Teach Trustees About Your School’s Educational Programs

Board of Trustees // June 16, 2015

The Board must not be involved in your school’s educational program, either as individuals or as a group. Discussions and decisions about the program are not appropriate topics for Trustees. The Board has hired the School Head to orchestrate the curriculum and programs, and supervise their delivery. However, that does not excuse Trustees from knowing how your mission is fulfilled and being able to effectively describe the excellence that occurs on your campus to community members and prospective families. Trustees must possess accurate information about your educational programs. What they describe must match what people see and experience in their associations with the school. The School Head must provide Board members compelling information that they can share. Consider employing the following strategies in education your school’s Board.

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The School Head’s File: Keeping Tabs on Your Employee

Board of Trustees // June 16, 2015

With any employer/employee relationship, there are paper and electronic files that must be maintained. Just as your school should have a policy on what is contained in an employee’s file and who will maintain it, your Board must do the same for its sole employee—the School Head.

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Sexual Misconduct on Campus Part I: Defining Sexual Misconduct

Business and Operations // June 12, 2015

Talking about sexual misconduct—sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual exploitation, and rape—is not a comfortable topic for anyone. Yet, it’s a topic that can’t be ignored. It demands that we push past our discomfort. As Risk Manager, you know that reacting to a situation without established protocol is dangerous. You might not react in compliance with the law, and you could add more injury to the situation—especially in cases of sexual misconduct that need to be handled delicately.

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Summery Health Infused Water Recipes

Business and Operations // June 12, 2015

Summertime means afternoons at the pool, weekends at the beach, backyard BBQs, hiking trails, gardening, baseball games, conferences… summertime means extended hours outdoors doing what we can’t do during the long winter months. More sunlight and warm temperatures offer many health benefits, but extended exposure can also make us vulnerable to certain health risks such as dehydration. To counter dehydration, we fill up our coolers, water bottles, and canteens. But, water by itself can be boring, and energy drinks and flavored waters contain unwanted sugars and chemicals.

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Boosting Abysmal Interdivisional Re-enrollment Rates

Advancement // June 11, 2015

Not too long ago on the Admission Officer e-List, someone mentioned a struggle to retain students from the preschool/day care program into the school’s kindergarten classroom. While parents had not complained about the school’s care or education of their children, enrollment from the preK program to Kindergarten was incredibly low. If your school struggles with a similar retention issue between grade divisions, the solution may lie in your communication strategy.

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4 Ways to Reach Your Parents

School Heads // May 28, 2015

Getting in touch with parents during a crisis—or even for regular updates or reminders!—can feel like you’re back in the 1800s, praying that your Pony Express courier hasn’t been trampled by stampeding bison herds. Thankfully, messages have come a long way in the past 200 years. We’ve borrowed some app suggestions from The Guardian and discovered more to give you a few dynamite tools to upgrade your parent communications.

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To Permit or to Ban: Revisiting Cellphone Policies, Part Two

School Heads // May 28, 2015

In our last issue, we discussed the advantages of using cellphones during school hours. Proponents of the new policy say that cellphones provide increased educational opportunities for students—academically, personally, and emotionally—and improved lines of communication between students, parents, and administrators. Still, many detractors decry the new practice as disruptive and counter to educational goals. So this month, we’ll examine some of the argued points against personal cellphones use during school hours.

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Teachers Sell Lesson Plans for Extra Income

Academic Leadership // May 27, 2015

Who owns your teachers’ lesson plans—the teachers who write them, or the school that employs them? The answer might be more complicated than it seems, especially when teachers begin selling their classroom resources online for extra income.

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8 Must-Have Student Resources for Writing and Researching

Academic Leadership // May 27, 2015

Writing and researching are two of the most important skills students can learn before their college years. Yet, everywhere—from brief op-eds in Psychology Today to full-fledged debates in The Atlantic—discussions on our students’ poor literacy rates and declining academic integrity abound. Some demonize technology for the declining ability of students to compose a paragraph, but why not embrace the new tools available that grant access to some of English’s deeper mysteries? We’ve found eight great resources that—with a little guidance—could greatly enhance your students’ writing and research skills, both at your school and in their future communicative endeavors.

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Join the Conversation: Best Online Education Conversations to Follow

Private School News // May 6, 2015

The “social” half of “social media” is more than the latest cat videos crowding your home feed or posting your child’s birthday party pictures in a public album for every second cousin to like. A lot of earnest, constructive conversation occurs on online platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, tackling everything from the latest news headlines to standardized testing. If you’re like to be a part of the latest conversations surrounding education and stay up-to-date on the latest best practices, we’ve curated a list of what we think are some of the most active and productive conversations online.

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