Why Belong to NAIS?

NAIS, the National Association of Independent Schools, representing approximately 1,400 schools nationally and internationally, has as our mission to be the national voice of independent schools and the center for collective action.

What Do My Dues Pay For…?
…Less than half of what we provide you, our membership. NAIS dues, at about $12 per student (minimum of $950 and a maximum of $9,500), are the least expensive "insurance" a school buys. NAIS works hard to keep dues reasonable: only about 40 percent of NAIS income derives from membership dues; 60 percent derives from our various income-generating enterprises (publications, conferences and workshops, specialized services, etc.).

The 40 percent of NAIS services that member dues pay for are allocated to advocacy and R&D.

Advocacy: Independent schools prize their independence so member school dues pay for protecting that independence by monitoring and influencing legislation and regulations, providing to schools alerts and templates for compliance with the law, and advocating for our rights. Our Career Center provides a free means for member schools to find and recruit potential teachers. At the local school level, NAIS provides support and counsel, speaking with authority when constituents challenge the authority or practices of the school.

R&D: NAIS research and development, through its statistics gathering, independent research, and surveying functions, sets the highest standards for education at the school level against which schools benchmark their own operations. Member schools find they need and use the data and the members-only templates to meet their due diligence obligations to provide their boards with the information to make good decisions.

What Does N.A.I.S. Stand For?
The acronym NAIS should be construed to stand for:

N = National Voice: One school's strength is multiplied a thousand-fold. NAIS is the guardian to ward off threats to our independence (which are mainly legislative and regulatory).

A = Advocacy: "It's time to tell our story": NAIS, on its own and in partnership with virtually all our state, regional, and national association colleagues, is leading the charge to counter the negative stereotypes about independent schools.

I = Interdependence: Our fierce independence is both our strength… and our Achilles Heel. NAIS's role is to forge alliances and to take collective action so that we can network as an industry.

S = Standards: NAIS Principles of Good Practice set the highest standards and act as quality benchmarks and leverage for schools.

As an organization, NAIS has as its core values the four I's: Independence; Interdependence; Inclusivity; Innovation. We strive to model these values and to measure our success by the extent to which we achieve them and contribute to the efforts of schools to achieve them.

The K.N.O.W.L.E.D.G.E. Organization

The 60 percent of revenues that NAIS generates beyond dues helps us to provide a plethora of additional services. Increasingly, NAIS seeks to be the "knowledge organization" for independent schools. Schools that join NAIS do so, typically, for some combination of the following reasons:

NAIS functions as a…

Knowledge Resource: The "members only" Government Relations section of the NAIS website provides specialized information and templates, created by our counsel and professional staff, to help schools to stay in compliance with their growing legal and regulatory obligations: intermediate sanctions for excessive executive compensation, 15-passenger vans, IRS regulations on raffles, etc.

National voice: NAIS is positioned not only as the national "voice" but also as the national "eyes and ears," monitoring legislation, tracking global trends and issues, issuing timely reports and alerts to its school leaders.

Objective Counsel: The NAIS president and other leadership staff, as well as NAIS's public relations counsel on retainer, offer schools crisis counseling in cases of governance and PR meltdowns.

Web-based Networks: NAIS orchestrates and/or monitors listserves that create a national network and electronic community for school administrators (heads, admissions directors, development directors, division heads, diversity coordinators, business officers).

Legal Counsel: NAIS employs a staff attorney to assist schools with routine legal questions and to populate our website with templates to assist a school's attorney in creating the various contracts schools need (enrollment, employment, etc.).

Equity and Justice: NAIS models a commitment to diversity, inclusivity, and progress along the diversity continuum from "awareness to commitment to action" and challenges, guides, supports, and encourages member schools in their journeys.

Delineator of Best Practices: NAIS's suite of Principles of Good Practice (PGP) offers to schools "the higher standard" of operations and behaviors that school leaders rely upon in defining appropriate conduct for admissions and hiring, governance, parent relations, and the like.

Goals Benchmark: By virtue of the strength of its member schools, NAIS statistics set the national standard and benchmark for goal-setting on an individual school basis.

Schools that become NAIS members begin to compare and measure themselves against national and not just local standards of quality and ultimately end up with higher expectations across the board, in every domain.

Educator's Job Mart: The Career Center on the NAIS website offers, as a members-only benefit, a national "meeting place" for candidates and schools. Increasingly NAIS marketing efforts will drive teaching candidates to the website and thereby to NAIS schools posting job openings.

Conclusion
Collectively and individually, independent schools have needed NAIS's assistance in the past to protect their interests and will undoubtedly need our assistance even more in the future. Whereas once independent schools saw themselves as islands, we now see ourselves as an archipelago, as part of a larger movement and direction, that of advocating our model and cause of providing the highest quality education.