Running a Private School

1. SCVNGR is the newest social media tool on the scene. Tell us a bit about it, how it works and how it came into being?

Founded by CEO and “Chief Ninja” Seth Priebatsch, SCVNGR started as a project at Princeton University. Noticing his friends’ fingers glued to their phones, Priebatsch wanted to come up with a way to leverage mobile technology as an engagement tool. SCVNGR started focusing on universities, museums, and other institutions but has now expanded to a business with more than 1000 partners and 65 employees.

Used as a recruitment and retention tool at over 350 Universities, SCVNGR is part game and part game platform. Playing is simple and students go places on campus, do challenges, and earn points. Students can play custom challenges and treks on SCVNGR’s iPhone/Android app or via SMS.

As a proud Roxbury Latin alum, Jeff Kirchick decided to introduce SCVNGR to independent high schools over the summer. Since July, Exeter, Andover, and Roxbury Latin have all signed on. In regards to the

Several private schools have received major gifts over the past several years. For purposes of this article, we shall define a major gift as one hundred thousand dollars or more. In addition to highlighting the generosity of the donors, we also want to illustrate how the gifts are being used. But before we begin looking at some examples of donors and their gifts, you are probably wondering why people would want to give large sums of money to their schools in the first place.

The main reason your wealthy graduates can and should give major gifts to your school is the simple fact that they know your school. They understand its mission. They appreciate the foundations which their school gave them for success in college and in their careers and adult lives.

The other reason why your graduates will be more sympathetic to your asking for a major gift is that you have kept in touch. Besides your Annual Appeal and the regular alumni events which you hold, you have sent out e-newsletters at least once a semester. Your potential major donors know that the hockey rink needs replacing. They understand the need for endowing teaching positions. They are sympathetic with your determination to develop a strong financial aid pool so that you can diversify your student body. They know that one of your fondest hopes is for the building of an arts center with practice studios and a theater. Well, you get the idea. Your wishlist

Bullying has been part of our human existence since time began. While bullying goes by different names and takes several different forms, whether you call it intimidation or threatening, whether you do it verbally or with your body language, bullying is upsetting and unnerving behavior. Fortunately for us parents, it is completely unacceptable in most private schools, as it should be everywhere else. Most private school discipline codes have strict policies concerning bullying. Be aware that these policies are enforced quickly because students are governed by contract law. In other words, the contract which you signed with the school spells out very clearly the consequences of any infractions of the school's discipline code. Those consequences, such as suspension or expulsion, will happen swiftly.

Naturally, like just about anything else you can think of, bullying has gone electronic. If you thought that bullying was hard to detect in its analog forms, you could imagine how much more difficult electronic or cyberbullying, as it is now called, is to detect. So, where does cyberbullying fit in? As I noted, cyberbullying or bullying done electronically is extremely difficult for us adults to detect. The reason why is that cyberbullying lurks in the virtual shadows created by social media and smartphones. Unless you are following somebody and can monitor their various social media accounts or have access to their mobile device, you cannot definitively prove that cyberbullying is actually occurring. I used the term social media, which used

Raising money for non-profit organizations such as private schools has never been tougher or more complicated. A series of major disasters both at home and abroad can have a negative impact on fundraising efforts, so connected has our global community become. However, the advantage private schools have is their built-in donor pool. Alumni and alumnae, parents, grandparents, and friends comprise this group of past, present, and future donors. The trick is to figure out how to get them to give consistently and in line with their financial resources.

For purposes of this article, our focus is not on the older, more established schools such as Exeter, Hotchkiss, Middlesex, and so on. These schools have long histories of successful fundraising behind them. Instead, our focus here is on the thousands of much smaller, much newer, less financially strong private schools which serve communities all over the United States. These are schools that rely heavily on their top administrators and small support staff to handle all the development and fundraising needs. These dedicated people are, for the most part, experienced professionals who believe in what they do. They also know that their donor base has significant potential, although just how large that potential is unknown. Even more, vexing is figuring out how to reach those donors capable of making major gifts.

First of all, let's break our fund-raising into three distinct sections and understand what it is that you are trying to achieve with these critical but separate fund-raising

Your worst nightmare is unfolding. The Board has asked you, as Head, to prepare a strategic plan for the school. Before you even start, consider these three tips.

1. Conduct a Rigorous Situation Assessment

A plan is only as good as the facts on which it is based. For this reason, a situation assessment is essential to support informed decision-making in strategic planning. A situation assessment addresses three major topics.

Know the Board's Appetite for Change

Be sure to scope the Board's appetite for change. After all, the Board will ultimately be asked to approve the strategic plan and the allocation of resources to support its implementation. If the Board doesn't buy into your plan, then the strategic planning process could come to an inglorious end, when presented to that very same unsuspecting Board by the soon-to-be ex-Head. With the Board on your side, at least you can do some proper advance preparation and lobbying on issues you know the Board finds difficult to accept.

Document the Way Things Work Today

Don't assume that you - or anyone else, especially the Board - understands the way things actually happen at the school.

• Prepare a detailed description of every major functional area.
• Include everything from the administrative functions through to the academic functions.
• Identify who is responsible for the functional activity, the activities being managed, the way the activities are managed, staffing, and budget.

Without these descriptions in hand, it becomes almost impossible to describe how any change proposed in the strategic plan