What I’ve Learned This Year - 2010

Since this is the season of celebrating traditions, I'll continue the one I began in 2007...with a little modification.  I always shared three things I learned in the past year in the hope that all of us become life-long learners; however, 3 leads to 4 leads to 5.  So, here are five of the things I've learned this year.

1) Writing is difficult, and what makes it more difficult is that different media require different writing skills.  If you're writing for the Web or Internet, the sentences must be short - lots of white space, and lots of punctuation.  If your paragraph requires more than three or four sentences, turn the points into bullet points.  If there's more than three lines in your paragraph, break it into two paragraphs.

Boatloads of text don't cut it on the Internet.  That may change as people get accustomed to reading electronic book on their Kindles or Nooks, but compare this "What I've Learned" entry to last year's - you'll see a whole new approach.

Fonting, for lack of a better word, is different too.  While black is standard print ink, the most acceptable text color for the Internet is charcoal - maybe an 80% black.  Black on a white light background leads to eyestrain.

Writing for a book, however, is the complete opposite.  I've been used to writing as I speak, then editing for proper grammar, word choice and sentence structure.  Working on a book for the past year has taught me that it's a collaborative task, and working with an editor, a proofreader, and others has taught me that a straightforward style needs to be embellished a little more when it's put into a book.  A book needs to "read well," and not just communicate effectively.

Keep these things in mind when communicating with your parents, prospective parents, donors, and other constituencies.

2) There are NO quick solutions to any of the problems we're experiencing.  A system of Advancement must be put into place in every school.  It's a system of 5 systems - Development, Retention, Enrollment, Asset Management and Marketing.  Failure to institute all elements of the system, or a linear approach - that is, sticking to a mindset of "Let's do one thing at a time," will result in the closure of the school.   Further, it must be realized that short-term timelines will bring short-term successes, and significant successes will only happen in the long term.  School that keep planning on a year to year basis offer limited or no hope to their families, also contributing to their eventual demise.

The two additional "learnings" from this past year stem from this one.  They are:

3) Leadership requires vision.  All schools require joint leadership today - leader and a board.  There are schools of thought out there today that speak to the successes of "Board Governance," while others speak to "individually led" schools as the model of success.  I have learned that both approaches are flawed, in that they favor one over the other.  The successful school today embraces the positive aspects of both approaches.  The "Why" of the school is the result of the interaction of the leader and the board.  The "What" of the vision is the responsibility of the leader; the "How" of bringing that vision to fulfillment is the responsibility of the board.  Vision automatically assumes a long-term mindset, congruent with the type that is necessary for advancement successes to occur.  Any board that requires significant short-term gains in terms of enrollment or dollars raised is setting the school up for failure.  Fundraising leads to Development which leads to Advancement which leads to Growth which leads to Sustainability - that's a long-term linear timeline that must be considered by leaders (the administrator and the board) in today's schools.

4) The root of problems facing faith-based schools today isn't enrollment, isn't the teachers, isn't the curriculum, and isn't the leadership - it's the parents.  Not necessarily the parents that are in our schools and part of our school communities - it's the parents and guardians that we're trying to bring in to our schools through our marketing and enrollment efforts.  Schools can provide learning opportunities, but they must be reinforced and practiced in the home.  If parents aren't concerned about a student's classwork because they have to go to work after school to provide for the family's income, some children are going to be left behind.  If anyone has wondered where the decline of the traditional/nuclear family and problems plaguing society will lead us, all we need to do is observe how poorly our students are performing when compared to other societies.

5) In the spirit of the season, rather than focusing on "What has this world come to?" we must change the words around to focus on "What has come to this world."  The birth of the Savior - and what we must do to as His followers to build His kingdom to the glory of God.  May the Prince of Peace grant us that gift in 2011.