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.
Factors That Affect the Student Net Promoter Score
Volume 48 No. 10 // December 1, 2023
Factors That Affect the Student Net Promoter Score A longstanding, robust finding from ISM’s interviews with parents and students is that the students themselves have a significant role in decisions about where they enroll and whether they remain at a school. In fact, middle-school students have ...
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Solving the Faculty Compensation Problem
Volume 48 No. 10 // December 1, 2023
Solving the Faculty Compensation Problem A concerning trend has emerged over recent years: Significantly fewer undergraduate and graduate students are earning teaching credentials. Enrollment in teaching programs has been steadily declining for a decade, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made things ...
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Enhancing Teacher Retention Through Mentoring
Volume 48 No. 10 // December 1, 2023
Enhancing Teacher Retention Through Mentoring The first year of teaching presents young educators with responsibilities and challenges that exceed anything they have previously encountered in their own higher education. The guidance of a mentor can be a matter of professional survival. Without a ...
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Performance Assessments for Teacher Candidates
Volume 48 No. 10 // December 1, 2023
Performance Assessments for Teacher Candidates Finding and hiring faculty and staff are critical responsibilities for school leaders. This process requires a series of essential steps leading to on-campus interviews: create a position description, market the open position in a way that draws a di...
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Develop a Focused Job Posting
Volume 48 No. 10 // December 1, 2023
Develop a Focused Job Posting ISM often speaks about the importance of hiring the right people. This requires developing hiring practices to recruit mission-appropriate faculty and staff members. The first step of the hiring process, the job posting, is a crucial component to attracting the right...
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DEIJB Practices in Marketing Communications
Volume 48 No. 9 // November 1, 2023
Each private-independent school has a unique voice within its community and in the larger market of schools in its particular region. Each school should represent, promote, and project its mission, values, program, and achievements to build brand awareness and sustain its legacy. Part of the core me...
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Research Report: What Matters to Parents
Volume 48 No. 9 // November 1, 2023
For decades, ISM has been tracking the school characteristics that are the most important to parents when they choose among options for educating their children. The list of characteristics has been remarkably consistent over the years, with a safe, caring community and evidence of academic qua...
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Five Questions Your School’s Data Should Answer
Volume 48 No. 9 // November 1, 2023
ISM has long espoused the need for private-independent schools to collect and analyze myriad qualitative and quantitative data across all areas of school life, and to make informed decisions based on this data. However, the amount of data that is increasingly available, particularly for Admission an...
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Why Market a ‘Full’ School?
Volume 48 No. 9 // November 1, 2023
If your school has full enrollment and you have a large waiting pool, you may feel comfortable and satisfied. You may experience an overall feeling of security coupled with an aversion to marketing. Boards and Leadership Teams may question the need to continue the school’s external marketing efforts...
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Resist the Temptation to Put Money Before Mission
Volume 48 No. 8 // October 1, 2023
ISM has long insisted schools must be clear about their primary marketplace stance (price, product, process). We also have recommended schools develop supporting Purpose and Outcome Statements that align with their market position and articulate their mission, values, student outcomes, and facu...
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