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.
A Senator Speaks as a Trustee...to Trustees
Volume 49 No. 10 // December 1, 2024
l would like to conclude with a few thoughts from one who has been a Trustee, to other Trustees. This is such a marvelous opportunity I can’t let it go by. Now these are not necessarily things that I have done successfully or things in which I participated, but they are things that ...
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The Case for Faculty on the Admission Committee
Volume 49 No. 10 // December 1, 2024
Several factors are critical contributors to a healthy enrollment, but the top four are a thorough understanding of target families, a marketing message confirmed by research, a detailed outreach plan, and a system for gathering and interpreting enrollment information. New technological solutio...
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The Essential Partnership Between the Admission and Business Offices
Volume 49 No. 10 // December 1, 2024
Managing the enrollment process, from inquiry through matriculation, is one of the primary shared assignments of those who work within the enrollment function of private-independent schools. From setting enrollment goals to stewarding prospective families and implementing retention programs, effecti...
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Development and Admission Synergy: A Path to Success
Volume 49 No. 10 // December 1, 2024
As School Head, you understand the impact full enrollment and successful fundraising can have on the fiscal well-being of your school. It is critical to the continued success of student recruitment and retention — as well as the annual, capital, and endowment campaigns — that you promote a collabora...
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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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