This year's award recipients — Frank Aloise and Dana Tufts — have merged schools, counseled peers and served as exceptional leaders.
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CEO Notebook
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Human Resources
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Leadership
Consider making your New Year's resolution to develop more of who you already are — in other words, to play to your strengths.
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Whatever our personal feelings about the presidential election, we in the independent school community can unite in a shared understanding of the potential impact on independent schools.
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CEO Notebook
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Admission
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Financial Aid
Where are independent schools with regard to access and affordability? At the SSS Financial Aid Conference in Philadelphia last week, a panel of four other independent school leaders joined me in discussing this dif
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Independent school leaders often ask me for advice regarding what they should be thinking about to help ensure a financially healthy future. It's a tough and important question, with an answer that's difficult to distill
3 min read
CEO Notebook
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Communication
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Financial Aid
Recently, an NBOA staff member heard about an independent school that noted many visitors to its website, particularly the tuition page, clicked away and never returned. The school took steps to raise the profile of its
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Strange but true: Schools are beginning to teach students not just to learn, but to unlearn. After reading about unlearning strategies at NBOA member school Beaver Country Day School in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, I'm
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CEO Notebook
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Communication
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Membership
I have often written and talked about the unique role that NBOA plays in the independent school community — how we fulfill our mission to provide you with best practices, staff support and technology to advance bus
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It's often said that culture eats strategy for breakfast. I say it myself because I firmly believe the "right strategy" can be paralyzed or its efficacy greatly diminished if it misaligns with a school's culture. In the
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Not many people closely link the work of the business officer and marketing, but I do. Whether your school employs a dedicated marketing professional or embeds the marketing function within the advancement or admissions
3 min read
Independent school business officers tend to be hard on themselves when it comes to determining optimal pricing models for their schools. You often ask, with a critical tone in your voice, "Why haven't we figured out the
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Our profession is experiencing a generational shift that is both exciting and troubling.
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CEO Notebook
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Leadership
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Risk Management
After last week's heartbreaking shootings in Orlando, it's comforting to be spending this week among what I consider to be the best kind of professional company: independent school business officers and business office s
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CEO Notebook
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Boards and Trustees
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Governance
As you wrap up what I hope has been another successful year and develop your summer to-do list, NBOA is planning ahead as well. Part of that process involves identifying individuals within the national independent school
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Last month, more than 20 of your peers and colleagues spent 90 minutes asking one question after another of Grace Lee, NBOA Vice President Legal Affairs. The following week, some 360 schools participated in an NBOA webin
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CEO Notebook
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Boards and Trustees
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Leadership
"I'm afraid that schools the size of mine are on the verge of extinction." Last week, while I was on the road in Denver, a business officer from a small independent school (enrollment less than 200 students) confided thi
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Every city has a story, but few illustrate important leadership lessons like the story of Chattanooga, Tennessee. That's right, the city that many of us know for a catchy tune about a choo choo is so much more—and
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I saw the transformation firsthand in higher education. As technology played a larger role within academic programs, and colleges and universities migrated more operations online, technology directors—who typically repor
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With the spring thaw comes the inevitable rush of construction activity on independent school campuses. This year, the shadow of financial sustainability might make those mounting expenditures even more concerning than u
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Many NBOA members tell me that if they have one great takeaway from a professional development program—a new idea, a solution to a problem, a sample form—then their investment of time and money is worthwhile.
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