These guidelines are presented in key areas related to financial management and operations. Each area begins with a purpose statement to outline its relevance to school operations. The guidelines are followed by a list of evidences of achievement. Due to the wide range of missions, sizes, and resources of independent schools, evidence of achievement is divided into three categories: minimum compliance, effective practice and best practice. If a practice is vital to independent school business operations, it will be noted as fundamental. Additionally, red flags are included, and are intended to identify areas of concern that the school should address. Finally, a checklist has also been included to assist schools that wish to conduct their own selfassessment related to all of the guidelines. Understanding how and why a school approaches its finances and operations is a critical aspect of assessing what is needed to support an evolving school delivering a 21st century education. We hope these guidelines provide a framework for thoughtful analysis and discussion.

A workbook about Independent school capital financing: https://www.nais.org/Articles/Documents/capitalFinancingWyeRiver2006-03.pdf

What is MaiaLearning? MaiaLearning is a platform that engages middle and high school students in planning for college and careers. Students Students develop profiles using built-in, age-appropriate assessments. They explore recommended careers; and build academic and career plans to reach those that interest them. They track assignments, deadlines, and commitments. They set goals, write journals, catalog experiences, and build portfolios to present their unique abilities. High school students research colleges, build college plans, request recommendations, and submit application requests. Counselors Counselors use MaiaLearning for goal setting, assignments, and lesson plans. They handle recommendations and college visits, and submit application documents. They report on student progress and  communicate with those who need help. Administrators Administrators see up-to-the-minute engagement statistics and a wealth of reports on progress and results. Families Families use their linked MaiaLearning accounts to track and support their students' efforts. MaiaLearning is a complete college and career readiness solution: Engaging Easy to Use Well-supported Website: https://www.maialearning.com/#/learn_more-overview

Google Classroom streamlines assignments, boosts collaboration, and fosters seamless communication to make teaching more productive and meaningful. Classroom is a free web service for schools, non-profits, and anyone with a personal Google Account. Classroom makes it easy for learners and instructors to connect—inside and outside of schools. Go to their website: https://edu.google.com/k-12-solutions/classroom/?modal_active=none Benefits Easy setup—Teachers can set up a class, invite students and co-teachers. In the class stream, they then share information—assignments, announcements, and questions. Saves time and paper—Teachers can create classes, distribute assignments, communicate, and stay organized, all in one place. Better organization—Students can see assignments on the To-do page, in the class stream, or on the class calendar. All class materials are automatically filed into Google Drive folders. Enhanced communication and feedback—Teachers can create assignments, send announcements, and instantly start class discussions. Students can share resources with each other and interact in the class stream or by email. Teachers can also quickly see who has or hasn't completed the work, and give direct, real-time feedback and grades. Works with apps you use—Classroom works with Google Docs, Calendar, Gmail, Drive, and Forms. Affordable and secure—Classroom is free. Classroom contains no ads, never uses your content or student data for advertising purposes. What you can do with Classroom? Teachers Create and manage classes, assignments, and grades. Give direct, real-time feedback and grades. Students Keep track of classwork and materials. Share resources and interact in class stream or by email. Submit assignments. Get feedback and grades. Guardians Get an email summary of their student’s work. This summary includes information about missing work, upcoming assignments, and class activity. Note: Guardians can’t sign in to Classroom directly. They need to receive email summaries through another account.Administrators Create, view, or delete any class in their domain. Add or remove students and teachers from classes. View work in all classes in their domain.

In their words: Empowering your community with the world's best Student Information System and more. https://www.getalma.com/

In their words: Canvas is the LMS that makes teaching and learning (and implementation and adoption and customer support and student success and bragging to your non-Canvas-using peers) easier. Check it out: https://www.canvaslms.com/

In their words: UWC (United World Colleges) is a global education movement that makes education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future.      You have not allowed cookies and this content may contain cookies. If you would like to view this content please Allow Cookies Central to the ethos of UWC is the belief that education can bring together young people from all backgrounds on the basis of their shared humanity, to engage with the possibility of social changethrough courageous action, personal example and selfless leadership. To achieve this, UWC schools and colleges all over the world deliver a challenging and transformational educational experience to a deliberately diverse group of young people, inspiring them to become agents of positive change in line with UWC’s core values: International and intercultural understanding Celebration of difference Personal responsibility and integrity Mutual responsibility and respect Compassion and service Respect for the environment A sense of idealism Personal challenge Action and personal example Today, UWC has 17 schools and colleges on 4 continents, the majority of which focus exclusively on the 16-19 year-old age group: a time when young people’s energy and idealism can be guided towards empathy, responsibility and lifelong action. These colleges teach the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma as their formal curriculum, a qualification that UWC played a major part in developing, while also emphasising the importance of experiential learning, community service and outdoor activities. UWC college students are selected domestically, in more than 155 countries, through UWC’s unique national committee system. Selection is based on demonstrated promise and potential. In accordance with the UWC ethos that education should be independent of the student’s socioeconomic means, 70% of students in their IB Diploma years receive either full or partial financial assistance, based on their needs. UWC also runs shorter educational programmes - conducted at the campuses of its 17 schools and colleges and beyond - increasing the number of people who can have access to a UWC educational experience. UWC fosters a lifelong commitment to social responsibility and, to date, it has inspired a worldwide network of more than 60,000 alumni, who believe it is possible to take action and make a difference locally, nationally and internationally.

Boasting an immersive bilingual program that pairs English instruction with either Mandarin or Spanish, this Manhattan institution — split into an Early Learning Center, Lower School, Middle School, and Upper School — aims to prepare children for the global challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. At the moment, Avenues’s sole location is in New York City, but its leaders hope eventually to establish 20 other campuses across the world, all synced in their curriculum and principles so that students studying in London one semester could easily transition to Buenos Aires for the next, or follow their parents on a trip to Delhi or Mexico City. The first two international campuses will open in Beijing and Sao Paolo in 2017, and 14 campuses are on track to be created by 2021. Even with its single campus, Avenues is already preparing students for international possibilities with the required World Course. The program, created by the Director of International Education Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Dr. Fernando Reims, is a component of each grade level at Avenues and enables students to learn about world religions, developmental economics, and more. Eventually, once additional campuses open around the world, students will work collaboratively with peers on global projects. While all of these academic innovations come with a steep price tag — annual tuition is $43,000 — the for-profit private school provides $4 million in financial aid each year. Avenues was founded by former president of Yale University and former dean of Columbia Law School Benno Schmidt, media and education mogul Chris Whittle (who recently left Avenues), and creator of Greenberg News Networks Alan Greenberg. Schmidt and Whittle had previously worked together to found (in 1992) Edison Schools, a for-profit organization that managed public schools for districts throughout the U.S. and the U.K. — one that is widely credited with having begun the charter school movement. What are the outcomes of Avenues’s innovation? Avenues has yet to graduate its first high school class (though it will in spring 2016), so it is difficult to judge its students’ preparedness for college and beyond. The demand, though, for what Avenues has offered thus far is clearly high among many families: The school’s enrollment has exceeded expectations (by about 32 percent), impressive success that has allowed Avenues to expand its initial pre-K–9 offerings to include grades 10, 11, and 12. The school’s brochures outline its “primary educational objectives”: core academic skills, global preparedness, an area of specialized study, values, life skills, fitness, and entry into higher education. In a great many of these domains, Avenues has already made big strides. For instance, in the academic realm, students apply what they learn through creative projects, such as invention conventions and theater performances in both English and Mandarin. To foster a global perspective (beyond meeting the school's language requirements and taking the World Course), students have dozens of opportunities to travel internationally, and the school has already led trips to Ecuador and Beijing. As far as specialized study is concerned, students select a subject they will focus on mastering beginning in ninth grade, and ultimately create a related capstone project, such as a thesis or portfolio, in 12th grade. Several parents interviewed for a local newspaper explain that they’re happy with how receptive teachers and administrators are to feedback — going so far as to alter the schedule of the school’s signature language immersion programming to address parental concerns. Other parents note the success of the program as their kids Skype with friends in Mandarin and are able to chat with native speakers. How is Avenues’s innovation relevant to the larger ed space? While several universities have set their sights on creating a global network of campuses, this idea is still relatively new to K–12 education — and Avenues is leading the way with its ambitious plans. Whereas a couple of other Manhattan private schools have opened some international campuses, the scope of Avenues’s expansion is unrivaled. Once it reaches full capacity, this network could allow seamless exchanges not only for students and families, but also for teachers and administrators, thus giving these education professionals the ability to share best practices around the globe. The possibilities of such international connections are thrilling: Avenues students in Paris and Moscow could compare how their countries commemorate World War II, while a teacher from Avenues Rio de Janeiro could create a Portuguese language program in Sydney or Seoul. A global exchange at this scale could set the standard for future international K–12 educational networks. (Repost from: https://www.noodle.com/articles/innovative-schools-2015#avenues)

Founded in 2013 in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco, AltSchool has a roster of financial backers who would be the envy of any startup: Andreessen Horowitz, Mark Zuckerburg, Pierre Omidyar, and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. The school was created by former Google engineer and Aardvark founder Max Ventilla, who sought to update the education system to prepare his children to graduate into the world of the 2030s. Ventilla argues that parents wouldn’t accept transportation and a health care system that are stuck in the 1900s, so he is seeking to treat education, which has changed relatively little since the Industrial Revolution, with the same reinvigorating spirit. The school has garnered such attention from investors because of its focus on personalized learning and its dedication to developing new software that could be employed widely across the ed space. When a student enters an AltSchool, teachers create an individualized Learner Portrait, which details the student’s interests, strengths, and passions. This is then integrated with the school’s learning objectives, which are tailored to students’ individual needs. Once these elements are combined, students receive weekly “playlists,” which detail goals and activities they must complete. To complete the list, students spend about 30 percent of their day on their devices (laptops or tablets), working on game-based learning applications that help them develop academic skills. In addition to this time, students also work collaboratively on projects and take weekly field trips, whether these are in-class “trips” facilitated by outside experts who teach a new topic or outdoor adventures to new parts of the city. The AltSchool network consists of microschools, each a single room of 20–25 students in grades pre-K through 8, plus two teachers. In this way, the network is a throwback to the one-room schoolhouse, with which schools were integrated among commercial storefronts. Four new AltSchools opened this fall, and the network now totals eight campuses distributed around San Francisco, Palo Alto, and New York City. Monitoring students is an important part of the AltSchool model, and this is done in a variety of ways. Cameras are installed in classrooms so teachers can evaluate the effectiveness of activities, and there's even an app for parents to follow student progress. Parents, teachers, and students also meet to evaluate students’ portfolios of work and modify learning plans. AltSchool is a private B-corporation, or Benefit Corporation, meaning that it in addition to turning a profit (AltSchools are private, for-profit schools), the organization aims to have a positive impact on society, which is part of a B-corporation’s legal documents. Its yearly tuition currently runs just under $21,000 — a price that, while high, is generally lower than that of top private schools in the areas in which AltSchools are located. It is also worth noting that 40 percent of AltSchool students are on some sort of financial aid (and teachers do not know which of their students are receiving financial help). What are the outcomes of AltSchool’s innovation? In the two years since its founding, long-term outcomes have not emerged yet — but with the starry profiles of the network’s investors (and immense backing budget), AltSchools are ones to watch in the coming years. While it is difficult to gauge how students will do once they finish at the schools, the reputation that AltSchools have built has made them attractive to investors — with $100 million raised in May — and prospective families alike. The new AltSchool that opened in Brooklyn this fall received 900 applications for the 60 available spots. In testimonials about their experiences with the school, parents explain how kids are thrilled to go to class, and cite the gains they see in curiosity and intellectual engagement at home. One mother describes how her six-year-old went from being a timid public school student to a thriving AltSchool learner who was excited to receive her own books and bookshelf from her teacher. AltSchool teachers seem to be especially enthusiastic about the network’s pedagogical methods. Whether in testimonials on the AltSchool site or in news articles published in external outlets, teachers often talk about how the AltSchool system really allows them to get to know their students, and how closely they work with engineers who are always at the school, trying to understand how they can improve the technology so that educators themselves can spend more time focusing on students. How is AltSchool’s innovation relevant to the larger ed space? The reason that so many investors are interested in collaborating with AltSchool is because the network is looking to do more than create a collection of microschools. The main goal of the organization is to create software that consolidates and facilitates the many facets of K–12 education — from admissions to enrollment to teaching to connecting with parents. The goal, in turn, is for this software to be widely implemented in schools across the country and possibly the world. The AltSchool team is composed in equal parts of educators, engineers, and operators, all working together to see how the product they create works in their own classrooms. The AltSchool network is certainly not the only group trying to solve these problems — there are many education technology companies trying to address school needs via streamlined platforms — but it is the only organization to have created schools around its product, with the ultimate objective of improving education and the world at large. AltSchool is also innovating the way we think of school networks. As opposed to opening several large schools that need massive infrastructure efforts and expensive land acquisition, the AltSchool microschools, TechCrunch explains, offer low-cost, small-space solutions to the increased demand for schools in urban areas. *This link will lead you to the Dogpatch AltSchool, the first school founded in the network. (Repost: https://www.noodle.com/articles/innovative-schools-2015#altschool)

Founded in a set of small Santa Monica bungalows in 1971, Crossroads School was developed by Dr. Paul Cummins, Dr. Rhoda Makoff, and a small group of teachers and parents. The school was a pioneer for social-emotional learning and holistic education; Cummins even wrote a book about his pedagogical approach, called For Mortal Stakes: Solutions for Schools and Society. The school — whose name was inspired by the Robert Frost poem, “The Road Not Taken” — characterizes its five main commitments as academic excellence, the arts, the greater community, diversity, and the physical well-being and full human potential of each student. For instance, the school is committed to giving out $7 million in financial aid to ensure that it is accessible to all students who are interested. When it comes to a devotion to the greater community, Crossroads was one of the first schools to have community service as a graduation requirement. At present, students must complete a total of 45 hours of service to graduate, including one 25-hour project, one 15-hour project, and 10 additional hours of service. Arts carry equal weight with academics at Crossroads, and students participate in “life skills” courses meant to develop self-esteem, responsibility, and decision-making skills. In these classes, students often explore identity, culture, and self-reflection through group therapy (“Council”), writing activities, and guided meditations. During their senior year of upper school, students attend a five-day retreat at the Ojai Foundation. Environmental leadership is also a critical component at the school, and all students are required to complete a place-based natural education class, called “EOE” (Environmental and Outdoor Education). These classes often take the form of week-long excursions, including camping and studying poetry in the Owens Valley. The school recently completed construction on a large Science Education and Research Facility, which includes a native plant garden and a monarch butterfly preserve. The tight-knit community and open curriculum at Crossroads both draw phenomenal teachers, whom students all call by their first names. These teachers are so influential that at times they get write-ups in the Los Angeles Times. For instance, Jim Hosney, a respected film and literature teacher, taught at the school for 25 years, and actress Zooey Deschanel, an alumna of the school, has gone on record as theorizing that “everything in Hollywood is directly or indirectly influenced by [him].” It should be noted that Crossroads is one of the few K–12 schools in the country to offer critical studies in film. What are the outcomes of Crossroads’s innovation? The school’s graduates go on to do remarkably well, with 98–100 percent continuing on to pursue higher education. Because the arts are so deeply woven into the curriculum, many graduates become lauded filmmakers, actors, writers, musicians, and visual artists — joining the likes of Crossroads alumni Kate Hudson, Maya Rudolph, Zosia Mamet, and Baron Davis. Throughout its history, the school has accomplished many impressive feats, such as cultivating a renowned chamber orchestra (which played at the inauguration of the Los Angeles Walt Disney Concert Hall) and receiving the Columbia University Scholastic Press Award for several publications. Its holistic approach to student development, which also focuses on encouraging learners to lead active and healthy lives, has led the school to win several athletic championships, including two state championships in the Upper School. The school's curricular trailblazing has also led to recognition from higher education institutions. The school was one of the first to opt out of the Advanced Placement program and create its own high-level courses, which have been so successful that the University of California system has approved them for Honors credit. How is Crossroads’s innovation relevant to the larger ed space? Crossroads is a part of the Progressive Education Network, and as one of the first private schools to devote itself to social justice and holistic education, it has served as a model for other progressive schools across the country and as a source of inspiration for educators. For instance, Vicky Shorr, writer, political activist, and co-founder of the Archer School for Girls, spoke about Crossroads founder Cummins's vision: “It's easy to look at the kind of progressive education that has become the norm in top schools throughout Los Angeles and assume that it's always been that way, but it hasn't. When Paul Cummins founded Crossroads School, in 1971 … private school was for the rich, the white, the privileged. But Paul Cummins thought it was time for that to change.” Crossroads has been among the first of several schools to institute various initiatives, from doing away with AP courses in favor of its own rigorous offerings to eliminating cheerleading squads (which students believed encouraged gender discrimination). The school was also one of the first to invite thought leaders to present on and discuss issues of microaggression, diversity, and activism, believing that these conversations are not meant solely for higher education, and that they begin at the root of our learning experiences. (Repost: https://www.noodle.com/articles/innovative-schools-2015#crossroads)

With no campus or brick-and-mortar facility to speak of, THINK Global School(TGS) is anything but traditional. The approach it takes blends world-schooling with the peer and faculty network of traditional schools. Its high school students study in three different countries each year — one for each term — as they work toward an International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma. Instruction is almost entirely in English, though the school offers foreign language classes in Spanish and Mandarin Chinese. In addition, students have to learn the basics of languages native to the places in which they’re living for the semester. This year, students will travel to Sweden, Bosnia, and Italy. Last year, they experienced educational opportunities ranging from visiting the Acropolis Museum in Athens to taking biology lessons in the Costa Rican rainforest. As students travel, they learn in all kinds of environments, including city streets, tribal villages, and science labs around the world. Learning is further facilitated by a heavy investment in technology, with each student receiving a MacBook Pro, iPad, and iPhone to complete classwork. These resources are enhanced by a Guest Speaker series, which has put students in touch with influential leaders like Prince Reza Pahlavi of Iran, Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, and World Wildlife Foundation president Yolanda Kakabadse. Community service is another fundamental component of the TGS philosophy. In each country, students participate in advocacy and charity projects that connect them to the community in which they are living. In the past, these have included creating a film documentary of the Japanese earthquake-relief efforts and constructing schools in India. In addition to fostering relationships with people around the world, TGS students build close relationships with one another through their travels, as well as with their teachers and advisors. Students are each assigned a personal advisor who works with them to identify passions, arrange academic assistance, and provide emotional support. What are the outcomes of THINK Global School’s innovation? This program takes global learning to a whole new level: Students are face-to-face with residents of various countries, learning about new cultures and acquiring skills constantly. Though local flavor seeps into each semester of study, graduates receive high-quality, comprehensive college prep, and many have gone on to study at elite colleges all over the world, including Georgetown and Harvard in the United States, King’s College in the U.K., and the American University of Paris in France. On an episode of the school’s podcast, alumni discussed what life is like six months after finishing TGS. They described the necessity of becoming accustomed to a less nomadic academic experience, yet still having an easy and exciting transition to life at their respective universities and appreciating the incredible opportunities afforded to them by TGS. How is THINK Global School’s innovation relevant to the larger ed space? Schools are increasingly talking the talk about global education, but no one seems to be walking the walk quite as much as TGS. Even the most exceptional study abroad programs at the college level do not offer this breadth and depth of international experience. Perhaps the relevance of the THINK Global model to the larger education world is its rejection of what we think of as school — that is, its way of showing us how limited our conception of education is. Insisting on constant movement, stimulation, and inspiration, its programming flaunts how exciting this approach is. Most schools successfully bring lessons to life by incorporating an experience, such as a field trip or project, into an educational unit; but TGS weaves unending education into three years' worth of enriching encounters that teach students not only to embrace and interact with other cultures, but also to strive to improve any community they join. (reposted https://www.noodle.com/articles/innovative-schools-2015#think)

The Mountain School is an alternative school affiliated with Milton Academy. It enables 11th-graders, who hail from public and private schools across the country, to spend a semester of tightly-packed days cultivating the food they eat and working closely with professors in rigorous courses that involve experiential learning and public speaking. Students develop close relationships with faculty members, since they all live and work together on the Vermont farm. In addition to taking standard courses such as a foreign language (like Spanish or Chinese), physics, and English, one of the required courses is environmental science, which is offered not in the classroom, but outside in the fields and forests. Although students should be mindful of coordinating Mountain School courses so they are in the appropriate sequence (given their home school’s requirements), all courses that students take at the Mountain School easily transfer as AP or honors credits; the Mountain School’s curriculum sometimes even allows students to get ahead of their classes back home. Unsurprisingly, access to technology is minimal at the Mountain School — there is no cell phone service, and there is limited Internet access. The program accepts 45 students from different states and backgrounds and encourages them to form close bonds with each other. Each student is assigned an advisor, who works with no more than four students per semester. Advisors and students meet at least once a week for half an hour to discuss their experiences in the program. Admission to the Mountain School is need-blind. While the tuition ratematches that of Milton, the school encourages students to apply for financial assistance if they need it. What are the outcomes of the Mountain School’s innovation? In the last seven years, the seven most common colleges that Mountain School alumni have attended were Middlebury, Yale, Brown, Colorado College, Oberlin, Carleton, and Princeton. Among the greatest benefits of attending the Mountain School is the strong alumni network — and regular alumni events — that graduates enjoy. Additionally, program alumni have access to a unique funding opportunitiy in the form of a grant called the Garden Hill Fund, which sponsers former Mountain Schoolers who create projects for the benefit others. Beyond these tangible benefits, students report experiencing significant personal growth and cultivating strong lifelong friendships. How is the Mountain School’s innovation relevant to the larger ed space? With each cohort of students, the Mountain School demonstrates just how effective low-tech learning methods can be. In a survey of its graduates, the Mountain School reported that most attendees in 2012 had not farmed, camped outside, or lived with a group of peers prior to attending the program. These experiences are rare for many teens, and while the ed space tends to embrace opportunities created by technological advances, the Mountain School directs students in a different direction — by helping them get in touch with nature and with one another through an intense living and learning experience. The Mountain School’s impact and influence attest to the intellectual, social, and emotional growth that an environmentally-immersive educational approach can facilitate. (Reposted from https://www.noodle.com/articles/innovative-schools-2015#mountain)

Summit has a network of progressive charter schools in the USA, but it also makes their learning platform available to any school or teacher who trains in "The Summit Way". They created this document The Science of Summit to share their framework as well as the research that backs it up.

In their own words: "Brightworks is a school that reimagines education. By taking the best practices from both early childhood education and hands-on, project-based experiential learning, we strive to meet students’ needs in a flexible, mixed-age environment that breaks the traditional walls between school and the community outside the classroom. We offer a broad-spectrum learning environment designed to encourage creative capacity, tenacity, and citizenship. Using the Brightworks arc as a framework for deeply engaged learning, children develop the ability to find wonder and delight in the exploration of any topic, to practice working together to turn ideas into reality, and to learn how to communicate what they have done and why – all in the context of a diverse community of collaborators, families, volunteers, and supporters." Look at their Charter Brightworks is an innovative, super amazing k-12 school. Check out HOW THEY LEARN

Connecting the Dots is another broad EFS framework created by Stan Kozak and Susan Elliott. They have compiled what they believe to be Key Strategies that Transform Learning for Environmental Education, Citizenship and Sustainability

Shelburne Farms has created this wonderful GUIDE TO EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY They were big collaborators on the Cloud Benchmarks and have been at the forefront of the EFS movement. Also check out their entire Sustainable Schools Project with the mission of cultivating change in education.

Education for a Sustainable Future: Benchmarks for Individual and Social Learning is released by The Journal of Sustainability Education. This 70 page account is authored by, and represents the current and best thinking of, forty-two scholars and practitioners of the field of Education for Sustainability (EfS). The Benchmarks include the Big Ideas, Thinking Skills, Applied Knowledge, Dispositions, Actions, and Community Connections that define Education for Sustainability. They embody essential elements that administrators, curriculum professionals, faculty, board and community members may adopt: to align goals; to self-assess performance; and to intentionally and effectively educate for the future we want by design. In addition, the Benchmarks embody the consensus that our field needs to demonstrate the impact of EfS and to catalyze wide spread implementation.