Impact Our Future: 2022-2027 Strategic Plan

Impact Our Future

Board of Trustees 2021-2022

Top row, left to right: Paul Gauthier, Stephen Blass, Carrie Towbes, Guille GilReynoso, Clay Murdy ‘93, Sarah Muzzy, Joel Weiss (Head of School), Rick Banks ‘62, Will Freeland ‘00, Todd Eliassen, Courtney Smith, Chris Gocong.

Bottom row, left to right: Annie Kaiser, Andrea Alfano, Jen Abed, Robert Ingersoll, Jim Copus ‘92, Christina Stoney, Sarah Sheshunoff, Susan McMillan, Kevin Brine.

(Not pictured: Tamar Adegbile, Allan Rogers)

Dear Friends,

We are proud to present the 2022-2027 Crane Country Day School Strategic Plan. The ideas presented in the following pages are the culmination of more than two years of conversations, committees, research, and debate that included educators, administrators, parents, students, and extended members of our Crane community.

Change is a constant in life and certainly a natural component of schools. Perhaps that’s never been more true than over the past several years, as our small but mighty school faced fires, mudslides, and a global pandemic that challenged how we operate. And yet students graduate and move on, administrators and teachers change jobs, and academic practices continuously evolve. To thrive, schools must change. Institutionally, Crane is adept at adapting. In fact, we pride ourselves on doing so with great consideration.

At Crane, nearly everything we do is with deliberate and thoughtful intention.

So even as we find our school on strong and steady ground, we look ahead in anticipation of change to chart a pathway for the future. This striving to constantly improve even when we are strong, exemplifies Crane.

After many iterations, we are thrilled to deliver a visionary plan focused on strengthening the many assets at Crane’s core. This plan directs resources and attention to advancing what truly distinguishes Crane – supporting excellent teachers, amplifying experiential academics, nurturing distinct learning styles, honoring diverse voices, and promoting a culture of kindness.

We are catapulting Crane to the next level. We are taking what we have and making it even better. We are enriching, expanding, and invigorating the heart of the school – our Staffulty (our hybrid word for staff and faculty), students, and culture. It is deeply profound

that what is so central to Crane becomes our focus as this plan will guide the school to its 100 th anniversary.

The plan itself is steeped with history and the administrative tenure of more than 100 collective years. To have a century of institutional knowledge steering Crane into its next century is powerful.

The strategic plan focuses on six key initiatives to further Crane’s mission, strengthen its financial foundation, differentiate the school, and ensure that all Crane community members thrive. The plan provides the school with a thoughtful, intentional roadmap that was strengthened by challenges of the past year and clarifies priorities for the future. While each initiative is distinct, all are integrated to foster and fuel the others, thus resulting in a bold, collaborative plan. For example, when we amplify experiential learning, we create a stronger academic environment for all learning profiles. When we support our teachers, students reap the rewards as well. What benefits one student, benefits all.

The path forward is an exciting one, and we look forward to charting the course and welcoming the changes with you.

Joel Weiss Head of School

Jim Copus ‘92 Board President

CRANE MISSION STATEMENT

Crane Country Day School is dedicated to providing an experiential education characterized by a thoughtful balance of academic challenge and creative expression. We thrive as a community that builds character and confidence, while celebrating the joy in learning.

STRATEGIC INITIATIVE #3:

STRATEGIC INITIATIVE #4: Expand

STRATEGIC INITIATIVE #6:

STRATEGIC INITIATIVE #5:

Amplify Experiential Learning

Experiential Learning has been central to Crane’s mission for nearly a century because we believe that how students learn is just as important as what they learn. We know that when students are actively engaged, lessons resonate more deeply, comprehension increases, students take more risks, and they find great joy in the learning process. Active learning also provides social-emotional benefits as students are more likely to engage in collaborative projects, building empathy for others’ experiences and perspectives. These positive experiences result in more meaningful learning outcomes and inspire a love of learning for life.

Crane has the potential to amplify its hands-on model, disrupting traditional

notions of how we use time and space. This may include increased interactions in the Santa Barbara community that are both service-oriented and place-based, allowing students to gain hands-on experiences with real-world implications. Leveraging the natural resources of Santa Barbara as a learning laboratory, students will gain opportunities for civic engagement and social entrepreneurship. Students will be encouraged to approach real-world problems through inquiry, design thinking, and project-based learning.

Granting students time and space to dig deeper, analyze further, and consider more, builds confidence and elevates their academic experience.

STRATEGIC INITIATIVE #1:

IMPLEMENTATION STEPS:

1. Better Articulate this Core Concept

Explain what Experiential Learning is, what it is not, and why it matters. Provide specific examples, assemble scientific research, and conduct research among our own graduates, positioning Crane as the authority on this teaching method. Demonstrate how active learning increases understanding, and better communicate this strong correlation to our community.

2. Rethink Time and Space to Support Experiential Learning

Explore and eventually modify how the school uses time (daily, weekly, and the overall calendar) to make Experiential Learning come alive. Expand opportunities for remote interdisciplinary, project-based learning, both on campus and beyond. Maximize use of outdoor space. Incorporate our natural and community resources into the curriculum. Promote computer literacy and connect experiences in our Design and Engineering Center with the greater Santa Barbara community.

3. Provide Ongoing Training in Experiential Learning

Ensure our teachers have the tools and support they need to create engaging experiential programs that align with academic expectations at each grade level. Crane will provide ongoing training in this area and build critical planning and collaboration time into the schedule for teachers.

Create A Faculty Growth Plan To Develop, Support, Reward, And Inspire Crane Teachers

Teachers are at the heart of Crane. And now, more than ever, teachers are facing increased demands. More is being asked of teachers as they juggle their professional roles with unanticipated external challenges and the shift of our educational landscape, all while doing the critical work of nurturing, encouraging, and shaping young minds.

Crane recognizes these increased responsibilities and will work to strengthen internal systems, ensuring that teachers feel safe, supported, inspired, and that their contributions are recognized and appreciated.

STRATEGIC INITIATIVE #2:

IMPLEMENTATION STEPS:

1. Map Out Teacher Expectations and Support Systems

Create support systems to bring greater job clarity to Crane’s employees, and a shared understanding of what constitutes professional excellence. Clearly communicate the high value that Crane places on collegiality and collaboration. Research other schools to discover best practices. Develop essential, realistic expectations, and articulate evaluation procedures consistent with those expectations. Review Crane’s compensation structure to ensure fair and equitable practices. Establish structures to encourage transparency among teachers, staff, administration, and the Board.

2. Elevate Professional Development

Continue investing time and funding to advance professional development and establish system improvements to effectively align needs with resources. Pursue funding channels and explore best practices for broadening professional development opportunities.

3. Enhance the Teaching Fellows Program

Strive to consistently improve this distinct program and ensure outreach to a diverse range of applicants. Clarify expectations and responsibilities of Fellows as well as the ways in which Crane serves these young educators. Provide greater clarity for Fellows interested in graduate work in education. Consider creating a parttime Teaching Fellows role for local college graduates who could continue living in their current community while contributing to Crane.

STRATEGIC INITIATIVE #3:

Promote A Healthy Community Of Kindness, Support, Courage, And Respect

Crane is committed to producing graduates who are healthy, adaptable, balanced, self-directed, and connected. Kindness has been a core precept of Crane since the school’s inception, and this initiative seeks to reinforce and broaden what is crucial to our culture and to each student’s ability to thrive. We will ensure that protocols and curriculum expand opportunities to practice and promote empathy. Crane will continue to provide safe spaces for students to explore, question, present in public, and not be afraid to make mistakes.

At Crane, we know that mental health is just as important as physical health, and we also know that healthy, happy students have better educational outcomes. Crane will support students in all facets of their growth, with a keen eye towards creating a healthy balance and internal supports to recognize students who may be struggling. Crane strives to enhance a child’s mental, physical, and social development, and to position the school as a model, where students excel and are happy.

IMPLEMENTATION STEPS:

1. Review the Administrative Structure

The Grade-Level Deans were a powerful addition to Crane’s administrative structure, focusing on the social-emotional needs of our middle school students. Continue this path of providing a strong system and accountability to support a healthy community culture. This initiative will also examine the ongoing need for clarity and consistency regarding discipline.

2. Better Articulate Crane’s Values

Values have the power to change actions. Crane has a rich collection of precepts that guide our work, and emphasizing these values reinforces their significance. Our new marketing plan underscores the importance of consistently communicating Crane’s values and encourages our community to retain and embody those principles.

3. Support Social-Emotional Learning Efforts

Coordinate with the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and SocialEmotional Learning (SEL) teams to incorporate curriculum ideas to reach all members of our community. Use Peaceful Partners, Seminar, Advisory, and Staffulty and Parents for Crane (PFC) meetings to practice and communicate our community values. Create leadership positions for students, allowing them to serve as role models, who can demonstrate our principles. Ensure that our student, Staffulty, and parent orientations and printed materials clearly reflect our belief that social-emotional and positive behavior are essential to ensure a safe, supportive climate for all learners.

Expand The School’s DEI Efforts

Crane is committed to creating an equitable learning environment for its diverse community and to sustaining a school culture in which all community members feel welcomed, valued, and a sense of belonging. In recent years, Crane School has pursued a stronger commitment to these values of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) with multiple initiatives, including the establishment of a board-level DEI Committee and dedicated work by the Crane Staffulty. While many of these initiatives have contributed positively to the Crane

DEI landscape by generating greater awareness and engagement across all constituencies, they have occurred without overarching objectives or longterm strategic coordination. There is an opportunity to more clearly articulate the values underlying Crane’s commitment to DEI work and to then translate these values into a comprehensive plan for action. A more strategic, integrated, and directed coordination of efforts is essential to take Crane’s DEI work to the next level and to ensure ongoing, steady, and effective growth.

STRATEGIC INITIATIVE #4:

IMPLEMENTATION STEPS:

1. Develop a DEI Strategic Plan

The Board’s DEI Committee has already identified four primary systems where Crane’s commitment to DEI values are expressed: Admissions; Hiring and Retention; Curriculum and Instruction; and Community/Culture/Practices. Within each of these areas, investigate existing programs, policies, and practices and identify areas for growth and opportunity. Outline aspirational goals and develop guiding policies and high-level recommendations to clarify how the Crane administration might most effectively accomplish this transformational plan. Engage a variety of stakeholders throughout this process to ensure a range of perspectives are heard and incorporated.

2. Increase Staffing

Hire a full-time senior administrator whose time is exclusively devoted to DEI work. To ensure the achievement of Crane’s DEI goals, design a staffing model where both this dedicated DEI resource and the broader Crane leadership and Staffulty collaborate and are mutually responsible for implementing DEI-related efforts. Provide training as needed to Crane Board of Trustees, administration, and Staffulty so that they have the knowledge and tools required to infuse a DEI-based perspective throughout the schools’ programs, policies, and practices.

3. Engage Crane Community

Engagement and support of the broader Staffulty and parent community is required to successfully achieve Crane’s DEI goals, especially in the Curriculum and Instruction and Community/Culture/Practices domains. Develop plans so that communication of Crane’s values of diversity, equity, and inclusion across stakeholder groups is consistent and well-timed with implementation of specific recommendations. Create safe spaces for Staffulty, students, and parents to raise DEI-related concerns and to discuss potential solutions without fear. Regularly communicate progress on Crane’s DEI-stated objectives both to the Board of Trustees and to the broader community.

The 2021-2022 Annual All-School Art Project consists of 249 unique student patches woven together into a single piece to represent one community.

STRATEGIC INITIATIVE #5:

Strengthen Crane’s Approach

Toward Neurodiversity

Throughout its history, Crane has been a community-focused school. We embrace the collection of kindergartners we accept every year and watch them blossom into a wide range of diverse learners. Rather than regarding the subset of students who struggle academically as suffering from a deficit, the concept of neurodiversity suggests a new paradigm in which individual differences in the way human brains process information and experience the world are natural, accepted, and beneficial variations. Crane has the potential to elevate our existing approach by shifting our mindset on neurodiversity, personalizing instruction, and customizing support for students with different learning styles. Using this lens to teach a range of diverse

learners, including children with learning challenges, neurotypical children, and gifted children with learning strengths, actually enables students with unique needs to flourish, and strengthens learning for all Crane students.

Crane Staffulty embrace the uniqueness of our students who represent a broad range of neurodivergent learners. However, they often feel challenged to meet students’ diverse needs. Training our Staffulty to become neurodiversityinspired educators will give them a wide variety of tools to better understand, and effectively educate and support this population.

At Crane, there is more than one way to learn and more than one way to teach.

IMPLEMENTATION STEPS:

1. Provide Training

Institutionalize a high-level training program with the goals of building empathy for neurodivergent learners and equipping Staffulty with learning and behavioral management strategies proven to be successful with a range of neurodivergent children. Focus on classroom strategies that both work for neurodivergent students and enhance the learning process for neurotypical students.

2. Improve Screening and Assessment Procedures

Improve the identification of Crane’s neurodiverse student population and the effectiveness of any recommended services using standard ized screening and assessment practices. Regularly collect and use school-wide assessment data of current students to guide studentspecific service plans and to inform whether additional testing or learning support from external resources is recommended.

3. Establish State-of-the-Art Programs

Enhance the academic success of Crane’s student community by expanding the programming offered to include interventions for neurodivergent students – a Lower School Reading Lab and an Upper School Executive Functioning curriculum. Explore new funding models, including supplemental program fees, to support the incremental cost of intensive intervention.

STRATEGIC INITIATIVE #6:

Elevate Marketing And Communications

Clearly communicating what makes Crane exceptional has never been more important. A powerful mission statement is not enough on its own. To remain competitive, Crane must consistently evaluate its branding to ensure that we are delivering on our promise and to communicate the benefits of a Crane education in a clear, compelling, and consistent manner.

Creating a full-time marketing and communications position fulfills a CAIS accreditation major recommendation, “to raise Crane’s marketing and communication strategies to enhance the School’s presence in the local community and compete more effectively with peer schools using Crane’s unique brand.”

This new position gives Crane the same advantage as other local schools, while recognizing the critical role that marketing plays in admissions, the lifeblood of our school.

IMPLEMENTATION STEPS:

1. Increase Staffing

Consolidate Crane’s marketing efforts which are currently dispersed among four departments. Hire a full-time administrator to work closely with both the Admissions and Development offices to ensure consistent external as well as internal messaging.

2. Develop a Game Plan

Work with Crane’s administration to create a comprehensive marketing and communications plan with its own strategic goals. This plan will refresh our marketing and branding messages, building in measurable milestones to gauge impact.

3. Revamp Crane’s Approach

Bring Crane’s mission to life with a new, visual marketing strategy to include updated images, compelling photos, and lively videos. This energized approach will help pro spective families better understand and appreciate what differentiates Crane.

CRANE COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL

1795 San Leandro Lane Santa Barbara, CA 93108 www.craneschool.org