The Future

The Future

The President, as steward of De La Salle, must ensure that the school continues to provide outstanding curricular and cocurricular programs as well as continue the commitment to spirituality, community and service so that it can successfully shape leaders for the local and global communities. To promote the school’s characteristics, the President must actively connect with students, faculty, staff, families, alumni as well as the broader community. De La Salle operates from a place of strength and is well positioned to continue to build upon a strong foundation given the commitment of the Board, faculty, staff and administration. It is critical that the new President work in collaboration with the Board and the school’s leadership team to ensure that De La Salle will continue to provide an outstanding program grounded in its Lasallian identity and the school’s mission and philosophy.

The Board of Trustees, the Brothers and the De La Salle community have great optimism for the future of the school. The incoming President, in collaboration with the Board of Trustees, will utilize De La Salle’s strengths to look to the future while honoring its mission and transformative impact on students’ lives. The key areas of focus for the new President will be:

Lasallian Catholic Identity:

The commitment of the school community to its Lasallian Catholic identity is vital to its future. The President will be entrusted to maintaining the Lasallian Catholic identity, mission, charism and legacy of the Christian Brothers who are still living. This is particularly critical as there are no longer Brothers present on campus. The new President must ensure that these foundational elements shape all that is done at De La Salle High School.

Institutional Advancement:

The President will articulate De La Salle’s vision of faith and academic excellence within the context of a Lasallian Catholic community dedicated to scholarship, faith and service. As a Christian Brothers school, De La Salle is committed to not only keeping the school affordable but also to ensuring that it has the resources to provide a quality education to all. As the Brothers’ Rule states, the Mission of the Institute is “to provide a human and Christian education to the young, especially the poor, according to the ministry entrusted to them by the church.”

De La Salle High School has been successful in its fundraising efforts, having recently completed a capital campaign. Nevertheless, given its commitment to ensuring that a De La

Salle education is affordable and accessible to all those who desire it, the President will continue to provide leadership to ensure that De La Salle has the resources to meet this commitment and to continue to cultivate a sense of community among all stakeholders by building on donor relations to ensure a strong donor community.

While De La Salle enjoys a solid reputation and enrollment, it must continue to actively market the school appropriately, especially in today’s world, so that all understand the distinctive value of De La Salle High School, its Lasallian Catholic identity, the outstanding academic and co-curricular programs and the wonderful community, all of which are the hallmarks of the school.

Overall, the new President will continue to ensure that De La Salle has a comprehensive advancement program so that the school can fulfill its vision and mission to be successful, both on an annual as well as long term basis, and maintain its strong position in the community.

Faculty:

De La Salle has a committed, dedicated, professional faculty. A key strategic issue for the next President and the Board is to make sure that De La Salle continues to retain and attract quality faculty —those who are not only outstanding in their teaching but who also fully embrace, model and live out the mission and core values of the Lasallian charism so that the distinctive characteristics of the school’s culture are maintained. To that end, the President and the Board will focus on providing the necessary resources to allow the school to retain and attract an outstanding faculty.

Students:

Teenagers of today face a variety of challenges and much is expected of the young men. Overall, De La Salle High School has done an excellent job seeking to create an environment that promotes healthy masculinity and handle issues pertaining to diversity and student well-being. Nevertheless, given the climate in which schools must operate, the President, in collaboration with administration and faculty, must continue to meet the needs of the young men, provide the necessary resources to create a healthy environment - one that models its Lasallian ethos, fosters respect of self and others and helps the young men to embrace their social and personal responsibilities.

Future of Education:

Recognizing that education is at a critical juncture, the President will work closely with the academic administration and faculty to ensure that the program De La Salle is providing continues to be relevant, innovative, competitive and rigorous, yet remains true to the school’s core values. In other words, the next President will need to collaboratively advance an exceptional educational program so that it provides students with “what the world needs,” is relevant for the future and truly integrates best practices, especially for educating young men. This will require having creative and advanced approaches to the needs of the changing educational environment and how to balance faith, academics and community.

Carondelet High School:

De La Salle has a unique partnership with Carondelet High School, an all-girls’ Catholic high school sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. While each school is separately governed and has its own administration, the two schools are connected in many ways. They are seen as brother/ sister schools, often with members of the same family attending each school respectively. In addition, the schedules are aligned so there are shared upper division classes (effectively making them coeducational) as well as some shared co-curriculars (theatre, robotics, affinity groups, etc.). This relationship is important for both schools and it is incumbent upon the new President to work with the administration of Carondelet to continue to cultivate the connection to ensure a strong bridge between the two schools.