Article Archive

CEO Notebook

Human Resources
| Performance Management

Making Work Meaningful at Your School

To retain talent, school leaders must cultivate clear purpose, mutual trust and opportunities to grow.

5 min read

Feature

Budget
| Enrollment
| Tuition

Public Funding, Private Choices: School Choice Funding This item is protected.

More states than ever are offering school choice funding, but are the strings attached worth it?

11 min read

Feature

Change Management
| Culture
| Leadership

Child’s Play: An Interview with 2025 NBOA Annual Meeting Speaker Kyle Scheele

Building a financial plan or new organizational chart can be creative work – we just need to find ways to exercise the creative muscle.

6 min read

Business Intelligence

Budget
| Salary
| Tuition

Faith and School Finances This item is protected.

Independent schools with a religious affiliation are more reliant on annual giving than all other types of independent schools.

4 min read

Heather Hoerle (center) accepting the 2022 Sarah Daignault Outstanding Support for Independent Schools Award with Shields and Rose Neubert, the 2021–23 NBOA Board Chair.

Projections

Boards and Trustees
| Enrollment
| Leadership

A Fond Farewell

A conversation with Heather Hoerle as she reflects on a career serving independent schools, from NAIS to EMA.

6 min read

Blue and red pencils on red and blue background stock photo

CEO Notebook

Culture
| Human Resources
| Leadership

Politics on Campus: Supporting Our Schools, Knowing the Rules

As the November election approaches, it’s critical to actively cultivate campus culture.

4 min read

Stock image of schoolgirl sitting on stack of books, shadow of university student on wall

Budget
| Leadership
| Planning

Lessons from a Start-Up School This item is protected.

Jewish Leadership Academy’s business leader shared what he learned about perpetual project management in the three years leading up to the school’s opening.

4 min read

Endowment
| Investments

How You Spend vs. What You Spend

If your school’s endowment policy uses the Moving Average methodology, you may want to consider the Constant Growth methodology instead.

6 min read

stock illustration of a man painting over another person's speech bubble

Accounting
| Culture
| Risk Management

Can You Say Anything? Free Speech in Independent Schools

How laws and regulations on free speech apply to nonprofit independent schools as well as policy and cultural considerations.

6 min read

Strategies

Culture
| Diversity and Inclusion
| Financial Aid

Clarifying Financial Aid for Multilingual Families This item is protected.

Making the process clearer to parents whose dominant language is not English can result in significant community enrichment.

4 min read

CEO Notebook

Endowment
| Planning
| Research

Your Peers Are Entering Their School’s Data. Have You?

More than 1,000 member schools have started data entry so they can reap the benefits of robust analysis and benchmarking in the new year.

4 min read

Change Management
| Planning

Using Future Studies To Cope with Top Challenges

School leaders need to envision multiple possible outcomes when facing risks and opportunities.

5 min read

Rocket Launch with Rising Graph on Blue Background

Endowment
| Investments

Strategies for Boosting Unrestricted Endowment

Schools with smaller and larger endowment may benefit from different approaches.

6 min read

Compensation Strategies
| Labor Law
| Legal

Sleeping on the Job? and Other Compensable Time Questions This item is protected.

Fundraising events, coaching, trips, and training programs offer great opportunities for school employees but can create confusion about paying non-exempt or hourly employees.

5 min read