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.
As an ISM Silver or Gold member, you not only receive issues online and in print 10 times a year, but you have access to more than 600 articles in our web archive. Need help? It’s at your fingertips! Learn more and sign up for ISM's membership here.
Search
See the articles from our latest issue of Ideas & Perspectives.
Strategic Financial Aid and Diversity
Volume 41 No. 5 // April 18, 2016
In previous I&P articles, we have taken a close look at arguments for classifying financial aid awards as “rainy day” and “filling empty seats” for strategic reasons. This article looks in depth at “diversity and/or marketing goal” awards, the third strategic reason for giving financial aid. Some may wonder why diversity is paired with a marketing goal. It is simply because students that fit these profiles are not applying—or at least not sufficiently—without financial assistance at a school.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
The Risk Management Assessment Process
Volume 41 No. 5 // April 18, 2016
As School Head, you must do your best to assure the safety of all the constituents on your campus—students, faculty and staff, volunteers, etc. This is not an easy task, and becomes more difficult without an intentional, proactive process—one that helps you and your Management Team identify, analyze, and mitigate risk. The idea of a formal risk management protocol, separate from your daily “putting out fires,” may be new to you. But performing a risk management assessment can lead to many positive outcomes. A number of these outcomes speak directly to the ISM Stability Markers® and Success Predictors, reflective of a given school’s ability to deliver on its mission, long-term. A risk assessment (and its outcomes) can help to:
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Exit Interviews for Trustees
Volume 41 No. 5 // April 18, 2016
As Chair of the Committee on Trustees, you, with your committee members, have the responsibility for shaping a Board that carries out the governance-level goals set in your strategic plan. Just as you conducted interviews with prospective Trustees to determine their “goodness of fit” with your Board, so you have the responsibility of interviewing the Trustees who are rotating off the Board. Over time, the data you collect will enhance your committee’s ongoing efforts to build Board performance and effectiveness.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Your Summer New-Trustee Orientation and Planning Session
Volume 41 No. 4 // March 28, 2016
As Board President or Chair of the Committee on Trustees (COT), you work to refine your Board’s structure and function. Consider the advantages of a summer retreat that combines your new-Trustee orientation with development of the coming year’s work plan. Holding your orientation session on a Friday evening allows your new Trustees to hit the ground running on Saturday morning—when your full Board reviews and finalizes its annual Board agenda, its Board meeting calendar, its committee structure, and its committee charges. This can become the centerpiece of your Board’s organizational cycle—an exciting, time-and-energy-efficient culmination of one year’s work and launch of the next.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Risk Management Assessment: Reduce Your School’s Exposure
Volume 41 No. 4 // March 28, 2016
Operating a school is a risky business, and that risk comes in many forms—an unexpected illness breaks out in the third-grade classroom, a parent claims an incident of misconduct or bullying, the brakes on a school bus aren’t replaced on schedule, or the Business Manager overlooks enrolling two new faculty members in the health plan. Even an insignificant incident—a tree limb that falls on a neighbor’s car—can result in an insurance claim and possibly a lawsuit.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Professional Ethics in Advising
Volume 41 No. 4 // March 28, 2016
The Professional Characteristic expressed above derives from ISMs research on school culture, and student performance and satisfaction. It is a distinguishing component of ISM's approach to faculty growth and renewal. A core principle behind ISM's guidance to schools, in general, is that their reason-for-being is to benefit students. As one dimension of this student-centered focus, we have endorsed a mission basis for middle and upper school advisory programs and emphasized that the advisor is a professional.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Prospective Trustee Interviews
Volume 41 No. 3 // March 7, 2016
After you, as Chair of the Committee on Trustees (COT), have completed a satisfactory phone call with an individual identified as a promising member of your Board, then conduct a face-to-face interview. This interview will be the second of three steps before submitting the individual’s name for full-Board consideration and vote. Thus, the three steps are: (1) COT Chair phone call; (2) COT Chair in-person interview; and (3) COT full-committee interview.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Self-Assessing Your Department/Team
Volume 41 No. 3 // March 7, 2016
When Department Chairs/Team Leaders meet with their Division Head, what is the basis for any conversation? Many schools that ISM visits lack any idea of what the Department Chair or Team Leader is supposed to do (outside some basic managerial items). Division Heads rarely give the Chair/Leader the authority to implement the tasks assigned. The following assessment is designed to spur the creation of the Department Chairs’ own self-assessments and should be considered a guideline. The five major principles of Department Chair/team leadership include:
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
10 Attributes of an ISM Model Advisory Program
Volume 41 No. 3 // March 7, 2016
Of the several formal programs that engage and serve students in private-independent schools’ middle and upper divisions (e.g., community service learning, athletic teams, clubs, even academic classes), none may exhibit more variability among schools in structure, content, faculty commitment, and avowed institutional importance than the advisory program. Simply put, each advisory program is unique in when, how, how often, and even why advisors encounter and serve advisees and their families; in how much time is given to planning and professional development; and in how much advisory participants value the program itself. While ISM does not provide guidance on some distinguishing programmatic variables (e.g., content of advisory group curricula), we have espoused some core principles and practices. In this article, we express them as a list of attributes to which schools should aspire.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Can You Ask About Learning Disabilities on the Admission Application Form?
Volume 41 No. 3 // March 7, 2016
Can you ask about a student’s learning disability on the enrollment form? The answer is, “It depends.” It’s essential to understand how you can—and cannot—phrase the question, and to balance the benefits and drawbacks
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.