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.
Update on the Parent-School Partnership Beyond the Contract
Volume 49 No. 9 // November 1, 2024
Students learn best when their school and their family are on the same page about their education. Even so, sometimes schools and parents have conflicting expectations that put them at loggerheads. Furthermore, on rare occasions, parents behave inappropriately. Thus it is always important for you...
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SEP III: An Update of the ISM Student Experience Profile
Volume 49 No. 9 // November 1, 2024
ISM research has long been concerned with the health of a school’s culture — the positive environment a school creates to optimize student performance, student retention, and faculty retention. A healthy school culture leads to steady enrollment, with waiting lists at principal grade-level entry poi...
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Development Program Effectiveness: Analysis From a Broad Perspective
Volume 49 No. 9 // November 1, 2024
For nearly 20 years, ISM has taught that six key elements comprise the Comprehensive Development Model — the infrastructure that supports a school’s strategic plans. The six key elements are: Strategic Board, which makes decisions that establish, maintain, and sustain donor-centered progr...
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Effective Boards: Getting Your Committee Structure Right
Volume 49 No. 9 // November 1, 2024
An effective Board is a hallmark of a highly functioning school. One strategy guaranteed to enhance Board effectiveness is to establish committees with clearly defined charges. This simple idea has many benefits. Focus and expertise. Robust committees allow members to concentrate on specific a...
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Pollution Liability: Is Your School Protected?
Volume 49 No. 8 // October 1, 2024
Private schools are not exempt from environmental laws and regulations such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Pollution-related lawsuits filed against educational institutions are common. For example, Yale University had to pay $348,000 to set...
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Does Your School Need to Take a Stand on Public Controversies?
Volume 49 No. 8 // October 1, 2024
In August 2024, the Regents of the University of Texas System adopted a new policy banning its 14 universities and hospitals from addressing current political issues. “Institutions should not, in their official capacity, issue or express positions on issues of the day, however appealing they may be ...
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Why You Should Require Tuition Insurance Coverage for All Students
Volume 49 No. 8 // October 1, 2024
ISM has long held that private-independent schools should strive to cover 100% of operations expenses with hard income (defined as all revenue sources other than fundraising). Whether your school is nearing this benchmark or hovering below it, student withdrawals after their families have alrea...
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Resistance to Change in Schools: the Perspectives of Parents, Teachers, and School Administrators
Volume 49 No. 8 // October 1, 2024
A stagnant school is a failing school. In contrast, a healthy school has a growth mindset. A flourishing school is one that is always evolving — adapting to new students, addressing new challenges, building the faculty culture, updating facilities, improving efficiency in operations, and more. As...
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Mergers: An Option for Long-Term Sustainability
Volume 49 No. 7 // September 1, 2024
In 2020, ISM published a series of articles suggesting that the merging of independent schools was likely in many marketplaces. As the COVID pandemic has receded, this is no longer likely—it is reality. The landscape for independent schools is in the middle of a significant shift, and we are ob...
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The “Marriage” of Board Chair and School Head
Volume 49 No. 7 // September 1, 2024
Originally published November 10, 1975 The leader of the Board of Trustees and the leader of the school are partners. One cannot function without the understanding, guidance, and respect of the other. It is, in fact, a marriage. And like other marriages, it is subject to ups and downs, honeymoons...
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