Creating Our Vision for the Future

One of my favorite parts of every new school year is connecting with our youngest and oldest students. I visit with our youngest students to read a couple of books—usually one about friendship and one with plenty of funny voices to bring out a few giggles, and we talk about being a good friend and the excitement of school. This is also the time of year when Mrs. Miller and I visit eighth-grade students to discuss what it means to be a leader at All Saints’, how they can enjoy their final year, and how to prepare for high school and beyond.

While there are obvious differences between the conversations, I am struck by the similarities: there is a period of quietness and nervousness, some laughter, and eventually questions about navigating life. Engaging with our youngest and oldest students in this way reminds me every year that kids are kids. They have a hunger for learning and connection (even teenagers) and need the same things: support, kindness, and community.  These moments also remind me that All Saints’ is a place where kids can love school from pre-kindergarten to graduation day. Our eighth-grade students don’t know it yet, but in a year they’ll be the alumni who return and say, “We miss you!”

Over the past few years, All Saints' has experienced tremendous growth all driven by our vision to create the ideal learning environment for our students. Our goal is to provide an environment where students cultivate a love for school and learning, but also experience moments of productive struggle where they learn who they are as people, take risks, try out for new teams, and learn to ask questions that may not have answers.

Together we’ve built and renovated learning spaces, updated our middle school offerings, added athletic teams, and much more. We have made tremendous progress toward our vision, with more on the horizon. As we continue to grow and evolve, our Board of Trustees has launched a new strategic planning cycle to help guide us into the future.

We are excited to be at a point in our history as a school where we can ask big-picture questions and dream of who we can be in the near and distant future. 

Most independent schools engage in a strategic planning cycle every few years. During this process, they gather community feedback and determine key focus areas for the next three to five years. They implement steps to achieve their goals and then repeat the process. For our new strategic plan, we are partnering with Mission and Data, a consulting firm with expertise in strategic planning for independent schools across the nation, to build a plan with a more long-range focus. We want to engage deeply in dreaming of what we can achieve in the next 5, 10, or even 15 years.

We know our core values won’t change, but we hope you will help us engage in this process by dreaming with us about areas of potential and growth. Please keep an eye out for a survey in the next few days to help us gather data to inform our plan. The survey will be sent to a variety of constituent groups including parents, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members. I am thrilled that we are engaged in this important process and know the positive impact it will have on the future of All Saints’.