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On Being An Effective Leader

The crashing over the United States in the fourth quarter of 2023 seems to me to have been inevitable.

• I will leave it to far more qualified writers than I to explore the causes and effects of such a vast disturbance.
• However, I recommend that you take the time to read source materials and understand the issues involved.
• I also want to remind the heads of private day and boarding schools that they can and should learn three critical lessons from what we all are experiencing.
• The chief officer of any institution must be a listener, a learner, and a leader.

1. Listen

Overwhelming expressions of opinion don't come out of nowhere.

• It's like you and I putting a pot of water on the stove and turning the dial to high.
• You know the pot could and will boil, but you can continue your business until then. Right?
• Wrong! Before you know it, the pot is boiling uncontrollably all over the place.

Don't ignore issues you hear about on your campus.

• It doesn't matter whether it's a member of your cleaning crew, your physics teacher, or a member of the board of trustees.
• Every voice is important.
• You must listen carefully to each and every one.

Read articles such as Dr. Susan Whitbourne's

Planning for the future growth of your school in these uncertain times is a challenging exercise. The object of this essay is to give you some guidelines to help you and your trusted advisors plan for the next five years. I am writing this for small schools to help you understand the process that large schools with ample resources to hire consultants and strategic planners use to plan their future growth.

Include the following components in your Plan For Future Growth should have

1. Develop an overview of what you want to achieve.
2. Investigate the competition.
3. Examine your organization.
4. Develop an implementation plan.
5. Develop a marketing strategy.
6. Outline the risks your school faces.
7. Hold information sessions with members of your school community.
8. Track your progress towards your objectives.

Overview

Keep your overview brief yet comprehensive. It should explain the goals of your Plan for Future Growth. For example, if your area is experiencing rapid growth, refer to that as the underlying reason for building your Plan for Future Growth. Then write something like, "Anytown has had an influx of new families at a rate exceeding national averages. As a result, we aim to prepare for the demand for private school seats by adding one class to each grade over the next five years."

Include the important points of your Plan. The overview is a summary, not a detailed list of the things you wish to accomplish.

Investigate your competition.

First of all, know who your competition is. Use ÌÇÐÄÔ­´´ to search for

Signs that your school might be failing don't suddenly appear all at once like a flashing neon sign. Instead, they appear gradually over the course of weeks, months, and years. I am targeting small private schools with these remarks and suggestions, hoping that you will recognize telltale signs of concern long before they become major troubles.

As you and your board of trustees review the list I have set out below, I suggest scoring each item on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 representing the low end and 10 representing the high end. So, for example, as you look at your enrolment data for the past 5 years, if the trend shows a deterioration in enrolment, you would score that item 5 or less. And so on. Then tackle the items on the list that need the most attention.

The following video discusses signs that a business is in trouble. Many of these will apply to a private school, which, after all, is a business.

1. Low enrollment

Let's start with enrollment. Filling your school's seats is essential for balancing your budget. If you are having trouble doing that, then you need to find out why you are not able to fill all your seats. If you are a seasoned enrolment professional or have one on your board, then seek his advice and follow it. Enrollment professionals will look at a host of

This article has been updated to reflect 2026 data and recent developments.

For private day schools seeking to expand their reach and diversify their student body, adding a boarding component has traditionally required significant capital, staffing, and operational expertise. In recent years, however, a growing number of schools have explored a different model, outsourcing residential life to specialized third-party providers.

This approach allows schools to offer a boarding experience without building and managing dormitories independently. The model has gained traction, particularly as international student mobility rebounds and families seek structured, high-quality residential environments.

This article examines how outsourced boarding programs work, why schools adopt them, and how costs and outcomes compare to traditional boarding schools.

What Is an Outsourced Boarding Program?

An outsourced boarding program is a partnership between a day school and an external organization that manages housing, student life, and residential services. The school maintains control over academics and admissions, while the partner organization operates the dormitory and supervises students outside the classroom.

This model is especially appealing to schools that want to:

• Attract international students
• Increase enrollment without expanding campus infrastructure
• Provide a more consistent alternative to homestays
• Enhance their academic profile through greater diversity

For families, the result is a hybrid experience, combining the academic environment of a day school with the structure and supervision of a boarding program.

Case Study: Wilson International’s Model

Wilson International represents one example of this approach. Founded to support private schools in expanding their residential offerings, the company provides housing, staffing, and student life programming in partnership with affiliated schools.

In its early

How sustainable is your school? This article is written with small to medium-sized schools in mind. Larger schools can plan and use professional resources of all kinds to ensure their sustainability for the future. On the other hand, small schools typically have limited resources, to begin with. So with this in mind, I want to look at three aspects of how your school runs and offer some suggestions as to how we can ensure it will run for many years to come. In other words, let's ensure that your school is sustainable and will continue to be sustainable for many more years.

We are going to look at two types of day schools: for-profit schools and not-for-profit schools. A large number of primary schools are what we would describe as for-profit schools. These are the kinds of schools that a well-intentioned, visionary educator has established because she believes in a certain teaching style and wants to reach a certain clientele in her local area. I use the description of well-intentioned advisedly because many of these wonderful people have great pedagogical ideas but lack the business experience to make their school an ongoing reality. Here are some practical steps that the owner of a small primary school should take to ensure that her school stays viable.

Develop a business plan.

When you started your school, you knew that it was not enough to think that you could budget for, say, 50 students and charge tuition at the market rate,