In the mid-1990s, ISM advanced a set of 10 ISM Stability Markers®. Defined as a set of variables capable of predicting a school’s ability to sustain programmatic excellence over time, the Stability Markers were designed to serve as guidelines for Trustees and senior administrators in their development of a strategic plan. Acting on the premise that no such list should go unexamined for more than five years, ISM has engaged in a review of variables that appear to be the strongest candidates for inclusion in an updated Stability Markers list. (This review was more tightly focused than the original, identifying a total of 87 items as the strongest candidates.)

Since some private-independent school Boards use, or are considering, the Carver Model of Governance, and since ISM is occasionally asked its view on that model’s efficacy in the private-independent school context, we offer the following opinions.

One aspect of the due diligence rightly expected of you, the Board President, is a periodic review of Board bylaws. You should have them reviewed at least quadrennially, for accuracy, relevance, and technical legal compliance with appropriate statutes. If you also aspire to implement ISM’s “strategic Board” concepts, you should have the bylaws altered to reflect those aspirations.

ISM has long recommended that private-independent schools generate sufficient hard income to cover a substantial percentage of annual operating expenses. Our recently published the ISM Stability Markers® self-scoring instrument facilitates this and several other key recommendations by providing a self-rating structure through which the Board and senior administration can assess the school’s current degree of coverage while DetermineYour School’s Best Approach to Planning: Stability Markers and a Self-Scoring Process in the future.

An essential element of accountability in the Development Office is the capacity to evaluate whether objectives are being achieved, and to measure progress toward those ends. The following table suggests a framework you can use to think through the metrics that define and measure success. You, as the Development Director, can use these metrics to analyze the state of your operations, to establish your baseline, and to assess your forward progress and communicate this to the School Head, the Board, and the school community. They will also aid you in planning and managing your operations.

Since ISM first began its quinquennial analysis of the prime correlates of a school’s ability to sustain excellence in its student programs—known as the ISM Stability Markers™ —the marker known as “cash reserves” has placed either first or second in each analysis. And while “cash reserves” is a convenient way to reference the item, this marker is actually a formulaic mix of reserves, (low or no) debt, and endowment. Now holding the top rank for the ninth straight year, reserves/debt/endowment is always a focal point of Trustees’ discussions—and properly so, as they move into strategic planning with ISM. Following are five observations and comments, each one grounded in Trustees’ questions and pertinent to ISM Stability Marker No. 1. You, as a leader on your Board of Trustees, are encouraged to think carefully through the implications of each of these five.

As President of your school’s Board of Trustees, you are always mindful of the need to perpetuate Board memory—historical information about the Board’s operations and activities. Even with reasonably effective new-member orientation and continuing, annual professional development of the Board, turnover will mean that, in a few years, the majority of the Board will rely on second-hand information about “how the Board does things.” That is, Trustees will not have experienced the passage of some pivotal Board policies and/or a discussion about the Board’s strategic operation. When they join the Board, the new Trustees will be relying on what they “heard” from the more experienced Board members.

Fiscal oversight and fiduciary responsibility are terms synonymous with trusteeship. The audit report is a key document that affirms, both to you and to those whose assets you steward, that the school is operating within generally accepted accounting principles (often referred to as GAAP).1

Even with the most carefully crafted plans, tuition remission can subtly undercut effective implementation of the plan. Automatically awarded tuition remission creates an unpredictable reduction in net tuition revenue, further challenging a school’s already finite resources. Competing financial needs are created (for example, more funds devoted to tuition remission while the school is committed to improving faculty compensation). Last-minute and major adjustments to the strategic financial plan – and, by default, the strategic plan – must be wrenchingly incorporated. The end result: The timely implementation of the goals you have worked hard to develop and build consensus on is disrupted.

As the Chair of your school’s Head Search Committee, you are charged with spearheading the process of identifying and recommending your school’s next CEO. The committee will be analyzing the experience, skills, and strengths of each candidate. It will want to match the candidate’s professional and personal qualities with the school’s needs.