Learn practical strategies to handle emerging trends and leadership challenges in private schools.
No matter if you’re a School Head, Admission Director, Development Director, Board member, or any other private school administrator—Ideas & Perspectives, ISM’s premier private school publication, has strategic solutions for the pervasive problems you face.
- Tuition not keeping pace with your expenses? In I&P, explore how to use strategic financial planning to create your budget and appropriately adjust your tuition.
- Enrollment dropping off? Discover how to implement the right admission and enrollment management strategies that engage your community—and fill your classrooms.
- Trouble retaining teachers? Learn how you can best support your teachers using ISM’s Comprehensive Faculty Development framework. Your faculty members will become more enthusiastic about their roles—which ultimately improves student outcomes.
- Fundraising campaigns not as successful as you’d hoped? Implement ISM’s practical advice and guidance to build a thriving annual fund, construct an effective capital campaign, and secure major donors—no matter your community size or location.
- Not sure how to provide professional development—for you and your staff? Learn ways to develop and fund a successful professional development strategy. You can improve teacher-centered satisfaction and growth, which in turn strengthens student-centered learning.
- Problematic schedule? You can master the challenges of scheduling with the help of ISM’s practical advice, based on our experience with hundreds of schools and our time-tested theories.
- And so much more.
I&P has shared targeted research, up-to-date insight, and sound theory with school leaders since 1975. More than 8,500 private school decision-makers find the answers to their schools’ administrative and governance matters in our advisory letter. We give you the strategic answers you need.
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See the articles from our latest issue of Ideas & Perspectives.
Mergers: An Option for Long-Term Sustainability
Volume 49 No. 7 // September 1, 2024
In 2020, ISM published a series of articles suggesting that the merging of independent schools was likely in many marketplaces. As the COVID pandemic has receded, this is no longer likely—it is reality. The landscape for independent schools is in the middle of a significant shift, and we are ob...
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The “Marriage” of Board Chair and School Head
Volume 49 No. 7 // September 1, 2024
Originally published November 10, 1975 The leader of the Board of Trustees and the leader of the school are partners. One cannot function without the understanding, guidance, and respect of the other. It is, in fact, a marriage. And like other marriages, it is subject to ups and downs, honeymoons...
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Selecting Your School’s Legal Counsel: Finding the Right Fit
Volume 49 No. 7 // September 1, 2024
Your school may look to recruit an attorney for Board membership. During Board meetings, a lawyer can answer common legal questions and offer insight and cautionary advice on potential problems. This individual can also serve as your school’s official legal counsel—but that is often an unwise decisi...
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Want a Stronger School Culture? Increase Your Professional Development Budget
Volume 49 No. 7 // September 1, 2024
ISM often finds that private-independent schools underfund professional development, unaware of its importance and thus downplaying it in their budgets. Your Board and senior leaders must allocate enough funding to professional development for all school employees. The difference could be a vib...
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How to Comply With Employee Military Service Leave
Volume 49 No. 6 // June 1, 2024
In 1994, it became the obligation of all U.S. employers to provide for military service leave when Congress enacted the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). School Heads or Business Managers should review employee handbooks to be sure school policies comply with these ...
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Powerful Leadership and Your School’s Culture
Volume 49 No. 6 // June 1, 2024
The late educator Zig Engelmann (1931–2019) had a motto that he promoted tirelessly: “If the learner hasn’t learned, the teacher hasn’t taught.” According to Engelmann, this “operating principle” offended many because it placed all the responsibility for education on teachers. Of course, the stateme...
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Make Your Meetings Matter
Volume 49 No. 6 // June 1, 2024
Meetings are necessary for moving any organization or institution forward—they are the way business gets done. But they can also be real killers of time and effectiveness. If you are responsible for meetings, whether as Board Chair, School Head, Division Head, or operations lead, it is important to ...
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Do Language Classes Need to Meet Every Day? It’s Time to Dispel the Myth
Volume 49 No. 5 // May 1, 2024
ISM advocates student-centered schedules. As we define it, a student-centered schedule is grounded in (1) an understanding of how students learn and (2) a commitment to actions that support student well-being. In practice, student-centered schedules are marked by several characteristics: Fe...
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Understand Your School’s Economic Engine
Volume 49 No. 5 // May 1, 2024
“The buck stops here!” was popularized by President Harry S. Truman, who kept a sign with this phrase on his desk as a brazen reminder of his authority as chief executive. Truman believed that he was the head of an administrative bureaucracy, to be sure. But as President, he shouldered everything as...
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“Delivery of Mission” Is the Most Important Metric
Volume 49 No. 5 // May 1, 2024
Understanding how your current parents feel about your school is essential—it is so vital that you should never let a year go by without some systematic collection of parent opinions. But even more important than frequency is your ability to understand what you are hearing from constituents and to i...
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