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.
As an ISM Silver or Gold member, you not only receive issues online and in print 10 times a year, but you have access to more than 600 articles in our web archive. Need help? It’s at your fingertips! Learn more and sign up for ISM's membership here.
Search
See the articles from our latest issue of Ideas & Perspectives.
Your Strategic Financial Plan: Hard Income P&L
Volume 40 No. 8 // June 22, 2015
As you, the School Head, move year by year through your strategic plan and its accompanying strategic financial plan, you may find your Board of Trustees focusing annually on the enrollment line (line 1A in the “Sample Strategic Financial Plan” on page 31 of this issue), the net tuition revenue line (line 2), the expense line (line 5), or other meaningful lines within the spreadsheet’s 13-line basic format. We suggest you be most proactive, however, in teaching and re-teaching the overriding importance of line 6 (hard income P&L), the line that tells the most comprehensive and accurate story regarding your success in moving the school forward in ways fully consonant with your six-year planning document.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
The Board and Employment Practices Liability Insurance
Volume 40 No. 7 // June 2, 2015
While the School Head and Management Team ensure that policies and procedures are in place and implemented, the Board must ensure that your school insurance includes employment practices liability (EPL), to cover any legal costs it may incur if a case is brought against it.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
The Dynamics of Flattened Tuition Gradients: Endowments and Other Revenue Won’t Help
Volume 40 No. 7 // June 2, 2015
ISM recently published: “The notion that tuition gradients must never again exceed inflationary projections poses, in itself, one of the greatest threats to private-independent school financial and organizational health.” Let’s unpack this comment in more detail. Some schools, fearing “unaffordability,” have begun to take a price-averse approach to tuition (i.e., artificially setting tuition flat or below inflation). Schools turn to the teachers to “pay” for this approach and maintain program. Schools freeze salaries or flatten their increases, reduce benefits, cut professional development budgets, and increase teacher workloads/class sizes. Schools know these approaches are only impactful in the short run—they are left to consider how their annual fund, endowments, and other revenue sources can help them flatten tuition. Here we demonstrate, through a simple equation, how these tactics to flatten tuition gradients are unlikely to be sustainable.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Summer Program: The Third Semester—Three Administrative Considerations
Volume 40 No. 7 // June 2, 2015
In this series on summer program, we have provided examples and insights into Semester 3 (S3) as an inevitable expansion of a school’s program to year-round. In this final article, we look at some administrative considerations for S3 leadership, facilities, and upper school curriculum.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Craft a Powerful Advancement Message
Volume 40 No. 6 // May 11, 2015
All of your school’s advancement efforts (admission, marketing communication, and development) should share a common focus on your children and your mission. Too often, messages in these areas lack incisiveness and unity. A strong message—one that invites people to enroll and to give—communicates a educational experience through the lens of the student. To understand what is different about marketing schools, consider the following student-centered advancement approach.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Advancement: From Values to Results
Volume 40 No. 6 // May 11, 2015
Advancement integrates your admission, development, and marketing communications programs at the service of your school’s mission. It is important to collaborate among these three areas. When you do, you impact student recruitment and re-recruitment, aid your school in its strategic direction, and encourage philanthropic giving. ISM now offers a way to measure the effectiveness of your advancement efforts. While the Comprehensive Advancement Model illustrates the key relationships that exist among these areas of advancement, metrics are appropriately seen as important in measuring results. To develop these metrics, we offer ISM’s Advancement Core Values and Standards, including an assessment tool to bridge the gap between values and results.1
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
The Role of the Strategic Board in the Advancement Model
Volume 40 No. 6 // May 11, 2015
When you look at the Comprehensive Advancement Model (see the graphic in the accompanying article), “Strategic Board” forms the base. Simply stated, the effectiveness of your advancement program is inextricably linked to your school’s overall stability, and the Board is the guarantor of stability. When the Board operates strategically—focusing on sustaining financial viability and excellence for future generations of students—every aspect of school operations performs at a higher level, including advancement efforts.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Summer Program: The Third ‘Semester’—Lower and Middle School
Volume 40 No. 5 // April 17, 2015
In the upper school, planning the summer program as the third semester (S3) provides a way to develop the curriculum more profoundly.1 In the middle and lower schools, it is slowly going to transition to an intentional process that builds on traditional fun and challenge. Those programs of sports, arts, and general and specific interest camps will continue to be a viable model as schools meet the marketplace need for child care during the summer break. However, schools more proactive in their approaches might see this move to S3 as an opportunity to challenge their paradigms. There will be two changes that impact what schools do—intentionality and innovation.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Financial Sustainability, Value, and Unnecessary Anxiety
Volume 40 No. 5 // April 17, 2015
Every business enterprise, whether nonprofit or for-profit, has a basic responsibility to attend to sustainability. Businesses establish a mission to serve their clientele, whether shareholders or stakeholders, with the intention of being successful for the long term. However, in the private-independent school sector, sustainability and the discussions around this topic have become increasingly focused on a misplaced concern. Conversations about sustainability often begin from the following premise—“Our tuitions have outpaced inflation for years. If we do not address this, the numbers suggest that our schools may not be sustainable.” ISM believes that addressing the sustainability issue in this manner leads to well-intentioned but wrong conclusions.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
The Role of the Board’s Buildings and Grounds Committee
Volume 40 No. 5 // April 17, 2015
Rather like the Finance Committee, it is hard to imagine a school that would not have a Buildings and Grounds Committee. Its role is complementary to the Finance Committee, caring for the current facility (including grounds) and planning for the facility’s development, reinvention, and sometimes expansion into the future. A metric in the Fourth Iteration of the ISM Stability Markers® (Stability Marker K, “Quality of Facilities,” and Marker L,1 “Master Property/Facilities Plan”) provides the role of the Buildings and Grounds Committee. This article will fully articulate what that metric includes.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.