Strategic Plan

Introduction

Much of the remarkable progress that Saint Mark’s School has made over the past ten years has been a direct result of a program of rigorous and thoughtful strategic planning, accompanied by the regular monitoring of the success of the efforts recommended in those plans.

The Strategic Plans of 1995 and 2000 outlined far-reaching improvements for the school in a wide variety of areas: from the school’s program, to faculty and staff compensation, to site improvement, to diversity, to development and marketing. In each of those areas the school has made measurable strides; in each of those areas the school is far stronger than it was at the outset of that planning.

In this, the Strategic Plan 2004, the school takes another bold, ambitious step forward. Co-chairs Beverly Kleinbrodt and Wendy Broderick assembled a committee of 20 community members, who worked throughout the 2003-2004 academic year to craft a plan that reflected the thinking of the many constituencies of the school, including trustees, faculty, staff, administrators, parents and alumni.

In an iterative process, this committee carefully surveyed the landscape of education in California in the 21st century, brainstormed ideas, then wrote and revised several drafts, taking in community input as it went.

The result is a plan that will build on the achievements of the former plans, will demonstrate where both the school’s enduring commitments and its chief strategic needs lie, and will chart a course for growth over the next few years. The plan poses six main goals, all of which exist to support the excellence of the academic program.

The planning process, it is important to note, does not end with the publication of this plan; the board and administration will design their annual goals around the priorities in this plan in the coming years and the board will monitor progress on the plan on an annual basis.