The School Head is the sole employee of the Board. A reasonable contractual agreement encourages moderation, compromise, and perspective for this professional relationship. Far from denying mutual trust, a contract confirms it.
Does Your Mission Statement Need Another Look?
As changes occur, a private school often “slides” from the original intent of its mission statement. When was the last time your Board reviewed your school's mission to ensure that it is still going in the right direction?
Executive Leadership: The Relationships Between Predictability and Support, the School Head's Well-Being, and Faculty Culture
In the first two articles in this series, we shared the results of our 2016 study on executive leadership, well-being, and school performance. The study validated the centrality of a high-quality, charismatic, and flourishing executive leader in the school’s ability to drive the school’s success, including enrollment demand.2 In this third article, we answer the question, “What predicts high scores on executive leadership?”
Through the first two articles, we established that charismatic (but not excessively extroverted) leaders who guide schools with greater enrollment demand scored higher on our executive leadership measure. Of course, this assumes the school has a strategic plan and a strategic financial plan. In this article, we examine the factors that lead to high scoring on the executive leadership measure (Stability Marker No. 3). In other words, what are the major contributors to being a high-quality leader?
Review Your School's Capitalization Policy
As your school grows in size and complexity, you should review (or establish) accounting policies. Often overlooked is the school’s capitalization policy.
A capitalization policy sets guidelines determining which purchases you expense and which purchases you capitalize and then depreciate. It allows your school to match revenues more closely to the expenses associated with the use of those assets. By depreciating an asset, you recognize that it will provide value to your school’s operation for several years. It is easy to determine what constitutes an asset. Land, buildings, utility systems, kitchen equipment, and vehicles certainly qualify. Classroom furniture, computers, and athletic equipment, among others, may also fall into the asset category.
The Head Support and Evaluation Committee: Technicalities
In an earlier article, “The Head Support and Evaluation Committee: An Update,” we stated that “the HSEC, as a Board Committee, is primarily concerned with the Board’s strategic objectives and the Head’s responsibilities in their successful achievement.” Consider now the HSEC’s membership, its charge, and its self-evaluation.
In staffing the HSEC, the Committee on Trustees should consider the School Head’s position as an executive and as the sole employee of the Board. The Head is responsible for all aspects of the school’s operations, from marketing to teaching Social Studies—without a peer in the school. Use the following chart to ensure the appropriate questions have been asked about the HSEC’s membership.
Respectful and Constructive Board/School Head Relationships
When new Trustees come to the Board, part of their orientation process must be to understand the special relationship the Board has with the Head.
Online Courses: How Do You Compete?
Keeping up with technology has become a chief concern for many schools, often representing a major portion of their budgets each year. Private-independent schools, competing with public and charter schools that typically have greater available funding, find this particularly troublesome.
Developing the Annual Board Agenda: An Example
A previous I&P article provided an overview of the elements of agenda-making for the Board and the School Head. This article, the second in the series, details how to develop the annual Board agenda.
The annual Board agenda is one of the focal points in ISM’s data-informed approach to strategic Board structure and function. After your Board of Trustees and senior administration have developed a strategic plan/strategic financial plan that conforms to ISM criteria, you, as Board President, with advice and counsel from the Committee on Trustees (COT), will create an annual Board agenda that sets out the governance-level tasks for the upcoming year. Once the committee chairs have accepted their assignments along with their (written) committee charges and deadlines, the annual Board agenda can be finalized and introduced to the Board as a whole.
Dealing With Hidden Inflation, 2017
As a member of the Board of Trustees, School Head, or Chief Financial Officer, you know that a decision to hold tuition flat for a year results in lost ground and places pressure on future budgets. Inflation quietly depletes your real income.
But it’s worse than you think.
Many schools use the Urban Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) to determine inflation year-to-year.1 However, the CPI-U does not reflect expenses in private schools, and may not reflect your state’s—or even your city’s—true rate of inflation. For example, the annual rates of inflation in San Francisco, San Diego, New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington DC are typically higher than most other cities in the country. Thus, the CPI-U should only serve as a base figure. There are compelling arguments for adjusting your tuition at a rate above the inflation rate in your school’s particular area.
Setting Your Annual Agenda
Setting the annual agendas by the Board President and School Head is a key skill for executing the strategic plan/strategic financial plan. No matter how great the strategic plan and strategic financial plan are, they remain inert and powerless unless they are annually tethered to an actionable process. Using annual agendas turns them into the difference-makers that move the school forward.