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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.
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See the articles from our latest issue of Ideas & Perspectives.
Research Report: Faculty Culture Profile II, Spring 2012 Data
Volume 37 No. 16 // December 11, 2012
ISM published its Student Experience Study 2010–11 outcomes in January 2012, and published related articles in Ideas & Perspectives throughout the spring. Among the features in the report was a revised Faculty Culture Profile—ISM’s longstanding measure of the quality of a school’s faculty culture—along with the study’s statistical findings and two other instruments, the Student Culture Profile II and the Characteristics of Professional Excellence II.
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Business Manager Compensation 2011–12: Salaries
Volume 37 No. 16 // December 11, 2012
School Heads should determine the compensation package that will recruit and retain the best Business Manager possible. Having the right person in this position, one who is capable of covering multifaceted tasks that call for a variety of skills (finance, human resources, facilities management), is crucial in providing the School Head with the support needed.
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Letters of Reference: Navigating Dangerous Waters With a Prudent Process
Volume 37 No. 16 // December 11, 2012
For many years, employers have been advised to respond to reference requests with nothing more than dates of employment and positions held. This well-meaning advice was intended to help avoid lawsuits brought by former employees unhappy with what they see as a subjective or defamatory reference. However, this “see no evil, speak no evil” approach creates at least as many issues as it solves in both the moral and legal realms.
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Background Checks for Trustees
Volume 37 No. 15 // November 19, 2012
No doubt, your school performs background checks on job applicants to protect the students and employees. In addition, private-independent schools have begun performing checks on parents and other volunteers who interact with students. As Chair of the Committee on Trustees, you need to discuss the advisability of performing certain background checks on potential Trustees.
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Foreign Language in the Elementary Grades: Is It Worth It?
Volume 37 No. 15 // November 19, 2012
Parents continue to pressure private-independent schools to introduce foreign language in the curriculum of their elementary grades—or to increase the languages offered in an existing program. This would add yet another special (a class that students attend with a specialist outside their homerooms) to students’ hectic schedules. A typical list of specials might also include music, science, library, computer, art, and physical education.
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The ISM Faculty and Management Compensation Survey, 2011–12: School Head Salaries
Volume 37 No. 15 // November 19, 2012
The School Head is the sole employee of the Board. Management of the Head’s compensation is a high priority, and the Board must be fully conversant about trends in Head compensation. Only then can the Board determine what adjustments are needed to ensure that the school retains the Head, or to enhance its ability to be competitive in its next Head search. Trustees must educate themselves about the marketplace and understand the complexities of the School Head’s job. ISM surveyed a random sample of I&P subscriber schools concerning compensation for faculty and administrators. This article focuses on the survey results regarding the salaries of School Heads at our participating day schools.
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Facilities Rentals Yield Benefits—As Long As You Cover Costs
Volume 37 No. 14 // October 31, 2012
Private schools often benefit from various outside group and organization requests to rent their attractive, well-equipped, well-maintained meeting rooms, gym, theater, and other spaces. While, as a Business Manager or Facilities Manager, you know that there’s a nuisance factor connected with rentals, allowing outside groups to use your school’s facilities has desirable outcomes.
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Action-Oriented Agendas for Successful Board Meetings
Volume 37 No. 14 // October 31, 2012
At many private-independent schools, a typical Board session is often characterized by: lengthy discussions, often focusing upon minutiae or items of special interest to just one or two members; a detailed report by the School Head on school activities since the last Board meeting;
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The 21st Century School: Exam Periods
Volume 37 No. 14 // October 31, 2012
Schools often turn to ISM Scheduling Consultants to help design student-centered schedules that support 21st century teaching and learning. The proposed schedule options are always different because of the particular combinations of time, people, space, and program unique to each school. However, certain best-practice recommendations are made to every school; one is the elimination of exam periods (those days when classes stop exclusively for the administration of exams that students take simultaneously and en masse). The traditional exam structure favors the 20th century modality where time is the constant and achievement is the variable. In the 21st century, achievement is the constant and time is the variable.
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Financial Aid and Competition
Volume 37 No. 13 // October 10, 2012
ISM understands financial aid to have three basic rationales: “rainy day” aid, aid for diversity, and aid to fill seats. However, when schools are not clear about their appropriate rationales based on mission and need, another more insidious reason for financial aid creeps in. This fourth use of financial aid is as a competitive tool against other private-independent schools in the marketplace. ISM is deeply concerned about this.
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