There is a management conundrum that is usually hidden in the area of faculty accountability. The vast majority of what ISM has written relates to the support and evaluation of faculty with regard to their academic function, overlain with their numerous other responsibilities for advisory, lunch duty, and so on. However, many teachers—stretching across all divisions—also act as coaches within the school and thus also report in that capacity to the Athletic Director. As coaches, they are responsible to the Athletic Director for student athletic accomplishments, students’ actions, successes and failures, parent relations, and volunteer coordination. It is a management tenet that an employee cannot effectively report to two people, and this dysfunction is a complication in many teachers’ lives.

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Part of a school’s internal marketing assessment is to ask what parents can expect of their children after graduation. The Portrait of the Graduate describes the student you expect to have developed over the years that she/he has spent under your faculty’s tutelage. Examples of this portrait in action require you to track alumni to gather examples of graduates who exemplify it. This is one of the least used—yet potentially most effective—approaches to determining your school’s overall success. From these examples, you can create a database with which to strengthen your marketing impact.

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Each fall, ISM publishes a set of conversion factors to facilitate the recasting of previous tuitions into current dollars. (See the table below.) We continue to use the Urban Consumer Price Index (CPI-U).1 However, we realize that the CPI-U does not completely reflect expenditures 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. The CPI has a built-in “productivity factor.” It assumes that the work force is increasingly productive as computers, streamlined mechanical devices, and other laborsaving developments provide greater output with fewer personnel. The more efficient a business becomes, the more the business can stabilize or reduce the effects of inflation.

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Even if your school has the budget for security guards, sophisticated alarm systems, and electronic access doors,* there are other steps every school can take to deter would-be thieves. Many problems stem from the fact that there are numerous keys to offices and classrooms floating around with only an informal system of tracking them. Faculty members often lend keys to upper school students who are using school facilities after hours or during the weekends. Children of employees may also present security problems.

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In the recent research ISM carried out relating to faculty compensation and benefits, a corollary to the findings was this one: Schools are still underfunding professional development. In the chart below, the percent of budget spent by schools on professional development is 1% or less in 82% of responding schools. ISM’s Success Predictor No. 17 suggests that the appropriate amount is “roughly 2% of the total budget of expenses to be devoted to faculty professional development, plus an additional allocation of 1% of the total budget for support of professional development for nonteaching personnel (including Trustees).”

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Many schools are exploring alternative revenue sources to mitigate ever-increasing tuitions; some strategic plans even call for an investigation into this concept as a means to maintain sustainability. Is this a wise course of action? On the surface, exploring alternative revenue sources is indeed logical. If a school could design a way to create, for example, $265,000 in profit, tuition increases could be curtailed. This thinking can, however, be misleading—and even detrimental, in some cases.

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The School Head is the sole employee of the Board. It is essential that the Board be fully conversant about trends in Head compensation. Only then can the Board determine what adjustments, if any, are needed to ensure that the school retains the Head, or to enhance its ability to be competitive in its next Head search. Make management of the Head’s compensation a high priority, in terms of Trustees educating themselves about the marketplace and understanding the complexities of the School Head’s job. ISM recently 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 schools.

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Salary alone is not enough to attract and retain a mission-appropriate, quality faculty. When searching for employment today, teachers have expectations about benefits. While insurance coverage, pension plans, and paid time off are likely to devour a large portion of your school’s budget, they are critical components (with salary, of course) for the recruitment and retention of valued faculty.1 In ISM’s continuing research concerning the competition for quality teachers that private-independent schools are now experiencing, we recently surveyed a random sample of I&P subscriber schools. The 178 responding schools answered questions concerning the salaries, selected benefits, and hiring of faculty members. This article focuses on the health insurance benefits of teachers at our participating schools. (A subsequent article will discuss the survey results concerning other benefits in school compensation packages.)

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Concentrated close-of-summer planning is one of your Board’s best guarantees of strong Board performance. An evening buffet or weekend cookout at the start of the school year—sponsored by the Board for faculty, school administrators, and key staff—can do much to increase your school’s sense of community and “family.” This is especially effective when invitations are extended to spouses as well. Try to hold the event on campus. The setting will remind everyone of their common tie: service and dedication to students.

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In a previous article, we identified challenges to the school community in a 21st century learning architecture. The importance of the school community and its concomitant virtue of fairness is more important than ever. In addition, our increasingly competitive environment is causing students and parents to question the value they are getting from their school. In this article, we consider the issues of fairness, competitiveness, and high performance from the viewpoint of assessment. While this is a limited snapshot, we hope that it will encourage much deeper conversation about assessment practice among your school’s faculty.

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