Strategic Plan

Introduction

Saint Mark’s School has experienced considerable success over the past three decades owing, in no small measure, to a culture of assiduous and thoughtful strategic planning. By first carefully assessing relevant internal and external data, then rigorously analyzing current local, national, and global trends, next conducting wide-ranging discussions with all constituencies, and finally setting aggressive and measurable goals, Saint Mark’s has carefully planned its future in succeeding multi-year plans. In so doing it has managed to combine idealism with pragmatism, as well as optimism with realism, allowing the school to move into the future with strength, agility, and clarity of purpose.

Saint Mark’s entered the 2008–2009 planning cycle in a completely different era from any it had experienced, with challenging economic news besetting it from every side, from local, regional, and global perspectives. Any strategy, therefore, needed to hold to strong, long-term aspirations, but also be tempered by the reality of the current situation. Strategic directions laid out in this plan had to be aspirational, but implementation steps had to be flexible enough to be adapted to changing conditions.

In that spirit, the Strategic Plan Committee, chaired by trustee Wendy Broderick, has looked to the future, using as an organizing principle "six dimensions of sustainability." Adopted from the National Association of Independent Schools, but enhanced with a specific Saint Mark’s perspective, these six dimensions (Programmatic, Global, Environmental, Demographic, Cultural, and Financial) outline where the school intends to place its efforts, ensuring that it can best meet its needs in the present and the immediate future, without compromising the ability of school leaders in the more distant future to do the same. Not willing to stand still and hold tightly to the status quo, even in challenging times, Saint Mark’s seeks through this plan to chart a bold and exciting, yet responsible, course for its future.

We are grateful to all the Saint Mark’s constituents for their thought, support, and contributions to this plan.