Directors and Officers insurance (also known as School Legal or Trustee Liability insurance) may be the most critical insurance and protection for your school. Having the “wrong” policy or one that is weak could potentially be devastating to your school. Damages sought under D&O insurance can range anywhere from a nuisance claim to one seeking millions of dollars in compensation, and may include a request for punitive damages if the action in question is considered egregious enough (e.g., willful disregard for protected categories under ADA or where the school knew of a wrong action that was occurring and did nothing to stop it). The cost to protect and defend a school against such claims is no mean exposure either; it can often cost $75,000 in legal fees just to prove nothing wrong occurred in the first place. It is critical, therefore, that your policy not only cover both actual losses and defense costs, but provide additional limits for defense, and thus not erode actual claims limits should the plaintiff prevail.

Each fall, ISM publishes a set of conversion factors to facilitate the recasting of previous tuitions into current dollars. (See the table on the next page.) We continue to use the Urban Consumer Price Index (CPI-U). However, we also realize that the CPI-U does not completely reflect expenditures in private-independent schools; it can only serve as a base figure. There are compelling arguments for adjusting your tuition at a rate 2% or more above the overall inflation rate.

ISM suggests that you, as Board President, think of strategic planning as a quadrennial activity. During the months prior to the day(s) on which you will gather your Board and Head (and, if appropriate, other senior administrators) for the planning event itself, data gathering is usually in order. For example, many Boards conduct a current parent survey in order to provide themselves with a sense of that constituent group’s strategic excitements, interests, and concerns, thereby widening the participation circle indirectly beyond that of the planners themselves. A similar survey of faculty/staff, young alumni, and former parents may be productive. Certainly, comparative data such as faculty salary and fringe benefit benchmarks will enhance the quality of the strategic planning process itself, as will a thoughtful self-scoring on ISM’s Stability Markers®.

ISM recommends that you, as Head of School, Business Manager, or Finance Committee Chair, adopt a particular 13-line format in your strategic financial reporting vehicle. Many schools have since done so.

“Emotional awareness starts with attunement to the stream of feeling that is a constant presence in all of us and with a recognition of how these emotions shape what we perceive, think, and do.” – Daniel Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence, p. 55 (New York: Bantam Books, 1998)

From time to time, a book written for the corporate sector calls out for the consideration of private-independent school leaders. Such a book is Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … And Others Don’t, (HarperCollins: 2001), Jim Collins’ second book on strategic management thinking.1

As Board President, you regularly focus on the specific, strategic goals of the school as well as the strategic structure and function of the Board itself. In the latter area, you rely on your Committee on Trustees to monitor, evaluate, advise, and counsel the full Board. You and this committee may use a written evaluation instrument, administered annually, to provide data on the adequacy of the Board as a whole.

Several recent articles aimed at nonprofit organizations—including private-independent schools—have discussed the topic of PILOTs (Payments In Lieu of Taxes) and SILOTs (Services In Lieu of Taxes). (See, for example, “In Lieu of Taxes: What Can Schools Do When the Taxman Comes Knocking?” Independent School, Spring 2002, and “Navigating PILOTs: Increased Pressure for ‘Voluntary’ Nonprofit Tax Payments,” The Nonprofit Quarterly, Summer 2002.) But these articles have not taken their “heads up” far enough

ISM’s recommended 13-line strategic financial plan model has been in widespread use for some time. This short, six-year (i.e., displayed in six columns) expression of your strategic plan comprises a one-page attachment to the plan itself and represents the quantitative expression of that plan. The great virtue of the 13-line model is that it allows Board members who are not mathematically inclined or have little financial expertise—often either a majority or a substantial minority—to understand the financial ramifications of the positions they take on strategic issues. The 13-line document attends to the main strategic numbers and, by purposeful exclusion, leaves everything else alone. (And the “everything else,” of course, falls to the Finance Committee, thereby honoring a core ISM strategic-Board concept—a differentiation of function.)

The Board does not need to be involved in your school’s educational program, either as individuals or as a group. Discussions and decisions about the program are not appropriate topics for these volunteer leaders. The Board has hired you, as School Head, to determine programs and supervise their delivery.