Stay current with the latest private-independent school news.
What are the latest trends impacting private-independent school enrollment? How can you be the most effective in your role as an administrator? How can you help your school meet its mission and best serve your students?
Check out Community Corner, a free blog from ISM.
We cover such topics as how to communicate with your constituencies, work with your fellow school leaders, leverage new technology trends, utilize recommended reading and resources, implement new strategies—all to better serve your school's mission.
Search
See articles for School Heads, Business & Operations, Advancement, Academic Leadership, and Trustees, in addition to Private School News.
Exit Interviews and Attrition Surveys
Advancement // March 29, 2013
The design of your survey is critical. A poorly designed survey can result in ambiguous, irrelevant, or unreliable data. If your school is designing the survey in-house, make sure that someone with a solid background in survey design is involved in the project.
Read More
Things to Remember as a Division Leader
Academic Leadership // March 27, 2013
In his latest blog for EdWeek.com, elementary school principal Peter DeWitt poses the question “Why Would Anyone Want To Be a School Leader?” A public school leader himself, he touches on issues public school leaders face. However, some of the basic issues resonate for both public and private school educators.
Read More
Dark Chocolate: It’s a Good Thing
Academic Leadership // March 27, 2013
With the spring holidays here, chocolate candy is everywhere! Yes, it’s a source of fat, sugar and calories. But research has shown that dark chocolate has some health benefits, too. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s philly.com Web site gives you permission to indulge in some dark chocolate.
Read More
Ask Michael
Business and Operations // March 19, 2013
Q: We’re planning to dismiss a long-serving teacher at the end of the school year. We don’t have any documentation, though. Should we start a “warning” process now?
Read More
Considering Merit Pay: Motivation, Fairness, and Retention
Business and Operations // March 19, 2013
There has been considerable discussion and debate in private school board rooms, administrative offices, and faculty lounges in recent years regarding “merit pay” (also known as “pay for performance”). While this type of pay arrangement is common in virtually every environment outside of schools, it is still a relatively novel concept in the private-independent school world. Today, we’d like to take a look at issues of motivation, fairness, and retention with respect to merit pay systems.
Read More
Preparing the Ground (or Risking Failure)
Business and Operations // March 19, 2013
As the first signs of Spring appear in many parts of the country, thoughts turn to the reawakening Earth, planting of fields and flowers, and all things that speak to growth. With this as our theme, we want to share with you a story—based on true events, as they say—that sheds some light on the need to “prepare the ground” when launching any significant change event.
Read More
Ten Essential Rules for Productive Meetings
Board of Trustees // March 15, 2013
Meetings are talked about too little and carried out too much. Most schools spend a great deal of time in meetings of one kind or another—e.g., Board committees, the School Head and the Management Team, the Division Heads together with Department Chairs or grade team leaders, the Student Response Team, and faculty meetings. Of course, it is valuable and often essential that people come together in a formal sense and talk about difference-makers in the lives of children. Group networks aggregate information and can examine it more critically. Group members often will determine better solutions and/or outcomes than isolated individuals—but only if the group meets in a way that allows these things to happen. Here, then, are ISM’s Ten Essential Rules for Productive Meetings.
Read More
Choice Programs in Private Schools
Board of Trustees // March 15, 2013
The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice recently released a report focusing on school choice programs in 2013, including vouchers, education savings accounts, tax-credit scholarships, and individual tax credits/deductions. The report describes programs throughout the United States, listed alphabetically by state.
Read More
The ABCs of School Choice Guide Just Released
School Heads // March 12, 2013
The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice has just released its 2013 edition of The ABCs of School Choice, a comprehensive guide to every kind of private school choice program available in the United States. Currently, 21 states and Washington, DC offer some formass of private school choice.
Read More
Coaching the Coaches
School Heads // March 12, 2013
During the past year, ISM’s Consultants have been writing and speaking on the primary role of academic leaders as building the capacity of their faculty—that is, coaching, mentoring, supporting, and guiding faculty toward delivering your mission with excellence every day, with every student. This is a lofty goal, of course—but one that we passionately believe is vital to the success of private schools in the 21st century. This begs the question: If academic leaders (e.g., Division Heads and Department Chairs) are coaching faculty, who coaches the coaches?
Read More