As you develop or enhance your disaster plan, take time to review your insurance policy with your agent to ensure that your school is adequately covered, beyond your basic flood and fire insurance, for any type of disaster or emergency situation. Coverage in the following areas is often far less than recommended, or may even be excluded, in typical policies. To determine if your risk factors are high in any of these areas, discuss them with your agent and consider increasing your coverage or adding riders if necessary.

In early fall of the 2004-05 school year, ISM conducted a study of School Head leadership to determine those characteristics most closely associated with strong faculty cultures (the criterion variable in the study). That variable—the faculty culture—had been chosen as the study’s anchor in view of two earlier ISM studies.

Many private-independent schools, especially those without high schools, find themselves on small parcels of land with little hope of purchasing contiguous acreage. Their leaders, searching for additional classroom space and buildings, are often staggered by the costs of buying land for a completely new (or second) campus. They are financially and emotionally defeated by the apparent alternative: relocating the school for a year or more, razing the buildings, and then returning to a campus that is fresh, exciting, and more functional.

How do you, as School Head or Division Head, get buy-in from “entrenched faculty” when you are anticipating an initiative? And what does the word entrenched mean? Assuming that these teachers are not toxic (those who drag down the faculty by their cynicism), you might describe them as rigid, fixed in their ways, unwilling to cooperate, skeptical about any kind of change, or always ready to oppose.

A recent draft report, “Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature,” commissioned by the U.S. Education Department, concludes that, while far too little is known about the prevalence of sexual misconduct by school employees, likely millions of children—including those in private institutions—are being affected by such abuse during their school years. Although critics of the report say the numbers may be “a bit extreme,” the author maintains the report’s credibility, stressing that at the very least, the report shows that further study is needed, and that the issue of sexual abuse in schools cannot be taken lightly. ISM has long recommended that schools take clear steps toward preventing sexual abuse—both for the sake of their students and the long-term well-being of their institutions

When you know that a complex change is about to be presented at your school—maybe through a new strategic plan, the intent to introduce technology in a significant way, the addition of a new division, the building of a new art center, the reinvention of teaching practices in the middle school, or the production of a Parent Education Plan, as examples—focus not on the change itself, but on how that change is going to be implemented by real people.

The schedule is expected to provide an environment in which students can gain access to the rich program your school offers. As School Head, you may notice that the schedule serves student interests less and less well as the program becomes more complex. Both students and faculty become more harried.

Every private-independent school has a mission statement. It is the creed by which the school operates. It generally stands, unless there are major changes in school structure or raison d’être. ISM has consistently said that “there should be no higher priority for Trustees and School Heads than the careful development of mission and philosophy statements, with an emphasis on continual reference and responsiveness to these two documents.”

The National Center for Education Statistics has just released the report The High School Transcript Study: A Decade of Change in Curricula and Achievement, 1990-2000, which examines the “trends and changes in high school curriculum and student coursetaking patterns for the past decade.” The study included public and non-public schools. The findings are of particular interest when scrutinizing the contention that private schools provide a superior academic education when compared to public schools.

“The core theme of K-12 education in this century should be straightforward: high standards with an unwavering commitment to individuality.” – Mel Levine, M.D., “Celebrating Diverse Minds” Educational Leadership, October 2003