REIGNITING THE STRATEGIC PLAN: STRENGTHENING COMMUNITY THROUGH DEI

In September 2019, WT unveiled its Strategic Plan, a vision built upon four pillars—Reimagine Learning, Rethink Time and Space, Strengthen Community, and Support Employees—designed to develop individuals of strong character and prepare them for the demands of a changing world.

“This vision is about a mindset for the future,” said Head of School Dr. Scott D. Fech at the time. “It’s a new approach to say that we embrace the fact that there’s a lot of uncertainty about what the future will hold, and that we can prepare our students to be able to adapt to whatever that looks like.”

Fast forward to the present, as Fech—with nearly three years of leading WT through the Covid-19 pandemic under his belt—reflects on the plan’s remarkable prescience.

“The priorities we identified in the strategic design process were pivotal,” he declares. “We had already laid out a pathway, pre-pandemic, to Reimagine Learning, Rethink Time and Space, Strengthen Our Community, and Support Our Employees. It was almost as if we said, ‘something’s coming, and we don’t know what it is.’ We’ve been able to thrive through this as a school community because we were already in the mindset of doing the very things that enabled our success through the pandemic.”

The priorities emerged during a painstaking ninemonth research and development process inviting full WT community participation via surveys, focus groups, external research, and document analysis that elicited feedback on WT experiences, community needs, a rapidly-changing society, and aspirations for the work of Winchester Thurston. All research was carefully analyzed, and culminated in the approach combining WT’s hallmark educational innovation with a fresh vision for how to “do school.”

Since the plan’s debut, key efforts have included adding one school counselor per division to expand support for student well-being; switching to semesters in 2023-24, allowing students to more deeply explore content and develop long-term projects; the fall 2023 opening of the Joan Clark Davis Center for Interdisciplinary Learning, which will provide more classroom spaces for interdisciplinary and project-based learning, expand City as Our Campus options, and enable community engagement programming; and phasing out AP courses to ensure one-of-a-kind-learning experiences delivered through an innovative curriculum fully aligned with WT’s educational philosophy and student-centered approach.

Post-Pandemic Challenges

Today, the four pillars designed to prepare students for an uncertain future, and which enabled WT’s success through the pandemic, continue to guide and support the school as it navigates the ensuing challenges.

“Many students are not where they typically would be developmentally or socially, because at significant developmental moments of their lives, they were forced apart,” notes Fech. “Academically, for example, our youngest students learned early literacy skills during masking, which muffled speech and prevented them from seeing mouths and how sounds are formed. So the ways we think about student support has had to shift: how do we meet them where they are, in order to prepare them for whatever comes next? How do we adjust curriculum to get them where they need to be?”

Action: Our teachers continuously work to refine their curriculum to ensure diverse perspectives are represented. WT launched a grantfunded summer curriculum writing program to support faculty in this work.

Vital to this effort, he says, is a robust community. “The way to create good learning environments is through strong student-teacher relationships and a strong partnership with the home.”

“It’s particularly important to emphasize community-building efforts and relationship building as we move into a new phase of life after lock-downs and physical distancing, because so many are longing for renewed, meaningful connection,” affirms Director of Equity, Inclusion, and Wellness Jessica Walton. “As we continue to implement holistic approaches to learning, ensuring we advocate for the well-being of each of our community members, we must remind ourselves, our students, and our families, that some of the most meaningful learning occurs when we feel most connected to our instructors, peers, and colleagues alike.”

“WT is a relational community,” adds Fech. “The relationships we build between faculty and parents and guardians, student-teacher relationships, relationships we maintain with City as Our Campus partners and our alums—these relationships are at our core. The pandemic forced us to keep people away. Now, we are reopening our doors to parents, plays, concerts, and parent-teacher conferences. Our Board of Trustees has resumed meeting fully in person. Bringing people back together on campus has been critical to supporting and strengthening our community again. We’re reconnecting!”

A Compass for the Community

Because the entire Strategic Plan, with four pillars in total, was always designed to be viewed through the lens of Equity and Inclusion, the school’s DEI Action Plan is a natural next step. Designed with the same level of broad, deep research and full community involvement as the original plan, the DEI Action Plan

“A summer curriculum grant, shared with my colleague, Dr. Chris Olshefski, allowed us to redesign the upper-level course Literature and Power to one that is project-based and challenges students to read, write, and think in new ways. This grant allowed us time, funding, and encouragement to take an online webinar with teachers and authors Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher, to read and discuss various texts together that inform our curriculum design and also our course content.”

—Emily Mohn-Slate, Upper School English Teacher

additionally incorporates data and recommendations from the recent DEI audit to help guide and determine benchmarks and outcomes.

“Developing an explicit DEI Action Plan is a positive extension to our original Strategic Plan because it encourages us to hold ourselves accountable as an institution,” asserts Walton. “The Action Plan names goals, allows us to operationalize key teams responsible for moving into action, operationalizes our Equity and Inclusion Statement, and requires transparent communication as we benchmark and

Action: WT has begun to implement practices like restorative circles through advisories and seminars as a means to strengthen community among students.

“Our team must look at the student as a whole, socially, emotionally, and academically, to support them and create a space for them to be seen, heard, supported, and successful at WT.”

—Amy Skelly, Lower School Learning Specialist

Action: Employees engage in continuous professional learning that supports their work in DEI initiatives. Some topics include culturally responsive teaching, trauma-informed practices, and facilitating difficult conversations.

“The Diversity and Inclusion Certificate Program from Cornell University helped me to look at DEI work in the greater scope of the school. By analyzing the system in which we interact as a school-wide community, I was able to think more deeply about my own teaching practice. A big component of the program is to help people develop leadership qualities so they can help to educate their workplace. I recently presented an interactive workshop to the faculty on unconscious bias to practice my leadership skills with DEI work.”

Betsy Lamitina, Middle School Teacher

measure success. It becomes the work of the school, not one or two individuals, or a small department. Our hope is to create sustainable mechanisms to ensure DEI is embedded into everything WT does for years to come.”

Developed using a structured, systems thinking approach, the Plan requires the school to measure, evaluate, and communicate updates on progress.

“Quite literally, our Action Plan is a large spreadsheet broken up into such sections as Diversify Community, Strengthen Community, Student Engagement, and Establish Accountability,” explains Walton. “Each tab contains the details of various action items; individuals and groups responsible for completion; due dates; status updates; and notes identifying key resources needed for implementation, and it runs along a three to five-year timeline. Our goal is for it to be a compass for our community, and a living, breathing document.”

The Plan is rooted in Restorative Practice, which focuses on social connections within communities and how to strengthen relationships between individuals.

“Restorative practice offers a framework to approach long-term change,” says Walton. “It is not necessarily one-size-fits-all. WT’s strategy for what we hope to achieve includes minimizing traumatic encounters for community members while they are here, and creating an environment where belonging feels tangible. Schools using restorative practice as a guidepost utilize shared language and shared tools for building connections and responding to challenging moments and conflict. For us, this perfectly aligns with ‘Think also…’”

Action: With our goal to attract qualified, diverse candidates, we refined our recruitment and hiring process to be a more standardized and inclusive process.

Action: Student support teams, composed of learning specialists, counselors, and administrators, were formed in each division to ensure effective interventions are utilized to meet the needs of all students.

“Our interviewers participate in interview and anti-bias training before engaging our candidates in a meaningful hiring experience, providing candidates with choices and opportunities to meet with stakeholders and get to know our community before accepting a job offer. Feedback on our process is very positive, and we continue to refine it as we focus on having a faculty and staff that fully reflect our student diversity and perspectives.”

—Kathy Stadler, Director of Human Resources

Fair Process, another necessary ingredient for successful change, is also a key component of the DEI Action Plan. Essentially, says Walton, it means “prioritizing treating people in a respectful way. We want to engage the entire community, to ensure everyone has a chance to give input on some of our larger organizational changes, and to regularly explain our process and approach through outlets such as State of the School, Thistletalk articles, parent feedback sessions, and prospective student visits.

“We must meet the needs of all students and employees,” she continues. “It is our moral imperative as detailed in the school Equity and Inclusion Statement, and it is educational best practice. The Plan cannot be just the vision of a few. We need volunteers to help with implementation, we need community feedback, and we need all hands on deck. The Plan will be most impactful and successful when it becomes the work of the entire community.”

WT’s Board of Trustees wholeheartedly agrees, and stands fully committed to the DEI Action Plan, says Trustee and alum Joy Titus-Young ’92.

“The mission of the Student Support Services program is to provide students with diverse needs the ability to access academic content, the school environment, and social interventions in a way that promotes positive learning experiences, relationships, and personal health and wellness. Our faculty understand the complex relationship between academic achievement and student wellness.”

—Dr. Amy McTighe, Director of Student Support Services

“We’ve been very pleased at the progression,” shares Titus-Young, who serves on the Board’s DEI Committee. “The Plan is strategic and intentional, and I believe the accountability piece is one of the most important aspects, because people want and need to know how do we measure, understand, and gauge our progress. I am also pleased with the ability to recalibrate as we continue to learn and hear more from the WT community. The Board supports the administration and the administrators, and we must be at the forefront of this work and at continuing to move the school forward in its position as a preeminent independent school that is welcoming to everyone.”

Action: Parents Association is an impactful way for families to become more integrated into the WT community. Families connect with each other through events such as educational workshops and affinity groups.

“Working within and across school divisions, the Parents Association (PA) aims to promote a strong sense of community and inclusivity among all members of the WT community. To this end, the PA organizes activities, events, and fundraisers throughout the year. Such goals are achieved through a vibrant network of parent/guardian volunteers that collectively seek to advance the student experience, to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas between the WT faculty, administration, and parents, and to promote overall school spirit.”

—Kate Gardner, Parents Association President

Action: To help ensure a consistent and fair experience, our admission process was refined by introducing standardized rubrics, a structured interview process, and engagement in implicit bias training.

Students are Thriving

“This work makes us a stronger community,” says Fech. “Building deeper relationships with our students through restorative practice, so that we are comfortable engaging in difficult conversations when they arise. Recognizing that there is no ‘typical WT family,’ that everyone’s needs are different, and that people bring different strengths to the table. Taking on the responsibility to adapt how we approach our work. All of this leads to our students feeling recognized, and that they fully belong.

“Every year, we ask parents to ‘re-up’ with us, and they do, because their children are thriving,” he continues. “And they are thriving because of our strategic work—because we tackle the big questions about DEI, and explore how to support all identities here. Students are thriving because we create learning environments where they feel safe, challenged, and supported. Teachers know our students. They adapt instruction to meet their needs, and they’ve built a school community classroom environment where students feel safe to take risks. When it comes to this, and to all of the important work we are doing, we owe the community transparent communication around our progress. And that’s what I really hope comes out of this: that we as a school articulate it more, and I as Head of School articulate it more, and that when parents, students, and alums talk about the WT experience, they, too, can articulate, ‘This is why things are so special at WT.’”

“WT is a unique community built upon caring for each other, listening to each other, learning from each other. We share the values of friendship and collaboration, knowing that the more diverse the voices at the table, the stronger we all are as we continue to move forward. Together, we have made significant changes to our admission process in an effort to better support and more warmly welcome all prospective families. I’m energized by our team’s work and am honored to be a part of perpetuating such a dynamic, authentic and caring community.”

—Brooks Follansbee, Director of Admission

Action: Every year, WT students attend the NAIS Student Diversity Leadership Conference, a multiracial, multicultural gathering of upper school student leaders focused on self-reflecting, forming allies, and building community.

The building at the corner of Centre and Morewood Avenues presents a unique opportunity to repurpose an existing structure, thus reducing WT’s environmental impact compared to building a new structure.