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PLAN INPUT & DATA GATHERING
The following table summarizes the community survey and in-person meeting questions and responses. The surveys and in-person meetings sought input on six core topics: quality of student experience, school culture, leadership priorities, areas
QUALITY OF STUDENT EXPERIENCE Overall Positive
• Top-notch • Excellent • Always improving • Eight out of ten • Very high • Getting better, but worried about pressure on girls • Great experience for young women • Good, but need to watch stress and fatigue for improvement, future challenges and opportunities, and new ideas. The responses shown in the chart are intended to be representative and thematic, not verbatims.
SCHOOL CULTURE Overall Positive
• Inclusive, welcoming, and diverse • Encouraging, but challenging • Vibrant and dynamic • Understanding • Female empowerment; growing unique kids • Deeply committed to Dominican values • Passionate about women of great character • Still good, but a bit rusty!
LEADERSHIP PRIORITIES Overall Good
95% responded that there is strong leadership alignment on priorities. However, areas for alignment were suggested: • More conversations need to happen, and more often • Monitor priorities closely; communicate progress • Promote collaboration and cooperation Continue to address tension among some parents (and students) around “conservative” versus “liberal” views
AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT Diverse Topics
• Pay close attention to successions/transitions because of the potential impact on culture • Diversity, equity and inclusion • Proactive, versus reactive, on issues • STEM as an extracurricular activity • Must embrace all cultures and all points of view • Remove underperforming individuals • Work/life balance for students
• Usher in new age of St. Agnes; succession planning • Focus on and fine-tune Dominican values/school statements • Review curriculum for relevancy • Develop a financial plan to weather downturns • Build endowment • Embrace diversity; be unwavering about justice and fairness; promote civil discourse; address transgender issue • Promote advantages of all-girl education and elite athletics • Anticipate changing local demographics • Address large classes, small classrooms
NEW IDEAS Diverse Topics
• Attack dwindling social skills • Use momentum to leapfrog the competition as a nationally (not just locally) recognized school • Evaluate the financial aid model and criteria • Build a multi-plex natatorium • Develop more co-curricula with Strake • Repurpose the Pavilion into an indoor/outdoor space • Add Makerspace and Weight Room • Post-survey: Understand and absorb the lessons of COVID-19
Armed with initial goal areas, survey and in-person meeting responses, and accreditation suggestions, the SPC, Board of Directors, Foundation Trustees, and administrators met for an all-day retreat in January 2000 to begin building the 2020+ plan. After significant large- and small-group discussions, the SPC agreed to create four (4) sub-teams (“task forces”) to develop the 2020+ Plan details. This work was organized around a refreshment of the school’s mission and vision, plus three (3) strategic goal areas: Leadership, Governance & Succession; Student & Community Experience, and Sustainability & Market Position. During the first few months of 2020, the four task forces met in-person to develop plan details. As COVID-19 hit, the teams went virtual to complete plan development work in preparation for a Board of Directors update in May. On May 6, 2020, the Board of Directors approved the plan as “preliminary” pending a further review of the plan in light of COVID-19. The SPC carried out that work over the third quarter of 2020 and updated strategies, as appropriate, to reflect COVID-19 insights. On November 18, 2020, the Board of Directors approved the 2020+ Strategic Plan. In January 2021, the plan framework (consisting of missionvision-goals-strategies) was handed off to the administration for developing plan tactics.
