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.
The Top 15 Actions Sure to Derail Your Schedule Change Initiative
Volume 44 No. 6 // May 13, 2019
As independent schools jockey for a position in a competitive marketplace, there are at least three strong forces pushing them to change:
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The ISM Advancement Model Revisited
Volume 44 No. 6 // May 13, 2019
ISM’s Advancement Model illustrates the key relationships existing among your school’s advancement efforts—admission and enrollment management, development, and marketing communications.1 With a common focus on your students and mission, your advancement efforts must share a strong message inviting families to enroll and re-enroll, and inspires them to make philanthropic gifts. The model provides a framework for planning, implementing, and evaluating your advancement program.
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Pricing Your School: Tunnel Vision and the ISM Stability Markers
Volume 44 No. 5 // April 11, 2019
Many private-independent school leaders—often members of the Board of Trustees—develop a measure of tunnel vision regarding their school’s tuition level. And given the emphasis on price in market economies, this can be justified as an understandable fixation—even an obligatory one.
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The Art of Being an Excellent Feeder School
Volume 44 No. 5 // April 11, 2019
If your school ends at the lower or middle division level, it’s a feeder school. You send your “graduates” to the next level of precollege education, in effect “feeding” those institutions. Your assistance with placing the students has strong implications for school image, reputation, and bonding.
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SEVIS Compliance: What Exactly Does ‘Oversight’ Include?
Volume 44 No. 5 // April 11, 2019
Schools that suffer the withdrawal of their Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification lose the ability and authority to enroll any international students. And the nonimmigrant students falling out of status must depart from the U.S. and may further jeopardize any future opportunities to study here in the United States. So, the stakes are high.
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Savvy Use of the ISM Stability Markers
Volume 44 No. 4 // March 28, 2019
The ISM Stability Markers® have been used by private-independent schools since the 1990s. Most longtime readers of Ideas & Perspectives have established an annual or semi-annual discipline of Stability Marker self-scoring, and then forcibly addressing any organizational or financial weaknesses highlighted by their self-score outcomes. This has, in turn, enabled schools to sustain institutional strength in the face of the ebb and flow of their schools’ enrollment demand levels, and of the inevitable fluctuations in the national and regional economies. Not all Stability Marker veterans are equally savvy in using their own self-scores. A healthy perspective on these data arrays helps you, as Board Chair or School Head, to make wise decisions in response to your regular Stability Marker self-scoring exercise. Following is a list designed to assist you in making those decisions
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The Fourth Stage of the Donor Cycle: Solicit
Volume 44 No. 4 // March 28, 2019
Solicitation is a process, not just an event. It’s an invitation to a prospect to invest in your school—and to feel excited about supporting an area resonating with him or her. Whether the process involves one meeting or several, a single solicitor or a team, the way that invitation is ext...
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Your Mission, Students, and Faculty: Purpose and Outcome Statements Revisited
Volume 44 No. 4 // March 28, 2019
Most Boards and School Heads understand the power of a well-crafted, emotionally evocative mission statement as the foundation of a compelling case for enrollment and giving. Most also know the mission statement should distinguish the school in a marketplace replete with schools of all types. However, many mission statements fail to capture a school’s essence or provide any clear distinction from other schools. Your mission statement may not be definitive enough to provide guidance to the Board, administration, or faculty in their pursuit of programmatic excellence. It may be an assertion that better describes the school 20 or even 50 years ago. It may not answer the essential question, “Why does our school exist?”
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ISM’s Success Predictors: A New List for New Directions
Volume 44 No. 3 // March 5, 2019
Periodically, ISM publishes a series of speculative statements forecasting what we believe will become necessary to achieve marketplace success in the coming years. This article updates that list.
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Developing Your Summer Program Budget: A Step-by-Step Guide
Volume 44 No. 3 // March 5, 2019
Directing a summer program has become a year-round role requiring the same talents and skills needed to run a business. Summer Program Directors must establish a schedule, secure appropriate facilities, hire staff, acquire equipment, and coordinate marketing efforts. The Summer Program Director develops and manages an annual budget, often in coordination with the school’s Business Manager or CFO. The following provides step-by-step guidance.
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