You, as newly elected Board of Trustees President, may assume that leadership of private-independent-school Trustees is similar to leadership in other organizational settings. There are indeed similarities with some other kinds of leadership roles, including these. A President brings her or his own “management style” to the post. This tone-setting role is present to some degree in any organization, depending on its exact purpose(s) and structure. A President selects and appoints those who will exercise second-level management and leadership within the Board. Any organization larger than, say, a half-dozen individuals, needs this kind of action from the designated leader. A private-independent school Board of Trustees President can sometimes strongly influence the direction of the larger organization—the school itself—from a strategic perspective. This is analogous to other governing body leadership contexts, both in for-profit and nonprofit settings.

With any employer-employee relationship, your school must maintain paper and electronic files. Just as your school should have a policy on what is contained in an employee’s file and who will keep it, your Board must do the same for its sole employee—the School Head. Basic documents on payroll and benefits should be kept by the Business Office. However, the Head’s contracts, evaluations, and supporting documents (and other employment-related correspondence) should not be accessible to anyone in the school. Only the Board should see this confidential information. (Access to health records should be limited even further—perhaps only to the Board President.)

The fifth iteration of the ISM Stability Markers® has generated small—but necessary—alterations in the graphic representation (shown below), the ISM X™. These alterations center around changes in the scoring of the Strategic Board Assessment, which has become the Strategic Board Assessment II,2 the outcome of a two-year ISM study. This 15-item (Board self-scored) instrument, previously comprising four six-point Stability Markers (Letters A, B, C, and D) in the fourth iteration, has been transformed into a single 24-point Stability Marker in the fifth.

The Financial Aid Committee plays an integral role in your school’s strategic enrollment management operation. Taking a best practices approach ensures your financial aid decision-making strengthens (rather than undermines) your school’s fiscal position—and your ability to sustain mission excellence over time. When managed strategically, your financial aid process and decisions enhance the mission experience of every student enrolled at your school.