A review of evaluation literature—particularly in corporate practice—soon brings up the topic of 360° or multi-rater feedback. This evaluation process is increasingly being referenced among private-independent school educators. Teachers are being rated by their students; School Heads are being rated by their direct reports and by faculty; parents are being asked to give feedback concerning school personnel and Trustees. If such a process is being considered at your school, whether bought from a company or developed in-house as online surveys, it should be understood and used appropriately. A 360-degree process should be used for professional development purposes and might lead to performance objectives, but should not be used for evaluative purposes in and of itself.

As School Head, you are keenly aware of the strategic value of a strong advisory program. As a realist, you are also cognizant of the ease with which an advisory program can veer off course, becoming a collection of activities rather than a coherent program anchored in the school’s mission.

The matrix we call scheduling—that complex interrelationship among time, space, program, and people—is not just a mere description of what is happening in your school. It should also provoke the reflection necessary to understand how the elements of excellent education interact and enable the prime conditions for optimal learning.

The School Head maintains a dual focus on strategic matters that includes: the goals outlined in the annual administrative agenda (derived from the current planning document) and the marketplace variables—Price, Product, Process—that, with relative degrees of emphasis, define the school.

At any given moment, the Board may be operating highly effectively. The same is true of the School Head and Management Team. The problem, however, is always how to sustain high-level leadership over time. As changes occur, when the Board President finally rotates off, or the Head accepts an appointment elsewhere, or a new facility is proposed or a program added, what will ensure that the direction and vitality of the school is not lost?

In Part One of this two-part series, eight critical ingredients and six steps were offered as a foundation on which to build management and leadership education and training systems for your Academic Administrators. Part Two provides a recommended sequence of School Head decisions and actions. The implicit opportunity, both for organizational enhancement and for individual professional growth, is enormous in its potential impact throughout your school. Moreover, its results are cost-effective.

Support personnel may seem invisible in a school. These employees—personnel who are not administrators or faculty—may not appear to be as highly valued, nor as integral as the faculty to the school’s mission and to the education of children. Their roles are largely indirect. But this in no way diminishes their importance in your school’s culture. Take steps to build the faculty/support staff relationship, with the ultimate objective of improving opportunities for students in your school.

Within our schools, there is little systematic training for members of the Academic Administrative Team (those leaders of the faculty who report directly to the School Head) and other levels of academic leadership (e.g., grade-level coordinators). Why does that matter?

The main means of enhancing your advisory program will be through the advisers themselves. Formal solicitation of their assessment of the program provides evaluative data while confirming the high value you place on this program.

Whether your advisory program emphasizes one-to-one advising or group advisory (or probably some of both), the intended beneficiaries of these services are your school’s students. While advisers’ impressions about students’ individual and/or collective engagement in advisory are helpful in gauging the successes of the program, they are not a substitute for well-conceived, formal surveying of students themselves as a resource for enhancing your program.