ISM defines culture as “the pattern of customs, ideas, and assumptions driving your staff’s collective set of professional attitudes and behaviors.” What happens in and between the departments of admission, parent relations, development, and business has strong impact on the capacity of the school to effectively recruit students, develop relationships, and enhance finances necessary for programmatic excellence over time. Operations Administrators (those who report to the Head but are not Academic Administrators, e.g., the Development Director, Admission Director, Director of Parent Relations, and Business Manager) are leaders of these functions and must direct their energies in an optimum direction.

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Every School Head knows that keeping an eye on the “strategic ball” while responding to the day-to-day pressures of managing and leading a school is neither simple nor easy. Indeed, those daily pressures can destroy any headship in the sense of reducing the role to that of brush-fire containment. The strategic components in your role—those components critical to your school’s viability in the marketplace—must remain high on your week-to-week list of focal points, or both your headship and your institution’s long-term strength can deteriorate.

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The main means of enhancing your advisory program will be through the advisers themselves. Formal solicitation of their assessment of the program provides evaluative data while confirming the high value you place on this program.

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All U.S. employers, including private schools, must complete and retain Employment Eligibility Verification Forms (Form I-9) for individuals they employ. This responsibility stems from Section 274A of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which requires employers to hire only individuals authorized to work in the United States. The completed forms are not, however, filed with the government; they must be retained by the employer and be accessible for inspection by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC), and the Department of Labor (DOL).

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How do the members of the Management Team know the "right" things to do in the coming year? While the strategic plan (resulting in the annual agenda) drives what the Board is to do, the Management Team has less clear direction as to how to create the annual administration agenda. The following example shows how to make this important document a reality.

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The Comprehensive Admission Model (CAM) provides a model through which the foundational structure, language, and processes of admission are defined. The CAM creates an all-inclusive framework so that a strategically positioned Board can charge the Head and Admission Office with identifying prospective families; uncovering their interests; and admitting, enrolling, and matriculating mission-appropriate students whose families can be integrated into the culture of the school. It provides an evaluative framework in which to analyze your admission process and discover its strengths and challenges.

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You, along with many private-independent school leaders, may be questioning the position of Advanced Placement courses in your school: Does the AP curriculum truly support/deliver the mission of your school? If AP is mission-appropriate in your school, recognize the impact it can have on your schedule, your students, and the education you provide.

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Whether your advisory program emphasizes one-to-one advising or group advisory (or probably some of both), the intended beneficiaries of these services are your school’s students. While advisers’ impressions about students’ individual and/or collective engagement in advisory are helpful in gauging the successes of the program, they are not a substitute for well-conceived, formal surveying of students themselves as a resource for enhancing your program.

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Salary alone is not enough to attract and retain a quality faculty. When looking for jobs today, teachers have expectations about benefits. While health coverage is the most costly of all the benefits your school may offer, it is critical for the recruitment and retention of valued faculty.

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Everyone — especially those of us who have spent any time in New Orleans and the Gulf region — is distressed by the soul-wrenching pictures and almost surreal stories emanating from the region devastated by hurricane Katrina. Many issues are now being debated concerning how relief efforts could have been enhanced, what could have been done to prevent the massive losses, and how disaster policies and actions can be improved in the future. The key question is: What can we learn from Katrina?

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