Learn practical strategies to handle emerging trends and leadership challenges in private schools.
No matter if you’re a School Head, Admission Director, Development Director, Board member, or any other private school administrator—Ideas & Perspectives, ISM’s premier private school publication, has strategic solutions for the pervasive problems you face.
- Tuition not keeping pace with your expenses? In I&P, explore how to use strategic financial planning to create your budget and appropriately adjust your tuition.
- Enrollment dropping off? Discover how to implement the right admission and enrollment management strategies that engage your community—and fill your classrooms.
- Trouble retaining teachers? Learn how you can best support your teachers using ISM’s Comprehensive Faculty Development framework. Your faculty members will become more enthusiastic about their roles—which ultimately improves student outcomes.
- Fundraising campaigns not as successful as you’d hoped? Implement ISM’s practical advice and guidance to build a thriving annual fund, construct an effective capital campaign, and secure major donors—no matter your community size or location.
- Not sure how to provide professional development—for you and your staff? Learn ways to develop and fund a successful professional development strategy. You can improve teacher-centered satisfaction and growth, which in turn strengthens student-centered learning.
- Problematic schedule? You can master the challenges of scheduling with the help of ISM’s practical advice, based on our experience with hundreds of schools and our time-tested theories.
- And so much more.
I&P has shared targeted research, up-to-date insight, and sound theory with school leaders since 1975. More than 8,500 private school decision-makers find the answers to their schools’ administrative and governance matters in our advisory letter. We give you the strategic answers you need.
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See the articles from our latest issue of Ideas & Perspectives.
The Pandemic’s Disruption: The Changing Labor Market
Volume 47 No. 7 // September 1, 2022
Early in the pandemic, the ISM consulting team asked a critical question: Will the pandemic be an event to simply endure, or will it forever change the marketplace for private schools? It is now clear the pandemic is a disruptor, and school leaders, executives, and Trustees must be prepared for significant changes.
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Gaining Student Engagement for Advisory Through the ‘Advisory Alliance’
Volume 47 No. 6 // June 1, 2022
The traditional classroom is a single teacher, occupying a third of the physical space at the front of a classroom at a “board” (i.e., chalk, dry-erase, electronic) while delivering the curriculum to a “small classroom” of students. Observations and interviews with students across the nation confirm that this method still predominantly describes most classrooms in middle and upper schools.
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Building Trust Between Division Heads and Teachers
Volume 47 No. 6 // June 1, 2022
As a Division Head, you understand trust is a critical component of effective working relationships. In fact, trusting relationships in schools have been shown to increase faculty cooperation, enhance school climate, and improve student outcomes.
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The Strategic Board’s Role in Admission and Marketing Communications
Volume 47 No. 6 // June 1, 2022
As Board Chair, you understand that, because your school is funded primarily through tuition, enrollment is among the most essential factors in determining your institution’s financial strength and stability. You also are aware that a strategic Board’s primary purpose is to make decisions today that will ensure the viability of the school for the next generation of students.
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Effectively Recruit and Keep Your Development Volunteers
Volume 47 No. 6 // June 1, 2022
As Development Director, you know private schools thrive on the relationships built among teachers, students, parents, administrators, and alumni. Those relationships determine the success of the student experience and the faculty culture, provide confidence in the school’s value for parents, and ke...
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Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice, and Belonging: The Board’s Role
Volume 47 No. 5 // May 1, 2022
Your efforts to improve diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and belonging (DEIJB) will be successful if you start and end with oversight of the Board. There is no better stakeholder in a school with which to begin this process because effective DEIJB policy and practice are predicated on transparency and accountability from leadership.
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Guiding Principles and Do’s and Don’ts for Effective Head Support and Evaluation
Volume 47 No. 5 // May 1, 2022
The relationship between the School Head and the Board of Trustees is critical to a private school’s health. Key components to assure effective Board-Head relationships are annual performance goals and the Board’s written evaluation of the Head’s performance.
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Retirement Plans: A Strategic Employee Benefit
Volume 47 No. 5 // May 1, 2022
Planning for retirement is not a difficult concept to understand, but it requires discipline over one’s entire career. Consider the retirement benefit as a strategic difference-maker at your school and establish policies to position your school to attract and retain talent.
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Net Promoter Score Surveys: Is My School’s Score ’Good’?
Volume 47 No. 5 // May 1, 2022
Schools need leading indicators of enrollment demand for myriad reasons, not the least of which is to plan and prepare for the admission cycle. ISM has helped thousands of schools conduct surveys to understand what parents, students, and teachers think about their schools.
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Becoming a Generative Board
Volume 47 No. 4 // April 1, 2022
Imagine you’re a Board Chair, leading a Board retreat marked by robust future-focused conversations—Trustees engaged in substantive debate, creatively exploring a unique challenge. During this retreat, Trustees are problem finders, not problem solvers. They are tasked with exploring topics in creative ways and challenged to embrace discomfort.
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