On the eve of yet another Facebook facelift (F8), Facebook hits a new milestone with 800 million users.

Every school has its own policy for accepting kindergartners. For some, it’s a birthday deadline, others it’s a developmental readiness assessment. And, yet there is no definitive answer. When to accept students, or start students, is a difficult decision—and often one that is ultimately made by the parents.

Although the School Head is responsible for hiring a strong, mission-based faculty, the Board must provide the needed funding, via strategic financial planning, so that the Head can recruit and retain a quality teaching staff for your school. Keeping new teachers is especially difficult in the current economy and market.

The Committee on Trustees is always searching for “ideal” Board members—people whose skills and personal qualities help to keep your school moving forward. As time goes on, however, it is worth revisiting the essential responsibilities, behaviors, and priorities of Trustees. This training might be part of your annual Board retreat or new Trustee orientation. The goal is to ensure that Board members know that the ideal Trustee:

Twitter, the microblogging site that has become a social media powerhouse, has also become a new media tool for private-independent schools. If you are tweeting now as part of your communication plan for constituents—or if you haven’t gotten into it yet—here are four tips to make your efforts highly effective.

Facebook and other social media outlets give you immediate access to your constituents. You can share information quickly and provide links to your Web site and other areas. Facebook also gives those constituents plenty of opportunity to talk back. This is a good thing, since you want to engage those individuals; you want your “fans” to say great things about your school.

Social media has quickly become part of the fiber of our culture—a pervasive yet effective means of connecting with your community and spreading the word about your school to a broader audience. In a recent Webinar hosted by edsocialmedia.com titled Social Media and Branding: Composing a Cohesive Tune, Rob Norman of Turnaround Marketing Communications asked, “How can I create branded content?” His answer was “give the audience what they want.”

Since the start of the new school year we’ve published several articles about bullying. Here is a simple checklist you can distribute to students and teachers.

November is National Diabetes Awareness Month. Do you know your risks? While the stereotype is that diabetes appears only in older people who weight more than recommended, in fact, this illness can affect anyone of any age or size. Take this oppurtunity to familiarize yourself with the warning signs and risks of Diabetes Type 1 and Type 2.

Students age 14 to 18 from around the world have a chance to get their experiments onto the International Space Station thanks to the YouTube Space Lab, launched by Lenovo and Google!