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.
Starting a Major Gifts Program
Volume 49 No. 4 // April 1, 2024
Private-independent schools increasingly rely on the generosity of donors who give at high levels. A perusal of multimillion-dollar gifts to education in the Chronicle of Philanthropy reveals how donors and schools have partnered to create transformative opportunities for their students. Yet ma...
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Do’s and Don’ts for Your Marketing Communications Budget
Volume 49 No. 4 // April 1, 2024
A frequent question posed by Marketing Communications Directors, CFOs, and Business Managers from schools of all types, sizes, and locales is this: “How big should our marketing communications budget be?” In other words, how much should a school spend annually on marketing communications activities ...
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Accommodating Students Who Are Neurodivergent Inside and Beyond the Classroom
Volume 49 No. 4 // April 1, 2024
As an admission officer, you receive this email: “Do you accept students with dyslexia?” Or this: “My child has ADHD. Can you help?” Or: “What services can you provide our child, who (according to a former teacher) is probably ‘on the spectrum’?” Your answers depend not only on your school’s mission...
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Creating a Scheduling Task Force
Volume 49 No. 3 // March 1, 2024
Implementing a new school schedule that aligns with institutional priorities requires careful planning and collaboration. A scheduling task force composed of thoughtful, invested faculty and administrators can help drive this complex process. A scheduling task force is a team responsible for rese...
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Meaningful Service Learning Programs: Serving, Not Saving
Volume 49 No. 3 // March 1, 2024
At many private-independent schools, community service is embedded in the mission or core values. That is one reason independent schools have long incorporated service learning programs in their cocurricular programming. Such activities give students the chance to engage in meaningful service to oth...
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Planning Holiday and Vacation Care for Your Students
Volume 49 No. 3 // March 1, 2024
Families need and value before- and after-school care for their children on regular school days. Some families may also require full-day child care for times when school is not in session—holidays, snow days, teacher in-service days, and during the summertime, outside of whatever academic sessi...
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Enhance the Effectiveness of Your Financial Aid Committee
Volume 49 No. 3 // March 1, 2024
The Financial Aid Committee plays a vital role in a school’s strategic enrollment management. ISM has recently updated some of its recommendations on the composition of this committee. The purpose of the Financial Aid Committee (which may alternately be called the Financial Assistance Committee) ...
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Student Well-Being: A Special Report
Volume 49 No. 2 // February 1, 2024
Student Well-Being: An Overview Schools are not just in the education business—they are in the child-development business. A school’s programs do not stop at core academics. Arts, athletics, advisory, assemblies, social-emotional learning, counseling, service learning, health classes, and food se...
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Cultivating Strategic Thinking: Developing a Strategic Mindset
Volume 49 No. 1 // January 1, 2024
Private-independent school Boards are made up of dedicated volunteers who bring valuable expertise from diverse backgrounds: education, finance, law, marketing, technology, and more. But some individual Trustees—and even a few entire Boards—lack experience in strategic planning and governance. These...
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Sharing Data Between Admission and Development: A Reciprocal Relationship
Volume 49 No. 1 // January 1, 2024
With responsibility for tuition, fees, annual giving, and endowment, the enrollment management and development functions account for nearly all a private-independent school’s operating revenue. However, these two departments often operate in distinctly separate and parallel lanes, with staff in each...
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