As the Business Manager, how should you think about the Summer Program Director position? It can include diverse roles and responsibilities and so there is no single or simple answer. For some schools, this is a full-time position with over 1,000 students participating over eight weeks. For others, it is a nascent program of two weeks with 80 participants.1 Methods of compensation are equally diverse. A cross-section of typical attitudes includes: FTE with salary and benefits (usually including extended care through the year); an addition to a full-time position, such as teacher with a stipend attached; and for the person directing the program, his or her children attend for free for the summer.

Schools frequently wish they enjoyed more positive interactions with parents. Teachers often lament the “good old days,” when parents trusted teachers and school administrators almost implicitly—and would not question, let alone protest, the advice or approach of educational professionals. Parents still evaluate what happens at school through the lens of their own educational experiences, or the experiences of their older children. They may also bring expert information to bear—even the findings of educational research—on their ongoing conversation with school community members about their children’s progress and learning experiences.

The Board of Trustees and the School Head are entrusted with creation of the school’s mission statement; that is amplified through development of the Portrait of the Graduate and the Characteristics of Professional Excellence. Collectively, these documents are called Purpose and Outcome Statements. What do they mean, however, for the life of each division and department?

The answer, of course, is a qualified “yes.” As the School Head, you have a vested interest in identifying administrative talent. When you find a teacher who can take charge of an operational area—however small—you relieve yourself or another Administrative Team member of a burden. This may even free time to devote to other imminent tasks and issues.

As a Division Head, your most critical responsibility is to increase the capacity of your teachers. You may be in the process of reevaluating your school’s professional development with this in mind. Here are the five worst practices that ISM often witnesses in schools, and the recommendations that go with them.

Any professional, knowledgeable architect will ask your school for educational specifications—a definition of the “who, what, when, why, and how” for each space in the structure. These “building blocks” make the difference between a generic, restrictive structure and one specifically designed to: support your school’s mission; meet the needs of your program; serve the students, faculty, and staff who use the building daily; and stay within your budget constraints.

ISM has been largely concerned with management and leadership research and improved practice. Throughout, we have advised school leaders within the context of a school’s own mission and the impact of our advice on the lives of students. In our research, we discovered the principle of “freedom-within-structure,” ISM’s predictability and support model that is the foundation of great teaching practice. While structure/predictability was construed as “what the teacher wanted to do” in the conventional (20th century) educational paradigm, the new paradigm (21st century) includes the teacher and the student in an ever-evolving relationship.

As School Head or Division Head, you may already be immersed in the practice of Professional Learning Communities (PLC), or you may be just starting to integrate them into your practice. They can, of course, exist in various settings—here we will apply it strictly to teachers working together. The term dates from the 1960s when researchers were already trying to find an antidote to the isolation experienced by teachers. It gained popularity in 1993 with the work of Milbrey McLaughlin, when she and her collaborators identified the major characteristics of a PLC that have largely survived intact to this day.1 These characteristics include: