a candidate. Here are some potential “red flags” on résumés so you can be aware of potential warning signs that a particular candidate might not be the best fit for your vacant position.

Source readers, we’d like to introduce you to Katie Johnson. By day, she’s an art director from Austin, Texas. By night, she’s the founder and CEO of the Monster Project. Her organization fosters imaginative play by sending student-created drawings of monsters to professional designers all over the world. These designers then create their own versions of the students’ prototypes and return them to the schools, so students can see how their monsters—and their own creativity—can “grow up.”

Report cards: One of the few things that parents are guaranteed to read. It’s a unique opportunity for your teachers to communicate—clearly and authentically—with both students and families. This semester, evaluate your students with more than a letter grade or a percentage; it’s time for teachers to tell families what they really need to know.

As a Trustee, you are expected to carry out your due diligence roles—particularly when it comes to Board meetings. In your service to the school, your participation in Board functions is imperative. The Board acts as an entity, not as a collection of individuals. Your attendance and participation are vital to the success of the Board and its actions.

Private-independent schools must always consider how technology can be best used in the classroom. Your Board, controlling the purse strings through the strategic financial plan, must be mindful of the school’s needs concerning emerging technologies.In a competitive landscape, parents often consider how a school integrates computers and other learning technologies for their children. You don’t want your school to be perceived as “antiquated.”

Electronic communications make reaching potential students and their families as simple as pressing the “send” button. To do that, however, you need email addresses, which can be time consuming to collect when you have to advertise your upcoming enrollment events next week. The temptation to purchase the emails of likely local prospects is like a siren call, luring you to trade your budget dollars for easy access to information—but they’re not worth your time or money. Why? Well, we’ve got a few reasons for you.

If you’re a follower of social media trends, you know that the more “authentic” a post sounds, the greater a response it will generate from your audience. “Natural” voices help foster relationships and prevent readers from feeling like you're selling something instead of engaging them in conversation. One of the best ways to unleash your school’s “authentic” and “natural” voice is to encourage your faculty and staff to post about your school on their personal social media profiles.