Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School

2023 Strategic Plan

Goal 1: Strengthen Our Community

Goal Statement: Sustain and strengthen a cohesive, accepting school community that reflects our mission and core values by embracing and celebrating a broad spectrum of Jews; by cultivating empathetic changemakers; and by nurturing lifelong connections among students, parents, alumni, and faculty through authentic Jewish experiences and values.

● Create engagement opportunities that cultivate school ambassadorship, and pride, and amplifies the school’s mission by all stakeholders.

● Create an environment that welcomes Jewish students and extended families from a broad spectrum of observance levels who respect and celebrate both their similarities and differences.

● Inspire students to become changemakers through meaningful hands-on community servicelearning experiences that impact lives in Baltimore and around the world.

● Create an environment where all students, parents, alumni and staff feel welcome, heard, and respected by the school and each other, and remain connected to their BT community throughout their lives.

● Ensure that the Judaics curriculum reflects the school’s mission to be a community rooted in Torah values and Jewish traditions with a strong connection to Israel while remaining open and welcoming to students and families from all levels of observance.

Goal 2: Support Our Faculty and Staff

Goal Statement: Cultivate a collaborative working environment where faculty and staff feel prepared, supported and empowered to deliver an exceptional program aligned to our school’s mission and values that meets the academic and social/emotional needs of each child, promotes life-long learning and enhances a strong Jewish identity.

● Attract, support, and retain high-caliber faculty and staff who reflect and align with Beth Tfiloh’s mission and values and are committed to celebrating and supporting students in reaching their goals as individuals and as members of the BT community.

● Invest time and resources in robust relevant professional development and leadership opportunities for our faculty and staff to support innovative programming and teaching.

● Ensure collaboration and alignment among faculty across divisions to support innovative and collaborative teaching and learning, clear and consistent goals.

● Regularly reassess faculty and staff compensation and benefits to ensure we remain competitive and can recruit mission-aligned talent

● Demonstrate our respect for the wellbeing and dignity of all faculty and staff by supporting worklife balance and wellness for them.

Goal 3: Enhance our Program

Goal Statement: Enhance our general and Judaic studies programs to emphasize academic excellence, innovative pedagogy, student-centered learning and student experience.

● Strengthen our academic program to challenge, enrich and support the individual learning needs of each student to provide challenging and rigorous instruction at all levels.

● Strengthen and enrich our athletic, arts, and co-curricular programs to elevate the dynamic student experience.

● Strengthen and enrich the college guidance experience to prepare and assist students for life beyond Beth Tfiloh.

● Enhance our Judaic studies program to support our students in the development of their Jewish pride and identity and deep connection to Israel.

● Strengthen modern Hebrew fluency of students.

● Ensure curricular and programmatic alignment and partnership between divisions.

● Prioritize the social and emotional wellness of all students through resources and programming that reinforce and embody our values of respect and kindness (derech eretz), joy (simcha), and attention to each individual’s needs.

Goal 4: Reimagine Our Learning Environment

Goal Statement: Plan, create and maintain physical spaces (facilities), both indoor and outdoor, that optimize student development and learning aligned with the mission of Beth Tfiloh.

● Engage in master planning to prioritize facility needs and uses.

● Invest in modernizing and updating the physical spaces of Beth Tfiloh including: indoor, outdoor, athletic, play and learning spaces to maximize the student experience and reflect the quality of the school’s program.

● Create learning and gathering spaces for students and faculty that foster a sense of community and unity.

● Continue to review and update the network infrastructure and technological tools to support our programming and to ensure students develop the skills they will need for future success.

GOAL 5: Steward Our Future

Goal Statement: Ensure short and long-term financial health of the school through financial planning, robust financial resource development, strategic tuition setting, and careful analysis of key cost centers.

● Regularly analyze tuition and fee increases to keep pace with budget pressures while maintaining an awareness of our position amongst our competitors and a sensitivity towards affordability.

● Develop a major gifts culture to support annual and long-term needs of the school.

● Articulate and create student recruitment strategies to emphasize the strength and value of a Beth Tfiloh education to attract new students and families who may choose other schools.

Continue to build an endowment to provide for financial assistance, programmatic enhancements, and to provide a safety net for unanticipated operational deficits.