Ambition in Action

sanford school 2013 strategic plan

THE MISSION OF SANFORD SCHOOL Sanford School identifies and develops the intellectual and creative talents of a diverse group of students. Within a caring and supportive college preparatory environment, students are encouraged and challenged to achieve their finest in academics, athletics and the arts. Our ultimate goal is to teach students to live humanely within the Sanford community in order to prepare them to meet the demands and responsibilities of the future in the broader world.

A strategic plan is the blueprint for leadership decisions as we strive to meet our mission.

Sanford School has completed a two-year planning process culminating in this strategic plan, which our Board and leadership team will use to guide our school over the next five years.

In early 2011, the Sanford Board of Trustees formed a Strategic Planning Committee (SPC), comprised of trustees, members of the faculty and staff, and parents. After wide-ranging discussions, a respected school management consultant, John Littleford, was engaged to facilitate and formalize the process. Mr. Littleford held meetings with many focus groups, whose members were selected to represent all major Sanford constituencies. Group members expressed their views on where the school is today, and shared their expectations and hopes for the future.

Based on the results of those focus group meetings, the SPC ultimately identified five substantive areas—Leadership, Centers of Excellence, Finances and Fiscal Sustainability, Capital Projects and Facilities, and Marketing and Retention—that will be top priorities for Sanford over the next five years. Separate committees were established to define goals and action plans for these important areas, and the Strategic Plan that follows represents the final distillation of all of the efforts of the many people who have contributed to our strategic planning process.

Tom Allingham Former President, Board of Trustees

Bill Lafferty President, Board of Trustees

Mark Anderson Head of School

leadership

centers of excellence

Overall Strategic Goal:

Overall Strategic Goal:

Leadership is important in all aspects of Sanford life. Effective leadership for Sanford must include consideration of the multiple perspectives of our diverse Sanford community, and be based on a foundation of the 5 C’s: (1) character; (2) creativity; (3) collaboration; (4) communication; and (5) critical thinking. We must make it a strategic priority to attract and retain school leaders from all of Sanford’s key constituencies who exemplify these 5 C’s.

Sanford School is dedicated to providing a rigorous and well-rounded college preparatory education. As an enhancement to that program, Sanford will develop Centers of Excellence. Each Center of Excellence will be exceptional compared to schools in our area, interesting to students and parents, and relevant to the goals of a well-educated person in the years to come. For each academic Center of Excellence, the school will develop rigorous, in-depth, and age-appropriate curriculum opportunities for students in all grades.

To accomplish this goal, Sanford will: • Recruit a diverse Board of Trustees whose members exhibit the leadership qualities necessary to support Sanford’s mission.

• Maintain a culture that promotes leadership among faculty and staff by offering professional growth opportunities for those who exhibit outstanding leadership qualities.

• Build and sustain a dynamic and cohesive leadership team committed to fostering the mission of the school.

• Encourage parent leaders to partner with Sanford to build a strong and welcoming school community, and to support Sanford’s mission.

• Explicitly promote the development of leadership qualities in Sanford students, and provide leadership opportunities through educational and extracurricular programs.

To accomplish this goal, Sanford will: • Perform a rigorous self-audit of its curriculum and programs in order to identify full-fledged current programs that already qualify as Centers of Excellence, as well as existing niche areas of expertise that can be consolidated or expanded into new Centers of Excellence.

Areas where Sanford already has knowledge, experience, and excellence that should be considered for development into Centers of Excellence over the next four years include Technology Education, Environmental and Sustainability Education, Global Studies, Performing and Media Arts, Athletics, and Leadership Studies.

• Engage all relevant Sanford constituencies in the design, development and marketing of the programs chosen to become new Centers of Excellence.

charactercreativity collaborationcommunication criticalthinking

FINANCES AND FISCAL SUSTAINABILITY Overall Strategic Goal: We are committed to securing Sanford’s long term financial sustainability by enhancing existing revenue streams, developing new non-tuition income sources, continuing to apply a disciplined approach to our cost structure, and formalizing and enhancing our sound fiscal management policies. By doing so, we will ensure that the financial resources necessary to support and advance our mission, program and facilities at Sanford will always be available.

To accomplish this goal, Sanford will: • Develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to reduce Sanford’s tuition dependence by increasing revenue from existing non-tuition revenue streams, and identifying new non-tuition revenue streams, particularly those that will increase our school’s exposure to potential new students.

• Achieve meaningful growth in Annual Fund giving every year, by increasing participation among all constituencies and strengthening the culture of giving at Sanford.

• Achieve meaningful growth in endowment giving, by more effectively promoting Sanford’s Planned Giving program and actively pursuing grants targeted for endowment.

• Maintain a responsible tuition assistance program that is designed to achieve targeted enrollment/retention, diversity and net tuition revenue goals.

• Examine costs in our operating budget on a line-by-line basis, focusing in particular on non-educational costs, and compare them to benchmark data from peer schools.

• Develop and maintain best practices and policies to govern all aspects of financial management.

CAPITAL PROJECTS AND FACILITIES

MARKETING AND RETENTION

Overall Strategic Goal:

Overall Strategic Goal:

To serve its mission, Sanford must provide a safe, up-to-date and attractive physical environment for the development of our students’ talents — not only because a substandard environment can be an impediment to learning, but also because well-conceived and executed facilities can be a positive force for the nurturing of our students’ talents and aspirations, and directly support our targeted Centers of Excellence.

Sanford families know that Sanford is a special place, simultaneously providing a rigorous college preparatory education while preserving our nurturing environment that encourages students to take risks and broaden their experiences. Time and again, Sanford parents will offer concrete, often moving examples of how our school’s motto — “No Talent Lies Latent” — has specific application to their own children’s lives. We must proudly and aggressively communicate our character and our value proposition outside the Sanford community, in order to attract new families and maintain enrollment at levels that will preserve and protect Sanford’s unique character.

To accomplish this goal, Sanford will: • Launch and complete a successful capital campaign to raise the funds necessary to build a new Geipel Center — a new home for Sanford’s Music and Performing Arts programs, including a modern theater that will also serve as a campus center and meeting space for the entire school and its many constituencies.

• Begin planning for the funding and construction of a modern Middle School facility.

• Ensure that existing property, plant and equipment are regularly and conscientiously maintained, and plan proactively to provide sufficient resources to ensure that physical assets that reach the predictable end of their useful life can be timely renewed or replaced.

• Conduct regular reviews of the school’s physical assets, to identify facilities needs that cannot be addressed within the normal maintenance and renewal/replacement processes, and prioritize those needs.

• Seek actively to minimize the adverse impact that our school and its campus have on the environment.

To accomplish this goal, Sanford will: • Define and reach a sustainable target enrollment, considering all relevant factors, including internal programmatic and curricular needs, and external demographic trends and economic conditions.

• Reduce annual attrition rate to 6.5% or better, with a particular focus on key transition points.

• Enlist current parents to deliver the Sanford message, and equip them with the specific tools to be effective “first line” recruiters for Sanford.

• Annually increase the number of admission visitors.

• Annually increase the number of community members visiting our campus.

This Strategic Plan outlines an ambitious and exciting future for Sanford School. Meeting the challenging goals of the plan will require enthusiasm, dedication and hard work, but we are confident that the Sanford community is ready to join together to make the plan a reality.

sanford school 2013 strategic plan 6900 Lancaster Pike • Hockessin, DE 19707 302-239-5263 • sanfordschool.org

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