St. Luke's Strategic Plan 2021: Prepared to Thrive

ST. LUKE’S STRATEGIC PLAN 2021

PREPARED TO THRIVE

ST. LUKE’S MISSION:

"St. Luke’s is not a product. It’s a living organism, made up of people with brains and ideas and changing needs. And like all organisms, we need to adapt to a changing world by evolving."

DAVID PAKMAN, TRUSTEE, STRATEGIC PLANNING CO-CHAIR

An Exceptional Education Now And Into The Future

In 2019, St. Luke’s School kicked off a Strategic Planning Process with one clear goal:

Ensure a St. Luke’s education remains exceptional into the future.

To accomplish this goal, a Strategic Planning Team of volunteer trustees, parents, faculty, administrators, and alumni began an exploration that included: examining macroeconomic and regional trends, conducting current and prospective parent surveys and phone interviews, looking at what peer schools were saying and doing, analyzing admission data, and engaging the St. Luke’s community in interviews, focus groups, and a day of community brainstorming.

Strategic consultants Leadership + Design offered expert guidance and helped us identify essential questions to frame our work:

What do parents expect and hope for from education?

What are we already doing very well at St. Luke’s, and can we grow these strengths?

Where are the gaps in what we offer?

What is going on around us? How is the world changing?

And the question that became the North Star of the Strategic Planning Process: What will students need to thrive—now and into the future?

Strategic Plan 2021: Prepared to Thrive is St. Luke’s answer to this question. It draws on the wisdom and experience of the St. Luke’s community. It is grounded in research and inspired by an understanding that the best schools prepare students, not for the world we’ve known, but for the world they will enter.

An exceptional education that inspires a deep love of learning, a strong moral compass, the commitment to serve, and the confidence to lead.

What Students Need To Thrive—Now And Into The Future

The world continues to change, as do both our understanding of how young minds develop and our assessment of the knowledge and skills needed in college and beyond. The future demands changes from great schools—updated approaches to teaching and learning that foster both independence and interdependence, that enable students to co-author their education and emerge ready to forge their own paths—regardless of changing conditions.

To thrive now and into the future students need to be …

Healthy in their approach to work, play, and relationships

Self-directed and able to influence the course of their learning and lives

Confident in their abilities to lead and make a difference

Inspired by great teachers who understand the power of caring mentorship

Four interconnected strategic priorities will help St. Luke’s build these capabilities and fulfill our mission now and into the future.

Each strategic priority offers stand-alone importance but also intersects with and reinforces the others, uniting behind a single goal: An education that produces graduates Prepared to Thrive.

Execution is the responsibility of “Working Groups” of educators and trustees who have established one-, three-, and five-year measurable goals. Outcomes will be tracked and reported every year. Working Groups will have both the freedom to innovate and experiment, but also accountability to real metrics and progress.

Well-Being

“We plan to fully lean in and expand St. Luke’s counter-conventional focus on well-being. This will serve our families and distinguish our school. St. Luke’s will become known as the academically challenging school that grows healthy kids who thrive.“

KARI OLSEN, DIRECTOR OF COUNSELING & WELL-BEING WELL-BEING WORKING TEAM LEADER

Volumes of research confirm what every parent and teacher already knows: Students who have a sense of belonging and purpose, who can work well with peers to solve problems, who can plan and set goals, and who can persevere through challenges are more likely to maximize their opportunities and reach their full potential.

Placing well-being front and center as a strategic priority is a bold move in a culture that embraces rigor and prioritizes achievement. Yet, the more we learn, the more it’s clear: A focus on well-being undermines neither rigor nor success. Quite the contrary, wellbeing opens the gates to innovation and achievement. St. Luke’s has long been a trailblazer in the well-being arena. We were ahead of the curve in taking seriously the need for student sleep and addressing it with later start times; we took action to manage homework overload and cell phone distraction; we were among the first to leverage mindfulness for student and faculty stress—and the only school in our area to offer educators from public and independent schools the chance to join our Mindfulness in Education Conferences.

In this next phase of our work, we will emphasize Whole-School Well-Being by extending our work to include faculty, staff, families, and a strategic partnership with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.

Well-Being

How St. Luke’s Will Build Habits for a Healthy Life

Mission: Using evidence-based practices, St. Luke’s will become a leader in addressing Whole-School Well-Being, blending exemplary programming with rigorous verification of its impact on the social, emotional, cognitive, and physical well-being of students, faculty, staff, and families.

Strategic Plan Goals: A Well-Being Working Group will lead the development, execution, and tracking of goals over the next one to five years. Go to www.stlukesct.org/thrive to meet working group members.

Expand Counseling Services to Counseling & Well-Being

To realize our mission of leading in Whole-School Well-Being and to capitalize on the strides made in strengthening our counseling initiatives, the Counseling Services department will become Counseling & Well-Being. In addition to recent staffing additions—including the hiring of a new and visionary director—St. Luke’s will build a comprehensive program aimed at elevating the well-being of students, faculty, staff, and families.

Whole-School Well-Being involves all parts of the community working together to define and contribute to creating a healthy culture where every member can thrive. Built upon the shared belief that well-being fuels achievement in and beyond the classroom, St. Luke’s Counseling & Well-Being will develop partnerships and programs including:

Strategic Partnership: Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence (YCEI)

YCEI is widely known as the home of the original scientific theory of emotional intelligence and developer of RULER, an internationally recognized approach to building emotionally intelligent school communities.

St. Luke’s will work with YCEI to assess, monitor, and develop resources and curriculum focused on the well-being of the school community. This will encompass aspects of overall well-being including physical and mental health and social-emotional skills.

An oversight committee composed of YCEI researchers, St. Luke’s faculty, staff, parents, and students will help shape a custom program for St. Luke’s. Longitudinal measurement and analysis will help us gauge and track progress and ultimately provide well-being data that can benefit many schools and communities.

Curriculum to Equip and Empower Students

As we engage in the development of Whole-School Well-Being, we will infuse principles of well-being across our curriculum to include explicit skill-building as well as integration into existing instruction.

Curriculum initiatives will include...

Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Committing to SEL instruction, including the YCEI RULER program for building emotionally intelligent communities

Neuroscience and Applied Behavioral Sciences Adding developmentally appropriate content to the science curriculum

Mindfulness

Developing fulsome mindfulness programming for students in grades five through 12 (as well as faculty, staff, and families)

Community Programs

While schools have not traditionally seen themselves as agents of well-being for faculty, staff, and families, St. Luke’s does and will differentiate itself by creating community programs. The Counseling & Well-Being Team will work closely with different parts of the St. Luke’s community to identify needs and develop effective programs. Potential subjects include: balancing competing priorities, dealing with change and transition, and exploring adolescent development.

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Student-Led Learning

Our vision is that any visitor to St. Luke’s could walk up to any student and ask what they are doing and why—and the student will offer a response that is authentically about learning. Not ‘because it’s on a test, or because it’s my homework for tomorrow’ but because their learning has purpose.”

LIZ PERRY, HEAD OF UPPER SCHOOL STUDENT-LED LEARNING WORKING TEAM LEADER

Student-Led Learning takes many forms and has a common, distinguishing thread: Students have a significant say in what and how they learn, while teachers serve as expert facilitators and guides. It represents a transformative shift from “doing school” to learning with real purpose.

One can see why doing more of this would excite students and teachers alike. It disrupts the familiar dynamic of teacher as distributor of knowledge and student as recipient. Learning becomes more personal, more self-directed, and, in important ways, more challenging.

Some examples of signature Student-Led Learning initiatives at St. Luke’s include J-Term, where students work in groups to tackle societal problems (e.g., poverty) of their choosing; the Scholars Program, where students apply for a year of independent study, guided by a faculty mentor, and culminating in a doctoral-style presentation; and the St. Luke’s Hackathon, where “hackers” of all ages try their hands at design-thinking to solve challenges they’ve identified.

When recent graduates were asked to identify the “best work” they had done in school, they inevitably identified some variation of student-led work—a research paper, a Scholars presentation, their Hackathon invention, a club they had launched, a theatrical role they had taken on—work that had personal meaning and purpose.

The Strategic Plan’s Student-Led Learning initiatives will be our next steps in moving St. Luke’s toward more of this kind of learning. The goal is for every student—grades five through 12— to have these transformational experiences throughout their St. Luke’s careers. That’s how kids will thrive.

Student-Led Learning Initiatives

How St. Luke’s Will Activate Learning with a Purpose

Mission:

St. Luke’s shifts students from “doing school” to learning with a purpose, ensuring that all graduates will know how to direct their learning, spot opportunities, build and work with a team, and reflect on their growth.

Strategic Plan Goals:

A Student-Led Learning Working Group will lead the development, execution, and tracking of goals over the next one to five years. Go to www.stlukesct.org/thrive to meet working group members.

Transformational Curriculum and Signature Programs

Launch signature Student-Led Learning programs in each division that maximize student choice and purpose. In most subject areas, St. Luke’s has already created its own original Advanced Curriculum as part of our move Beyond AP, leveraging the powerhouse faculty in our Upper School to challenge students with unique offerings.

The next five years will bring greater innovation as we create interdisciplinary programs that foster thinking across subject areas, greater flexibility in graduation requirements, and more opportunities for deep work that focuses on how learning in school connects to life beyond the classroom.

Programs to be explored include: Interdisciplinary Middle School program with designLab

What would it be like if every Middle School student completed a designLab project that involved service, innovation, problem-solving, and collaboration?

School-Within-a-School: Mentored Independent Projects

If students were able to immerse themselves in a topic of their choosing for an entire semester, what might they pick? Imagine a sophomore or junior taking on a J-Term topic like homelessness or climate change, but with a four-month runway.

Capstone Program for All Seniors

What would it be like if every senior had an experience as meaningful as our Scholars Program? What can our oldest students stretch to do if we give them the time and space?

Professional Development

Identify best practices and emerging thinking in areas that support Student-Led Learning (e.g., pedagogy, design thinking, deeper learning, assessment). Create a comprehensive professional development program to build critical Student-Led Learning skills and competencies for faculty and staff.

Strategic Partnerships

Innovations in learning require innovations in student assessment and program offerings. St. Luke’s will continue to connect strategically with leading educational organizations that put student learning first. Two examples include:

Mastery Transcript Consortium

The Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC) is a growing network of over 300 forward-thinking private and public schools working together to design new approaches to student assessment. St. Luke’s has been a member since 2016. MTC schools share the belief that “there is a better way to prepare high school students for the world ahead and of presenting them to colleges.” Working over time with partners like the MTC, St. Luke’s will gradually seek opportunities to differentiate and comprehensively tell the story of each St. Luke’s senior to colleges and universities.

Global Online Academy

St. Luke’s will partner with Global Online Academy (GOA), a pioneer of innovative teaching and learning models. GOA is known for its relevant, dynamic course offerings that will be a rich complement to existing St. Luke’s courses, mainly as electives (examples: Architecture, Bioethics, Business Problem Solving, International Relations). These courses are asynchronous, so students gain flexibility in when and how they complete their assignments. With classmates from member schools around the globe, St. Luke’s students will encounter perspectives and make connections beyond the Hilltop. Faculty will benefit from GOA’s menu of professional development opportunities, especially in the area of competency-based learning.

St. Luke’s leadershipLab

“Imagine entering college already experienced at crafting meaningful messages across platforms, collaborating with peers, bringing raw ideas to fruition, and doing it all as a respectful and respected leader. That’s leadershipLab.”

JACQUELINE NELSON, DIRECTOR OF EQUITY & INCLUSION LEADERSHIP WORKING GROUP CO-LEADER

St. Luke’s launched the Center for Leadership in 2011, becoming the first among peer schools to begin teaching—starting in fifth grade—what it means to be ethical and empathetic leaders.

Under the Strategic Plan, the Center for Leadership will evolve into St. Luke’s leadershipLab and feature three distinct learning lab experiences: Communication Lab, Civil Discourse Lab, and Launch Lab. Each distinct “lab” will give students dedicated time and resources to collaborate, experiment, research, and develop their leadership interests and skills.

Middle and Upper School students will develop effective communication skills, gain exposure to diverse industry experts and thought leaders, and acquire practical experience with civil discourse that intentionally exposes them to divergent points of view and encourages collaborative problem solving across lines of difference.

St. Luke’s leadershipLab will be the only program of its kind, bringing students hands-on experiences that will allow them to shape and amplify their ideas and voices, develop their beliefs and values, and prepare to be highly effective members of civil society.

St. Luke’s leadershipLab

How St. Luke’s Will Unleash the Confidence to Lead

Mission: St. Luke’s leadershipLab will empower students to find and use their voices, practice hands-on leadership, explore moral questions and responsibilities, and discover the art and impact of civil discourse.

Strategic Plan Goals:

A leadershipLab Working Group will lead the development, execution, and tracking of goals over the next one to five years. Go to www.stlukesct.org/thrive to meet working group members.

Communication Lab

Crafting a clear, compelling message and delivering it well are skills that will serve students for life. Communication Lab will develop speaking and presentation skills while building confidence to express one’s point of view, ideas, and values—respectfully. Communication Lab will offer workshops, classes, and other experiences in traditional public speaking, video presentation, information literacy, and techniques for leveraging various social and digital platforms.

Civil Discourse Lab

This new initiative leverages St. Luke’s significant civil discourse programming. The Civil Discourse Lab will be staffed by skilled facilitators who draw out and honor divergent points of view and prepare students to be citizens and leaders of a diverse, connected, and civil society. Offerings will include:

Courses, Workshops, and Speaker Series Semester-long courses and mini-courses, workshops, and guest speakers will expose students to various civic, social, and global topics. Content will support the core values of St. Luke’s Community Goals for Learning: respect for differences, seeking truth and understanding, perspective taking, self-reflection, and interdependence.

Strategic Partnership: Cato Institute & Sphere St. Luke’s will partner with the Sphere Education division of the Cato Institute to grow our expertise, ensure balanced perspective taking, and promote the School’s emphasis on civil discourse broadly. Sphere “aims to restore a spirit of civil, constructive, and respectful discourse and engagement and to return facts, analysis, and research to primacy as the vehicles for discussion and debate.” St. Luke’s was the only school invited to present our civil discourse work at Sphere’s inaugural conference for educators and will be the first to create an education partnership with the Cato Institute and Sphere.

Launch Lab

The Launch Lab will expand the Center for Leadership’s successful Leadership Lab pilot where students work directly with industry and community leaders. Launch Lab will offer students opportunities to do what many professionals have yet to experience: to go from an idea in their heads to collaborating with teammates on an effective presentation while getting constructive feedback and mentorship from successful leaders. As a result, they learn to make things happen (to launch something they believe in), gain practical experience in networking and exposure to divergent perspectives, and grow in confidence.

Additionally, Launch Lab will work with faculty partners to offer:

Leadership Studies

A suite of academic courses (semester and mini), developed by the Leadership Studies Department, designed to reinforce key leadership competencies (e.g., ethical problem solving, resonant leadership, and developing cultural competency).

Faculty Excellence

"St. Luke’s is uniquely positioned to attract teachers who want to grow and become exceptionally good at what they do. They will come here to learn and find such deep professional satisfaction—they will never want to leave.”

JIM FOLEY, ASSISTANT HEAD OF SCHOOL FOR LEADERSHIP & INNOVATION FACULTY EXCELLENCE WORKING GROUP LEADER

While each of the four strategic priorities connects and reinforces the others, Faculty Excellence is the foundation of the entire Strategic Plan. Exceptional teachers will breathe life into Well-Being, Student-Led Learning, and leadershipLab. They will bring the skills, the heart, and know-how that inspire students to thrive.

St. Luke’s has successfully attracted and retained top faculty by creating a vibrant learning community and fostering professional fulfillment. Faculty Excellence will: further develop St. Luke’s signature Faculty Growth and Renewal Program; ensure the benefits we offer are highly competitive and of the highest value to educators; enable St. Luke’s to continue taking the lead in innovative hiring practices that attract best-in-class talent.

The Faculty Excellence priority will also enable St. Luke’s to widen our net and influence by growing our role as an educator of educators. By nurturing and expanding our Education Institutes—which invite educators from anywhere to learn from our

accomplished faculty—we will enhance St. Luke’s reputation, attract potential candidates, and spread the ability to inspire students to thrive well beyond the St. Luke’s Hilltop.

Faculty Excellence

How St. Luke’s Will Inspire Students to Thrive

Mission:

St. Luke’s will recruit, develop, inspire, and retain the next generation of exceptional, mission-driven faculty and staff.

Strategic Plan Goals:

A Faculty Excellence Working Group will lead the development, execution, and tracking of goals over the next one to five years. Go to www.stlukesct.org/thrive to meet working group members.

St. Luke’s Teaching Institutes

At every stage of their career, teachers will find programs at St. Luke’s that bring them together with peers, connect them to exceptional mentors and instructors, fuel their professional growth, and send them off to their next classroom environments inspired and invigorated.

Examples include the new August Institute for Early Career Teachers and the designLab Institute (for mid-career professionals). New programs will be created to target late-career experienced teachers, aspiring instructional leaders, and/or other specific constituencies. These Institutes will connect St. Luke’s teachers with other leaders in their fields and connect exceptional teachers from all over the world with St. Luke’s.

In-House Internships

St. Luke’s understands that curious, inventive people often wish to explore different professional opportunities. The In-House Internship program will allow talented colleagues to have hands-on experiences with the full spectrum of functions, roles, and responsibilities that make independent schools work. These internships become opportunities for current employees to grow and contribute to the life of St. Luke’s in a new capacity.

Enhanced, Targeted Compensation & Benefits

Attracting and retaining exceptional teachers in a shifting, increasingly competitive landscape will require an agile compensation and benefits approach. St. Luke’s will ensure that salaries remain in the top echelon of peer schools. And the School will meet its evolving strategic needs with a benefits program that both improves with time and supports employees during the times that matter most, such as relocating or starting a family. This includes crafting creative, cost-effective benefit solutions that address the persistent challenges of transportation and housing that derive from our location.

Top Talent Recruitment

St. Luke’s will develop a team of dedicated recruitment professionals focused on attracting the next generation of exceptional, mission-driven faculty and staff.

St. Luke’s Strategic Plan 2021: Rooted in St. Luke’s Values

This Strategic Plan was created to ensure a St. Luke’s education remains exceptional into the future. Families can trust that this planned evolution remains firmly rooted in the mission, values, and beliefs that have defined—and will always define—St. Luke’s School.

Mission: An exceptional education that inspires a deep love of learning, a strong moral compass, the commitment to serve, and the confidence to lead.

Motto: Enter to Learn. Go Forth to Serve.

Core Values: The principles that guide our culture—Love of Learning, Good Character, Pursuit of Excellence, and Community.

Vision for Inclusive Excellence: In 2017, St. Luke’s Board of Trustees approved the Vision that states: “Every individual in our community belongs, is valued, and has a stake in the life and purpose of St. Luke’s.” (read the full Vision www.stlukesct.org/vision)

For additional information about St. Luke’s Strategic Plan 2021: Prepared to Thrive, visit www.stlukesct.org/thrive

St. Luke’s is a secular private school in New Canaan, CT serving grades 5-12. St. Luke’s mission is an exceptional education that inspires a deep love of learning, a strong moral compass, the commitment to serve, and the confidence to lead.

For additional information about St. Luke’s Strategic Plan 2021: Prepared to Thrive, visit www.stlukesct.org/thrive

Produced by St. Luke’s Marketing and Communications