Long-Range Plan Priorities 2025–2032
In fall of 2023, the Long-Range Planning Committee launched a broad outreach campaign to understand the needs and aspirations of the Grace community. Four key areas of focus emerged: academics, culture, facilities, and finances. What also came through were the many ways each area was inextricably linked to the others. Although sorted into four categories, the priorities outlined in this plan have been selected precisely because they have the greatest potential to amplify progress in each of the other areas, working together to advance the mission of the school.
This mutual interdependence is well-captured by the Grace quatrefoil, whose four leaves are distinct yet connected. Our new Long-Range Plan will ensure our students continue to develop the skills of intellectual excellence and habits of ethical virtue that will enable them to seek lives of joy and purpose.
Define and attain ambitious standards for helping students master skills of intellectual excellence.
Strong academics are our program’s foundation. Through a pedagogy of joy, we will continue working to ensure that all students are well known, well loved, and well taught. To achieve the lofty ambitions we have for our academic program and our students, we will:
- Finalize and adopt the Teaching with Grace framework to define and promote teaching excellence
- Outline and implement systematic ways to challenge and support students throughout our curriculum
- Uphold rigorous academic standards and identify metrics for tracking student progress
- Continue to provide training for teachers in implementing research-based teaching practices and curricular changes
Reinforce Grace’s culture of broad welcome and deep belonging, and equip students to explore and appreciate interdependence of ethical virtue and academic excellence.
Our Episcopal identity calls us to recognize and serve the inherent dignity of our common humanity through fostering a community of broad welcome and deep belonging. We believe that ethical virtue and intellectual excellence are mutually dependent, and that rigorous attention to both is necessary to allow each of these qualities to find their truest expression in good lives, well lived. To enrich and enhance Grace’s culture, we will:
- Continue working to attract, retain, and nurture a diverse and vibrant community
- Maintain socio-economic diversity by setting a short-term target of securing a consistent number of students receiving financial aid, with a long-term goal of supporting more families
- Refine and clarify Grace’s values, particularly with respect to habits of ethical virtue and helping students grow into the people they want to be, as a way to differentiate the school and attract and retain families, faculty, and staff who are committed to our mission
- Ensure that any enrollment expansion and facilities improvements serve the student experience and strengthen Grace’s culture.
Align our spaces to serve our program needs, support enrollment efforts, and invest in our facilities in a fiscally responsible way.
The spaces in our school are not merely a backdrop to the student learning; they have the capacity to enhance—or constrain—our ability to realize the ambitions of our program. Our priorities around facilities reflect our high aspirations for Grace’s academics and culture, as well as the critical infrastructure needs across our two campuses. We will engage in facilities planning and work to:
- Align spaces with programmatic needs and aspirations at both campuses
- Engage in capital improvements to ensure classrooms continue to meet the needs of our program
- Create engaging physical and digital spaces to attract and retain students
- Explore real estate opportunities for strategic programmatic expansion
Achieve the long-term financial sustainability that allows us to be bold in delivering on our mission by investing in institutional priorities while diligently managing expenses.
As responsible stewards of our school, we must ensure that our institution is both financially sustainable and that it is committed to supporting the programs and initiatives that enable us to live our mission. To do this, we will:
- Secure community financial support for LRP priorities through increased annual, capital, and endowment giving
- Increase compensation and benefits to continue attracting and retaining the strongest faculty and staff
- Budget for capital expenditures related to campus maintenance and regular improvements
- Optimize the FTE to student ratio by focusing on enrollment
