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 Rhetoric of Rigor II: Stress, Schedules, and Fun
Volume 41 No. 11 // September 6, 2016
In a previous article, “The Rhetoric of Rigor,” we argued that schools should abandon the use of the word “rigor” in their marketing messages because of its ubiquity and ill-defined nature. We encountered then—and continue to encounter—schools that adhere to educational practices they know need change (e.g., AP program, homework policies). But they fear those changes because those practices were once provided as evidence of academic rigor. Fear stands as a barrier to change as schools often see “academic rigor” as their competitive advantage.
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Appropriate Tuition Adjustment: Recasting Financial Figures, 2016–17
Volume 41 No. 11 // September 6, 2016
Each fall, ISM publishes a set of conversion factors to facilitate recasting previous tuitions into current dollars. (See the accompanying table.) We continue to use the Urban Consumer Price Index (CPI-U). However, we also realize the CPI-U does not reflect expenses in private-independent schools; it can only serve as a base figure. There are compelling arguments for adjusting your tuition at a rate 2% above the overall inflation rate.1
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Nine Characteristics of the Responsible Trustee
Volume 41 No. 10 // August 8, 2016
As Chair of the Committee on Trustees (COT), you will want your committee to rewrite your Board Profile at least as often as your Board creates a fresh strategic plan/strategic financial plan. (ISM recommends a three- or four-year cycle for this.) You profile your Board to execute your strategic plan/strategic financial plan with the greatest distinction. While the Board Profile focuses foremost on those individual characteristics most obviously related to your planning document—e.g., nonprofit marketing expert or land developer—a general set of behaviors and attitudes, each of which can be placed under the general heading of “due diligence,” should undergird any Board Profile and be prominently listed in a special section of your profile document.
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The Faculty Experience Survey and Matrix: An Update
Volume 41 No. 10 // August 8, 2016
In two previous Ideas & Perspectives articles, ISM introduced the “ISM School Culture Matrix” concept and scoring instrument. Schools use our Faculty Experience Survey to measure their teachers’ attitude and opinions regarding the level of predictability and support they experience from their administrators. This article updates readers on our current conceptualization, scoring, and practice using the instrument. First, we replaced the words “School Culture” with “Faculty Experience” in the survey and matrix. This more accurately reflects the focus of the instrument—to measure the faculty’s experience of predictability and support from their administrators and describe, collectively, the resulting likely organizational characteristics.
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Adjusting Your Strategic Planning Cycle
Volume 41 No. 10 // August 8, 2016
ISM has traditionally recommended that Boards and senior administrations create fresh six-year strategic plans—which, in ISM’s long-standing approach, are equally strategic financial plans—every three-to-four years. ISM continues to observe that new six-year plans created on a three-to-four-year cycle work best for most private-independent schools, most of the time.
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Exit Interviews and Attrition Surveys: Getting at the Truth Behind Why Families Leave
Volume 41 No. 9 // July 22, 2016
The decision not to re-enroll a child at your school is unlikely to be one parents make lightly. Changing schools is a significant transition for not only the child but the whole family. The most common reason families give schools for this decision is that they cannot afford the tuition. However, ISM research has shown that cost is rarely the primary reason for leaving.1 Rather, a family’s perception of the value they receive for the tuition paid is more commonly at the root of their decisions. Affordability is the most diplomatic reason, and thus often used to avoid conflict or further discussion.
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Reduce Construction Anxiety for Your School’s Neighbors
Volume 41 No. 9 // July 22, 2016
Last night, your school’s Board voted to construct a new middle school. As School Head, you face many detailed and time-consuming tasks with this project—including working with architects, engineers, and contractors, and taking part in fundraising. It’s also important to make the most of this unparalleled marketing opportunity.
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Review Your School’s Charter
Volume 41 No. 9 // July 22, 2016
As Board President or Chair of the Committee on Trustees, consider a periodic review of your school’s charter as a matter of due diligence. Many leaders assume that, once their school has been incorporated, there is never anything else to think about in that regard. If you are fortunate, that may be true. But it may not. A school becomes a legal entity when its charter is accepted by the appropriate government agency for filing. This fundamental document, also known—depending on the state—as a Certificate of Incorporation or Articles of Incorporation, sets forth the purpose of the corporation. Traditionally, this document defines, limits, and regulates the powers of the school, its Board of Trustees, and its officers.
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Managing Risk With Basic Emergency Drills
Volume 41 No. 9 // July 22, 2016
Basic drills (evacuation, reverse evacuation, shelter-in-place, lockdown and “run”) are critical aspects of your school’s crisis and emergency response plan (ERP). Well thought-out and practiced drills help you protect your students and school community.
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The Board’s Fiduciary Responsibility: The Audit Committee and the Finance Committee
Volume 41 No. 8 // June 27, 2016
We often hear the phrase “the Board has fiduciary responsibility.” This phrase merely means that each Board member has the legal responsibility to act solely in the best interests of the school they serve. To facilitate good fiscal stewardship, ISM recommends two finance-oriented committees to assist the Board in this crucial area: the Finance Committee and the Audit Committee. Let’s explore the roles of the two committees.
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