y a d o t g n Planni for Foxcroft’s Tomorrows
By Lisa Bard Knowles ’78, Foxcroft Trustee
I
t continues to be a privilege to serve on the Foxcroft Board of Trustees. I enjoy working with an extremely talented, dedicated, and diverse group of people who are deeply invested in the success of this special school. One of our key responsibilities as a Board is to regularly review our progress and update our Strategic Plan, which helps us define our long-range goals as a school and make decisions on allocating resources to pursue these goals.
After the successful completion of most of the initiatives in the 2016 Strategic Plan, the Board determined it was time to update our plan. In the summer of 2019, I was asked to chair the Strategic Planning Task Force. This was important work to help ensure that Foxcroft continues to evolve and thrive in the decades to come. To make sure we were thinking about the task holistically and had the right process in place, the School hired an outside consultant, Katherine Whitney of Warren Whitney Management, to help guide the work.
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The first step was to form a task force where important perspectives were represented. The team consisted of Head of School Cathy McGehee, administrators, two faculty members, four Trustees, and two current parents. Ms. Whitney worked closely with the task force to set up a timeline within which to get the job done. She held focus groups with all faculty members, the Board of Trustees, parents during Family Weekend, and students over multiple campus visits. Online surveys were sent to alumnae, parents, students, and employees to gain insight from all constituencies. Through all of this work, the task force learned valuable information that helped create the new strategic priorities for Foxcroft. Some of the more notable learnings were that diversity, equity, and inclusion were a top priority among all constituent groups, and that environmental sustainability and social responsibility were top priorities for students.
