Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving!
FastStats: Is Your Administrative Staff the "Right" Size?
By Dr. Jeffrey Mitchell, Head of Currey Ingram Academy, Brentwood, TN

“Right-sizing” our schools is an ongoing and critical strategic question for all heads of school. Right-sizing boils down to determining the “right” number/ratio of students, faculty, administrators, etc., to deliver the mission and to fulfill your value proposition, while staying on the path of financial sustainability. For this FastStats, “right-sizing” administrative staffing is examined. More specifically, has the number of administrators relative to the number of students increased over the past 15 years?
Transgender Students: What One School Head Has Learned (So Far)
By Jay Underwood, Head of High Meadows School, Roswell, GA
 
After receiving numerous inquiries from other school heads, Jay Underwood wrote the story of his school’s journey of enrolling a transgender student, communicating with families, and educating students and faculty. SAIS is sharing this story, which includes external resources related to this issue. 
Pedagogical Peers
By Christina Mimms, SAIS

No one understands the student experience better than students. They have run the same races, worked on similar research projects, sat nervously for the same exams, eaten the cafeteria’s food, and in some cases, slept in the same residence hall. Naturally, schools often turn to their older students to mentor newcomers, acquaint them with the school’s unique culture, and befriend them in the new environment.

Reading with Patrick by Michelle Kuo
"Get out of my face, China woman.” That’s just one of the greetings Harvard graduate Michelle Kuo received during her two years in the Teach for America program. She was working in Helena, Arkansas, an impoverished town in the Mississippi Delta, where most of her students had never seen a person of Asian ethnicity.

“Students will say anything to see if they can get under your skin,” Kuo says. She is calling me from Berlin, Germany, where her historian husband is doing research (both now teach at the American University of Paris). “They called a teacher next to me fat,” she remembers. “They called the teacher across from me a cracker. But teachers know that once you let students know it bothers you, you’re done for, so I had to pretend it didn’t bother me.”
SAIS Featured School: The Altamont School
The mission of The Altamont School is to improve the fabric of society by graduating compassionate, well-educated individuals capable of independent thinking and innovative ideas. To this end, the school attracts, nurtures, and challenges students whose commitment to truth, knowledge, and honor will prepare them not only for the most rigorous college programs, but also for productive lives.
SAIS Collaboration Grant Applications Due 12/31
SAIS is accepting applications for The Stephen P. Robinson Collaboration Grants from now through December 31, 2017. Five member schools each will receive a $5,000 grant. Those applying must demonstrate a vision and capacity to pursue and carry out meaningful collaborations. Successful examples have demonstrated efforts that benefit the greater community or region in unique ways. The Robinson Collaboration Grants were created to encourage independent schools to form new partnerships with other schools or institutions of higher education, with preference given to collaborations with other schools serving students in any grades from K through 12th. Schools selected for grants will share their results with the SAIS community. Submissions are due by December 31, 2017. www.sais.org/grants  
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Veteran's Day programs, service learning, SAIS campus visits, and accreditation teams out and about.
Blog of the Week
A Teacher's Ten First Jobs
Mark Crotty, head of St. John’s Episcopal School in Dallas, writes about what teachers actually do. 
NAIS is extending the NAIS member discount to SAIS schools for registration for the 2018 NAIS Annual Conference, March 7-9, in Atlanta . This discount is open to schools that are not members of NAIS. Go to annualconference.nais.org to register.
Check out #SAISAC Videos

Videos from the 2017 SAIS Annual Conference are now available on YouTube at SAISTV . The Annual Business Meeting and the General Session "Finding Balance" are online, with additional videos coming soon.
Announcing the 2018 SAIS Leadership Retreat: April 23-24, Louisville, KY
Pushing Our Horizons: How Do We Tackle the Big, Hairy Challenges of the Next 20 Years?
An opportunity for leaders to sharpen their skills in today’s evolving educational landscape that will go beyond “why” and focus on “how” change can best be accomplished in a setting that is often change-resistant.
Led by  Grant Lichtman , an internationally-recognized K-12 transformation thought leader, attendees will work together as they imagine futures that may look very different from the past and build a capacity and comfort with ongoing change. Participants will examine what it means to shift schools from being teaching organizations to learning organizations, which traditions are important to preserve, and which traditions hamper this shift to a long-term growth mindset. Register at sais.org/LR .
Registration is OPEN for the 2018 SAIS Athletic Directors Conference, January 16-17, in Charlotte, NC. Submissions for session proposals are still being accepted! Learn more: sais.org/ADC
Registration is OPEN for the 2018 SAIS Finance Institute, January 16-17, in Charlotte, NC. Submissions for session proposals are still being accepted! Find out more: sais.org/FI
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