Q: We need to hire for a few remaining openings over the summer. Do you have any tips on conducting reference checks?

The academic year may be over, but as Development Director, you are working feverishly—trying to collect those unfulfilled annual fund pledges to close out the year. You are also prepping for the next annual fund! Feels like a hamster wheel, right?

Q: When a family that has made an annual fund gift leaves your school during or at the end of the annual fund year, do you count that family in your participation rate? And what about divorced families? Do they count as one or two household?

As Development professionals, it is a given that you treat your donors and prospects truthfully and ethically. You are representing your school, and you are asking your supporters to put their trust in your school for the proper stewardship of their money. To that end, the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) with the Association of Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP), CASE, and The Giving Institute: Leading Consultants to Non-Profits, has developed The Donor Bill of Rights. These principles have been endorsed by numerous organizations.

Education Week, reporting on the just-released study by the National Center for Education Statistics, the statistical center of the Institute of Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of Education, noted that private school enrollment fell from 6.3 million students in 2002–2003 to 5.5 million in 2009-2010.

Typically, a class period is 40-to-50 minutes long. And in that time, ISM research shows, the period only yields 35 minutes of actual instruction time. That may be enough to convey information, but what about time to discuss, explore, and find connections? In-depth study can be difficult, especially with students (and parents) who increasingly demand more subjects, more AP, more specialized study. Ultimately, your schedule becomes increasingly complex, students and faculty become more stressed, and your space “shrinks.”

June is Gardening and Great Outdoors Month! What can you do to make the outdoors a welcome haven, even if the school isn’t in full swing? Prepare for the summer session with outdoor learning—fresh air will better engage enthusiasm! Inspire your faculty to get creative and bring the indoors out to spark their students’ imagination. Have a summer session class under the trees, go on a nature walk, or have an art class with students drawing what is around them. Remind your faculty to find little ways to sneak in a little teaching all summer so kids are always learning.

As you close out the school year, no doubt you are preparing for next year and processing applications. Some families at schools are quite slow to return their contracts or re-enrollment documents. So, what to do? Especially, since schools depend on every classroom having filled seats. And there is always the school with the exemplary student whose parents are lax in re-enrolling and paying the fees. Do you give up her seat to a wait-listed child? Do you put the current student on a wait-list? How many hoops must you, as Admission Director, jump through to fill all seats?

As with any business practice, using social media has its benefits as well as its dangers. Your first line of defense against the unspeakable (insert your numerous employee-related concerns here) is to have an updated social media policy in your employee handbook—and to ensure that everyone has received a copy, AND read it. However, even with clear expectations and guidelines, staff and faculty members can engage in online behavior that can cause concern. Since social media is still a relatively new phenomenon, legal principles and court decisions are still evolving. Here are three recent cases of note.

As a Business Manager, your first concerns may have little to do with your school’s social media efforts. You’re more concerned with your school’s budget, employee benefits, facility upgrades, the database, and the millions of other projects your Head has passed down to your office. However, if you’re part of your school’s Risk Management team, then you might want to take another look at social media platforms as a way to keep parents, students, and even faculty and staff connected.