The Fay School Strategic Plan: Working Toward the Vision

by Michael Beck, Assistant Head of School and Director of External Affairs and Dr. Chris Schoberl, Academic Dean

Fay School has never been healthier or had a brighter future than now. The 2005-2006 school year was indeed a banner year. We celebrated our 140th anniversary; we launched the public phase of the largest campaign in the School's history, with nearly 80% of our goal in hand; and we began a master planning process that will inform our growth and inspiring opportunities for the next quarter of a century. Importantly, guiding this success was the Fay School Strategic Plan.

The School started work to create a strategic plan in the fall of 1999. Based on Fay's Mission and Core Values, the plan provides a framework for the School to achieve its vision of leading the world in elementary and middle school education. The goals of the Strategic Plan were established by the Board of Trustees under the broad headings of Student Life, Faculty and Staff Development, Admissions and Placement, Community Relations, Facilities and Finance. With the Board’s approval, the first draft of the Strategic Plan was presented to members of the Fay community during the 1999-2000 academic year for their understanding, comments, and ideas.

The Strategic Plan was first published in 2001. The Fay Board of Trustees oversees the execution of the Strategic Plan. Each goal has a designated Trustee committee assigned to complete its actions, with overall strategic priorities established by the Board of Trustees. The School’s Strategic Plan is a living document and requires continual updates as we make progress towards realizing our vision for the School in the 21st century.

Since its publication in 2001, the Strategic Plan has guided a quiet but powerful process of change, moving Fay toward its vision. Since 2001, the Plan has guided us as we have:

• Defined, established, and developed a process for maintaining a vibrant and relevant curriculum. In the fourth year of a four year continuous review cycle, resulting in a deliberate review of the skills, content, and assessment practices that make up our curriculum, a comprehensive scope and sequence document now provides the platform for a full integration of all we do throughout grades 1-9, affording today's students an unparalleled education.
• Enhanced programs which advance the development of the whole child as guided by our Core Values. These programs include a prevention based, proactive counseling process in partnership with Boston University, an improved student advisory system, and expanded community outreach through Fay School’s Leadership Department.
• Developed a model Leadership Curriculum for students in grades 1-9, defining their growth as leaders along a developmental continuum from learning about self and leading the self, towards learning about others in preparation to lead them. Defining leadership as inspiring others towards reaching shared goals, Fay School believes that all students are leaders on some level and that, even following is, in an important way, a leadership decision. As activity based, the curriculum developed by Fay provides students with an opportunity to discuss their personal leadership theories, apply the theory, and reflect upon the theory. Combined with this activity based approach, outreach opportunities in “the real world” give students a chance to incorporate their leadership lessons in their daily lives in ways that make a difference in the lives of others.
• Created a model framework for the teaching of sexuality education to all students, grades 1-9. This developmentally aligned curriculum supports parents as the primary sexuality educators of their children by informing them of the timing of instruction and training them “just in time” so that they might play a role in helping their children navigate the sometimes tricky waters of human development.
• More fully integrated the Teaching for Understanding Framework supporting a broad range of learning styles, and more fully integrated the delivery of our tutorial support services (including providing tutorial support during the evening hours for our boarding students). These shifts were optimized by rebuilding our daily academic day through the implementation of block scheduling and by the creation of the Summer Institute, a June through July resource to help students with learning differences develop strategies to overcome their struggles. Related to this effort was the establishment of Fay School as an on demand training center for the All Kinds of Minds organization as a cite to deliver its Schools Attuned training to learning specialists and teachers interested in working more effectively with students with learning differences.
• Developed a comprehensive, on line curriculum map, currently representing our entire curriculum and four years of curriculum archive, including 7,000 months of scoped and sequenced content, skills, and assessment information.
• Established global, collaborative relationships, including teacher and student exchanges, by sharing our on line curriculum with other schools including start up schools in Vietnam and India, and more established programs in France, Taipei, the Philippines, and France . As a result of one such partnership, a student group from Fay was recognized by the NAIS as a finalist in its 20/20 Global Challenge program. Connected to our global interests has been the creation of a Saturday Mandarin I and Mandarin II class for students interested in learning a language not yet offered as a part of the regular curriculum.
• Created community synergy by brokering important school, business, university partnerships in inviting local public, charter, independent, and home schools to participate in Fay "Rube Goldberg Machine Contest" a first of its kind competition designed to seed interest and to promote literacy in the study of science, math, and engineering principles.
• Planned, funded, and implemented a school wide technology initiative that transformed the use of technology at Fay School. Fay's leadership in technology has been cited as a model for other independent and charter schools. This includes the creation of media literacy courses that help students understand the importance of careful and ethical use of technology as well as avoid the pitfalls of abusive use of technology.
• Ensured recruitment and retention of the highest quality instructional staff through the funding of, at twice the average of schools in the National Association of Independent Schools, a comprehensive professional education program linked to a thorough and deliberate faculty supervision and evaluation protocols.
• Hired a marketing consultant to evaluate current practices and to create a marketing concept. The program focuses on a fully integrated initiative to create a marketing message understood school wide. This included the appointment of a Director of Communications to implement an integrated communications plan aligning the School community.
• Improved our communications methods with current parents through the Fay intranet, MooseLinks, its cousin NetClassroom, and FayEvent. This process has greatly strengthened the partnership between parents, teachers, and advisors as they work together to help each child reach his or her potential.
• Planned and implemented an Alumni Council to support all class related, regional, and global activities. Through these activities that include the creation of an exclusive alumni website called FayNet, the Alumni Council has reconnected hundreds of Fay alumni with the School.
• Successfully launched the capital campaign, the Power of Partnership, the largest campaign in the School's history. The campaign is focused on building our endowment to a level that will solidly sustain Fay for the next generation and allow us to improve in two significant areas: faculty/staff compensation and financial aid. The campaign will also fund land acquisition and endow curriculum enhancements called for by the Strategic Plan over the next three years.
• Funded and began work on creating a master plan to assess and evaluate academic and nonacademic space and school properties within the context of Master Plan requirements. With contingencies for changing economic and enrollment conditions, the Master Plan will provide a long-term visualization for existing facilities, and provide and allocate resources to meet operational requirements.
• Worked to develop a system for regular review of facilities needs; creating a systematic plan to ensure a safe, well functioning, and attractive space for students, faculty, and staff to learn, live, and work; and develop a process for physical plant operation and maintenance.
• Expanded the campus to support the Master Plan requirements with the purchase of 6.5 contiguous acres immediately west of our core campus enabling the creation of a final vision for what the Fay campus and program can become. This purchase provides us with an opportunity to think and act even more strategically with respect to our campus and to design a plan for potential campus expansion.
• Established and implemented a process to manage the Strategic Plan to achieve the vision. This includes the realignment of all Board committees to the goals identified in the Strategic Plan allowing more strategic assignment of Trustee time and talents.

Going forward into the 2007-2008 school year and beyond, the strategic priorities include:

1. Fully develop a wellness program, as guided by our Core Value of “Wellness of Mind, Body, and Spirit,” as well as by our abiding interest in educating the whole child, founded upon an integrated curriculum informed by the leaders of Residential Life, the Chapel Program, Counseling Services, the Infirmary, the Leadership Program and the Student Life Office.
2. Develop a whole child curriculum that meets the needs of pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students, establishing Fay School as a foremost educator in early childhood education.
3. Establish a fully integrated model professional development, evaluation, and compensation by implementing a career curriculum for the professional education of our faculty members.
4. Implement a comprehensive Master Plan that will add to the development of the whole child. This Master Plan will integrate facility planning, development, and management with Fay’s mission far into the 21st Century.
5. Further develop our international partnerships through outreach resulting in opportunities for faculty training and student travel. This will include a second year entry in the NAIS 20/20 Challenge Competition, as well as offering Mandarin instruction alongside Spanish, French, and Latin.
6. Optimize the Learning Center and its potential to meet the needs of all students, those who need support, those who need enrichment, and those in the middle, by more fully integrating its resources with those of the classrooms.
7. Improve our efforts to “tell the Fay Story” by getting feedback from our alumni, past parents, and secondary schools, and sharing our successes and our resources with those beyond our campus.

As illustrated in this article, it is clear that strategic planning at Fay has helped the School’s leadership to mold the School's future and manage positive change. Strategic planning has focused the School on the methods to achieve Fay's vision. In the next revision, the Strategic Plan will identify those goals and objectives that will bridge the gap between Fay Now and Fay Future that incorporates our vision. The goals and objectives will reflect those steps required to fill that gap. Can we achieve our vision? We can, if we will!