Running a school athletic program that integrates concepts of diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and belonging (DEIJB) involves implementing practices to ensure fairness, accessibility, and a welcoming environment—not just for student-athletes, but also for coaches, supporters, and families. Private-independent school athletic programs are broad and diverse in scope, and the principles of inclusion and justice must be applied to athletic programs according to each school’s situation and mission.

The role of the Board in a private-independent school is to provide leadership at a high level. Boards focus on setting the school’s mission and envisioning its future, developing strategies for achieving that future, and putting policies into effect that undergird and support those strategies. The Board also hires and supports the Head and ensures that the Head and the Leadership Team have ample financial resources to fulfill the school’s mission.

Develop a Focused Job Posting

ISM often speaks about the importance of hiring the right people. This requires developing hiring practices to recruit mission-appropriate faculty and staff members. The first step of the hiring process, the job posting, is a crucial component to attracting the right candidates.

Enhancing Teacher Retention Through Mentoring

The first year of teaching presents young educators with responsibilities and challenges that exceed anything they have previously encountered in their own higher education. The guidance of a mentor can be a matter of professional survival. Without a guide, a new teacher may feel lost. But accompanied through the year by a well-chosen mentor, a new teacher can thrive both personally and professionally.

Factors That Affect the Student Net Promoter Score

A longstanding, robust finding from ISM’s interviews with parents and students is that the students themselves have a significant role in decisions about where they enroll and whether they remain at a school. In fact, middle-school students have about 50% of the decision-making power over what school they attend, and that percentage increases as children age into high school.

Performance Assessments for Teacher Candidates

Finding and hiring faculty and staff are critical responsibilities for school leaders. This process requires a series of essential steps leading to on-campus interviews: create a position description, market the open position in a way that draws a diverse group of excellent candidates, choose interviewees from the applicant pool, and more.

Each private-independent school has a unique voice within its community and in the larger market of schools in its particular region. Each school should represent, promote, and project its mission, values, program, and achievements to build brand awareness and sustain its legacy. Part of the core messaging a Marketing Communications Department must incorporate in its language is how the school enacts its diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and belonging (DEIJB) policies and programmatic initiatives.