Here’s an unexpected fall trend: From coast to coast, dozens of independent schools are advertising for associate and assistant directors of communications, just weeks into the school year.

As these offices become short-handed, other schools have new comms directors settling in after the annual spring and summer churn. By my count, close to 100 schools nationally have lost communicators over the past six months.

All in all, transition is the theme of the season for educational communications.

Dartmouth official Joshua Kim suggests that we’re seeing the fruit of an “understaffing epidemic” in schools: “As the demands of running a 24-7-365 digital/global/competitive institution have grown, the number of people who meet these demands has not grown commensurately.” He argues persuasively that such ceaseless demands have driven school staff to burnout.

Given this trend, institutions that haven’t yet seen a shakeup in communications would be wise to consider and plan how to respond to an unexpected departure.

One option to consider is postponing a permanent hire until the summer, rather than scrambling to bring on someone. Not only would the jumbled job market have time to settle down, but the best candidates may be unavailable until the school year ends.

Instead, as Boston consultant Kim L. Clark writes, schools might consider calling on “the growing on-demand workforce” as a short-term solution. Freelancers with independent school experience are available as never before, and the pandemic has proven that most communications tasks — especially those on the assistant-director level — can be performed remotely.

Adding on-demand staff can also take some of the load off the busy communications director dealing with the hiring of a new full-timer — a major project in its own right.

Start marking your calendars

The 2022 independent school conference season is coming into focus.

CASE-NAIS has something distinctive in mind: a two-pronged conference with one program in person, Jan. 23-25 in Denver, and the other online a month later (Feb. 23-24).

Meanwhile, NAIS is going online for its Annual Convention. The dates are March 2-4, and registration info will be released next week.

What’s new at Fine Point Communications

Recently, I interviewed Rafael Vizcaíno, a philosophy professor at DePaul University who is raising great questions about the field’s Eurocentrism.

Our chat introduced me to the Spanish philosopher and writer Miguel de Unamuno, and it served as a reminder of the unsung joy within education communications: The work provides so many opportunities to learn.

Don’t-miss clicks

• The Washington Post ran an eye-opening look at how higher ed markets itself. Independent education likes to follow in the path of higher ed; could this be a harbinger? Some surprises in the report:
  • Advertising expenses by public and private colleges and universities rose more than a third between 2013 and 2016, to a total of $950 million;
  • At least nine traditional schools spend more than $10 million a year on advertising; and
  • Chief marketing officers earn as much as $375,000 a year and oversee between nine to 24 employees.
• Amherst College will stop giving admission preference to the children of graduates, calling it “a natural extension” of efforts to increase educational access. Meanwhile, nearly three-quarters of highly selective colleges continue to factor “legacy status” into their admission decisions.
• Also in Massachusetts, the Middlesex School is steamed up after the head of school and the board chair disinvited a Pulitzer Prize winner and MacArthur Fellow from speaking to the school during Black History Month next February. The decision to exclude Nikole Hannah-Jones inflamed Middlesex’s students and faculty, and even the board called the decision “profoundly wrong.”
• You may have heard about the espionage charges facing a couple who allegedly tried to sell classified information to another country. One of the people charged is a teacher at Maryland’s Key School.

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