A strong advisory program is one of the hallmarks of the private-independent school experience. Your faculty advisers provide not only academic advice but also personal advice. In the course of personal advising, students will ultimately reveal uncomfortable, scary, and dangerous issues they are facing. Your advisers need to be adequately trained to recognize “yellow light” and “red light” areas so they will learn where the boundaries are to protect themselves, the students, and your school.
Suggestions for Handling Tragic Events
In Education Week Teacher, Boston teacher Lillie Marshall writes about her personal reactions to the Boston Marathon bombings coupled with her seventh grade students’ desire to discuss and learn about the tragic events that happened right in their backyard.
Community Service and Service Learning: Designing a Successful Program
Many private-independent schools encourage students of all ages to become involved in community service—an ongoing, schoolwide program of service to others. These schools may also specify that students complete a prescribed number of hours as a graduation requirement.
These service programs are designed to broaden students’ sense of social awareness by exposing them to the “real world” and to instill in these young people a lifelong commitment to caring for and about others. In addition, a school should offer service learning—those components of the school’s curriculum that support and complement the community service efforts.
Things to Remember as a Division Leader
In his latest blog for EdWeek.com, elementary school principal Peter DeWitt poses the question “Why Would Anyone Want To Be a School Leader?” A public school leader himself, he touches on issues public school leaders face. However, some of the basic issues resonate for both public and private school educators.
Dark Chocolate: It’s a Good Thing
With the spring holidays here, chocolate candy is everywhere! Yes, it’s a source of fat, sugar and calories. But research has shown that dark chocolate has some health benefits, too. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s philly.com Web site gives you permission to indulge in some dark chocolate.
Your School’s Summer Program and Risk Management
As Summer Program Director, you’ve spent time since last summer’s program to reconsider the design and curriculum for this summer’s sessions. You may not, however, have looked at risk management specifically from the perspective of your program. Or perhaps you noticed some safety issues last year that must be addressed. The safety and care of your students is a priority—and is also essential in our litigious society.
Maintain Personnel Records Diligently to Protect Your School
While many schools expend significant effort to manage student records appropriately, they often pay less attention to handling employee records properly. In an increasingly litigious and regulated operating environment, schools must attend to employee records in a consistent and prudent fashion. This article provides record-keeping recommendations for each employee-related process, and describes how to maintain various files and records for the protection of the school and employees.
Research Report: Faculty Culture Profile II and Student Culture Profile II, Fall 2012 Data
ISM published its Student Experience Study (SES) outcomes in January 2012, and published related articles in Ideas & Perspectives throughout the spring. Among the features in the report were a revised Faculty Culture Profile—ISM’s long-standing measure of the quality of a school’s faculty culture—and a revised Student Culture Profile, along with the study’s statistical findings and an instrument for use as part of any school’s approach to faculty evaluation, the Characteristics of Professional Excellence II.
Zero Tolerance and Young Children: What’s the Common-Sense Answer?
Since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Connecticut, school administrators and parents are on edge. The tragedy has thrust gun control and school security issues to the forefront of the national conversation, and zero-tolerance policies are once again in the news.
A Lincoln Teaching Tool, Courtesy of Hollywood
Daniel Day Lewis’s striking portrayal of Abraham Lincoln as he works the political maze to pass the 13th amendment to outlaw slavery and involuntary servitude in the film Lincoln will be coming to all public and private school middle and high schools as soon as the DVD hits stores.