In 2008, the National Youth Leadership Council articulated “The K–12 Learning Standards for Quality Service Learning Practice.” ISM both endorses and replicates them here, recognizing that such standards have to meet and be influenced by your school’s mission. Service learning is now a norm in upper, middle, and lower schools. Most Division Directors believe, as a result of each school’s and division’s mission statements, that service learning is a key part of children’s education. Scheduling the program, however, can be challenging. It competes for time with the school’s primary task of providing an academic education, asks teachers to carry out yet another function, and can be disruptive as students miss class or use class for tangential projects. Clearly, the school has to articulate its position on service learning and agree to standards that may mirror those of the National Youth Leadership Council.

If I can provide a certain type of relationship, the other person will discover within himself the capacity to use that relationship for growth, and change and personal development will occur. – Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961) This quotation from a counseling and personal growth “classic” book by one of the past century’s most influential psychologists states that “a certain type of relationship” will itself be seen as a “usable” context for positive change by the recipient of the help. ISM has emphasized the importance of mentor and coaching roles—especially in the teacher-to-student and administrator-to-teacher relationships—and has grounded its counsel in ISM research regarding “predictability and support” and on the work of others. This article describes and recommends a newly focused perspective on and conceptualization of an important professional role in many private-independent schools: the teacher as advisor to students. ISM has emphasized the importance of a mission-basis for advisory programs and, the strategic importance of faculty professional development. This article offers guidance in support of both.

The words “strategic” and “academic” are not comfortable partners. Academics is, by definition, an operations responsibility and rightly the province of the School Head. Strategic implies the Board is involved and has a hand in direction and planning. Still, since 2014, schools have been thinking divergently about academics and asked ISM to assist with and partner in developing strategic academic plans, and the demand for this is growing. Placing the words “strategic” and “academic” in juxtaposition could suggest that ISM’s long-held position about separating strategic and operations is compromised. In the 20th century, that would indeed have been true. Then, academics was a fairly straightforward pursuit that required schools to choose between textbooks printed in Ontario, Texas, and California and ensure that teachers were competent to use them in the classroom. The word itself had a limited reach, being typically applied to the disciplines of math, English, social studies, and science, with foreign language included as a suspicious addition. The arts were clearly not academic, and athletics were not connected to academic pursuits although there was obeisance paid to the scholar-athlete (the two words appearing in opposition to each other). In this world, teachers were polite to one another, but rarely worked together outside their silos—whether by grade or discipline. Budgets were based on last year’s expenditures. Curriculum review was incremental. Students were usually the object, not the subject, of the sentence. Rocking the boat was considered both unnecessary and opposed to tradition.

The data a school collects is often seen as primarily the domain of the Administrative Team, whose members use the data to inform decisions and drive change. When schools collect data through surveys, however, there are other interested constituents to consider. Communication before, during, and after conducting surveys is essential and must be handled carefully.