SPSCC Strategic Plan 2021

St. Philip’s School and Community Center

STRATEGIC PLAN 2021

St. Philip’s School & Community Center - Strategic Plan

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St. Philip’s School & Community Center - Strategic Plan

LETTER FROM THE HEADMASTER It has been said that when the time to perform arrives, the time to prepare has passed. As the ministry of St. Philip’s marches through its seventy-fifth year of performing by way of service, we must acknowledge that prayer and planning have prepared us to launch into the path towards our century mark. From its early inception as a small parish of African Americans looking to establish an Episcopal church in South Dallas, to its transformation into the dynamic multi-faceted ministry we know today, our impact has been mighty. We are unabashed and persistent in being Godly responsive to the needs of our neighboring community and the children and youth we serve. Accordingly, we are bold to have the Lord lead us into and through this milestone moment of expansion.

It is befitting that this Strategic Plan’s structure rests on seven pillars; six are written but the primary foundation of this plan is prayer. Honor is due to the comprehensive body of faithful contributors who refused to be curtailed by an unprecedented pandemic and would not allow the ambitions of this plan to intimidate their visions of what is possible. This strategic roadmap is a tribute to St. Philip’s past and a commitment to its promising future. In it, you will find a collective of data, dreams, deliberations, and discernment that will chart our path and measure our mighty impact.

The time to prepare is now! With that, we are delighted to release our 10 Year Strategic Plan. We are excited by the ingenuity and inclusivity embedded throughout this document. Our goal is to ignite instructional talent and tenacity while enriching student trails of opportunity. We will leverage our talents, resources, and relationships to catapult student pathways beyond their time at St. Philip’s. Similarly, we will pave avenues for our faculty to extend our excellence in school-based community transformation to other educators.

Finally, through this plan, our role as a community anchor receives an accelerant towards dignified neighborhood transformation, by allowing our neighbors to participate in the community’s revitalization and in turn giving St. Philip’s the catapult to share its proved effective practices nationally.

Dr. Terry J. Flowers Perot Family Headmaster St. Philip’s School & Community Center - Strategic Plan

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STRATEGIC PLAN The strategic plan for St. Philip’s School and Community Center is the result of an immersive effort by selected faculty, staff, and trustees during a two-year period spanning 2019 – 2021. This period was incredibly challenging with a pandemic that brought strategic planning to halt in the spring of 2020 while the School adeptly pivoted to remote teaching. When strategic planning resumed later that summer, it occurred through remote meetings where sharing, contemplation, solidarity, and achieving a meeting-of-the-minds was hampered by distance and the limitations of technology. Strategic planning was interrupted again during the winter freeze of 2021 that caused extensive damage to the school, again reminding us that sometimes, strategic planning must pause and take a back seat to the practical, tactical demands of day-to-day life. Despite all of those interruptions, and in the truest sense of servant leadership, the St. Philip’s Strategic Planning Committee persevered and brought to completion what we believe is an incredibly important future chapter of the St. Philip’s School and Community Center story.

If the strategic

planning committee has done its job

well, members from everyone connected

to St. Philip’s will see

The members of the strategic planning committee shown on the back cover, worked to understand and incorporate the goals and aspirations of each of the major functional departments, the Community Center, student families, and even the neighbors surrounding our campus.

Further, we sought to represent the St. Philip’s Board of Trustees, its committees, and the countless volunteers and donors that honor us with their support. The committee recognized that it took the collective effort of thousands to build the St. Philip’s we know today, and it will be through us and thousands to follow that we will become the St. Philip’s of the future. If the strategic planning committee has done its job well, members from everyone connected to St. Philip’s will see some evidence of their voice and their vision for St. Philip’s in the pages that follow.

some evidence of their voice and their vision for St. Philip’s in the pages that follow.

This plan describes outcomes that are bold, innovative and visionary, yet also realistic, achievable and affordable. The committee anticipated a 5 to 10-year implementation period but believes that its Pillars, Goals and Objectives are timeless in their quality. Importantly, the strategic planning committee did not make any effort to change the St. Philip’s mission, rather it sought to find new and better ways to fulfill it.

The approach taken has left intact the values and qualities that have kept St. Philip’s on course through remarkable growth and change for the last 75 years. But it also recognizes that the changes and challenges to come, may be unlike any we have ever encountered. We believe that with this strategic plan, St. Philip’s is better prepared to continue growing, whatever those changes and challenges may be.

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St. Philip’s School & Community Center - Strategic Plan

In the following pages, readers will learn of the people, programs, initiatives, and processes St. Philip’s will build to best prepare our school, our students, and our neighbors to thrive in the future we imagine.

We look forward to building that future with you.

John Kiser St. Philip’s Strategic Planning Committee

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PILLAR ONE WE WILL ASSEMBLE THE EDUCATIONAL, SPIRITUAL, PARENTAL, PROFESSIONAL, AND SOCIETAL RESOURCES AT OUR DISPOSAL AND USE THEM TO ADVANCE THE DEVELOPMENT OF EACH INDIVIDUAL STUDENT

PILLAR TWO WE WILL CULTIVATE VALUE-BASED RELATIONSHIPS WITH THOSE WHO ARE ALIGNED WITH OUR MISSION AND WILL ADVOCATE FOR OUR GOALS

PILLAR THREE THE RELATIONSHIPS WE FORM WITH STUDENTS AND PARENTS WILL ENDURE BEYOND GRADUATION AND BE CULTIVATED THROUGHOUT THEIR LIVES

PILLAR FOUR WE WILL ADVANCE THE LIVES OF PEOPLE WHO LIVE AND WORK BEYOND THE WALLS OF ST. PHILIP’S

PILLAR FIVE WE WILL BE A TARGET DESTINATION FOR EXCEPTIONALLY TALENTED PEOPLE IN WHOM OUR MISSION IGNITES AN APPETITE FOR MAKING IMPACTS THAT ARE MEANINGFUL, MEASURABLE, AND SUSTAINABLE

PILLAR SIX WE WILL KEEP THE ST. PHILIP’S MISSION AT THE CENTER OF OUR WORKING ENVIRONMENT AND PERSISTENTLY FIND WAYS TO BETTER FULFILL IT

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PILLAR ONE WE WILL ASSEMBLE THE EDUCATIONAL, SPIRITUAL, PARENTAL, PROFESSIONAL, AND SOCIETAL RESOURCES AT OUR DISPOSAL AND USE THEM TO ADVANCE THE DEVELOPMENT OF EACH INDIVIDUAL STUDENT St. Philip’s School, faculty, staff, leadership, donors, and volunteers have succeeded each time we graduate a student who is prepared to achieve the future they envision.

It means we have graduated a young student who is intellectually driven, has a high degree of interpersonal wellbeing, is culturally aware, is an advocate for social justice, demonstrates a faithful spirit, and has a bias for servant leadership. Further, a successful St. Philip’s graduate is prepared and qualified to attend the future schools of their choosing.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES GOAL I:

Early in the academic experience of each student, we will couple academic outcomes with faculty observations to develop a wholistic understanding of our students.

Objectives 1 and 2: St. Philip’s Student Pathway Establish a method to aggregate objective data from assignments with subjective observations from faculty and use them as the starting point for a personal development plan for every St. Philip’s student.

GOAL II: We will create a developmental “pathway” for each student prior to First Grade and use it in discussions with parents throughout their St. Philip’s experience.

Objectives 1 and 2: St. Philip’s Student Pathway Build a St. Philip’s Student Pathway model that serves to visually document past achievements and recommend a student’s direction forward. Use the Pathway as a discussion platform with families about upcoming curricular demands, suggestions for how to prepare for them, and to identify programs and activities that can foster continued academic and extracurricular growth.

Objective 3: High Achiever Trajectory Design programs that leverage the St. Philip’s Board and volunteer networks to provide exposure and instruction for high-achieving students to keep them on a high-growth trajectory.

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PILLAR TWO WE WILL CULTIVATE VALUE-BASED RELATIONSHIPS WITH THOSE WHO ARE ALIGNED WITH OUR MISSION AND WILL ADVOCATE FOR OUR GOALS St. Philip’s School and Community Center board, donors, volunteers, business associates, and peer organizations are committed to our continued success. St. Philip’s is a preferred choice for their philanthropic commitment and without their past support, St. Philip’s would not exist in its present form. Likewise, without their future involvement, St. Philip’s will not be able to continue its work to prepare the next generation of graduates, nor serve as the gateway to future growth and development in the South Dallas community.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES GOAL I:

Donors and volunteers will be engaged personally to identify and articulate the values that speak to our shared mission, so that we can best direct their interests and resources to the areas of greatest impact.

Objective 4: Data Federation Build a centralized federated database that transparently aggregates information collected in each of the autonomous databases managed by philanthropy, volunteer services, programs, finance, etc. Then, develop a St. Philip’s Engagement Dashboard accessible by all departments, that can report on all of the points of engagement with any individual stakeholder.

Objective 5: Donor Moves Management Implement a robust moves management system that formalizes the systems, policies, procedures, and practices by which donors are identified and cultivated. This system will inform and support programs used by leadership to strengthen relationships with existing donors and forge relationships with new ones.

Objective 6: Volunteer Experience to Engagement Implement an efficient way to capture data about all volunteers that contribute their time to St. Philip’s. Then, design a communications program to broaden their exposure to us, and deepen their relationship with us.

GOAL II: We will identify and engage peer organizations throughout the US that share elements of our mission, operate in a similar environment, and that face the challenges and opportunities to which we can relate.

Objective 7: National Community of Practice Form and lead a “Community of Practice” consisting of schools and/or community centers that have a similar mission and context.

Combine the knowledge and experiences of leaders in this community to collaboratively address challenges and opportunities, and to explore potential relationships and joint initiatives.

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PILLAR THREE THE RELATIONSHIPS WE FORM WITH STUDENTS AND PARENTS WILL ENDURE BEYOND GRADUATION AND BE CULTIVATED THROUGHOUT THEIR LIVES With every graduating class, the St. Philip’s alumni network grows. It has a larger footprint, it mixes with a larger and a more diverse set of people and occupies seats at desks and across tables where decisions are made that affect families, neighborhoods, businesses, and cities. Graduation day is not a point that marks the end of St. Philip’s role in the lives of its students and their parents, but it does mark the day when our role changes. After graduation, we must begin to reach and influence our alumni and families in different ways, with different tools, different methods, and different messages.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES GOAL I:

We will develop compelling alumni programs that serve to renew and sustain relationships with St. Philip’s alumni and their parents.

Objective 8: Alumni Communications Create an alumni communications plan that tracks graduates and community center participants throughout their academic and professional careers and develops methods to reach them and messages that will resonate with them.

Objective 9: Alumni Achievements Develop a program that captures and showcases the career achievements of our alumni.

Objective 10: Alumni Engagement Create a continuing engagement program for our graduates, that will use developmental initiatives to bring St. Philip’s alumni back to campus to learn, grow, and share their gifts through service.

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PILLAR FOUR WE WILL ADVANCE THE LIVES OF PEOPLE WHO LIVE AND WORK BEYOND THE WALLS OF ST. PHILIP’S When a parent raises a child, an unnoticed outcome is that the child also shapes the parent. In a similar manner, St. Philip’s School, and the community in which it sits, have become products of each other. This interdependent relationship, while wonderful to see, also imposes a responsibility on each to act decisively in the best interest of the other. This responsibility is woven throughout the St. Philip’s vision for its future.

The St. Philip’s vision is one in which our neighborhood provides safety, opportunity and hope for our residents. It contains opportunity pathways for people of all backgrounds and improves their wellbeing by providing access to quality housing, good schools, jobs, and amenities. Walking alongside our neighbors, our shared vision is a healthy, economically vibrant, and diverse community that celebrates its rich history and provides opportunities for residents of all backgrounds and socio-economic conditions to live, work, play and thrive.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES GOAL I:

We will serve as an anchor, advocate, ambassador, and agent of change for the St. Philip’s Community.

Objective 11: SPSCC as an Anchor Institution We will formalize our status and refine our model as an Anchor Institution and continually measure our impact on the surrounding community.

GOAL II: We will assemble key stakeholders to envision and lead the future development of the neighborhood surrounding St. Philip’s.

Objective 12: Advancing Equitable Development Standing with and working alongside our neighbors, we will enhance the lives of area residents and create pathways of opportunity by advancing equitable development initiatives focused on the community’s top three expressed priorities: Quality Housing, Job and Wealth Creation, and Community Ownership and Leadership Development.

GOAL III: We will improve the wellbeing of our neighbors with programs that support basic needs, foster wellness, and encouraging community engagement.

Objective 13: Community Programming We will improve the well-being of our neighbors by nurturing an ecosystem that provides support for basic needs, and fosters wellness and community engagement by providing dignified, effective programs focused on 1) food and nutrition, 2) health, fitness and athletics, 3) education and capacity building, 4) enrichment (faith, friendship and fun) based on demonstrated need and interest.

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St. Philip’s School & Community Center - Strategic Plan

PILLAR FIVE

WE WILL BE A TARGET DESTINATION FOR EXCEPTIONALLY TALENTED PEOPLE IN WHOM OUR MISSION IGNITES AN APPETITE FOR MAKING IMPACTS THAT ARE MEANINGFUL, MEASURABLE, AND SUSTAINABLE St. Philip’s serves with a mission, in a location, and a target population that will likely preclude it from ever using the promise of well-above average financial compensation as a means to attract best-in-class leadership, faculty and staff. Yet best-in-class is what St. Philip’s aspires to be and its leadership, faculty and staff will take us there. Therefore, St. Philip’s must use other tools at its disposal to improve the quality of our employee work experience and the quality of their lives.

St. Philip’s will become known for attracting people that are mission-driven and will reward their commitment with benefits that are fulfilling, developmental and ultimately, valuable. This will become a part of the St. Philip’s brand.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES GOAL I:

We will take the professional and career development of our faculty and staff as seriously as we take the educational development of our students.

Objective 14: Academic Career by Design Create a mechanism for faculty and staff to design their personal and career development trajectory, develop a plan to achieve it, and commit time to cultivate it.

Objective 15: Faculty and Staff Highlights Incorporate into the academic year, a review of the faculty/staff accomplishments and highlight those in communications pieces to SPSCC employees, families, donors, volunteers, and community members.

Objective 16: Core Process Assessment Update the administrative programs around employee appraisals, compensation, and benefits. Incorporate changes needed to ensure that St. Philip’s attracts and retains employees who will thrive in the SPSCC environment.

GOAL II: We will expand our field of view in order find and attract best-in-class faculty who will contribute to our knowledge base and grow our educational development capabilities and capacity.

Objective 17: Faculty Sourcing Models Build a new faculty pipeline by identifying and evaluating a variety of faculty sourcing models, establishing networks through them, then recruiting within them using targeted messaging about St. Philip’s academic career opportunities.

Objective 18: Substitute Teaching Academic Academy Create an in-house substitute teacher development program serving first to support St. Philip’s faculty with high-caliber substitute teachers, and second, to qualify substitute teachers and teaching assistants for long-term assignments at other schools.

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PILLAR SIX WE WILL KEEP THE ST. PHILIP’S MISSION AT THE CENTER OF OUR WORKING ENVIRONMENT AND PERSISTENTLY FIND WAYS TO BETTER FULFILL IT The fact that our children are our future is indisputable. The reason they can see further into the future than us is because they are standing on our shoulders. Similarly, St. Philip’s has a bright future because of the foundation that others have built; the same foundation that our school leadership strengthens and grows this day and every day.

As we look forward and design the future of St. Philip’s, its leaders are charged with balancing our unwavering faith in the St. Philip’s mission with the practical day-to-day realities that arise in any organization of any size.

The complexities of managing relationships, processes, programs, and facilities can test the stability and integrity of our foundation. So, we will continually look for ways to maintain and improve it.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES GOAL I:

St. Philip’s School will review and rearticulate the position it holds in the marketplace and refine the messaging it uses to solidify that position.

Objective 19: Market Positioning & Brand Strategy Engage a market research firm to conduct an immersive market positioning study and develop a brand strategy for the St. Philip’s School.

Objective 20: Marketing Plan Capacity Develop the internal capacity to design and implement marketing and communication plans tailored to reach key audiences.

GOAL II: We will define our target market for students and families and develop or refine our tools and technique for influencing them to attend St. Philip’s.

Objective 21: 7th and 8th Grade Expansion Expand the St. Philip’s academic and experience offerings to include 7th and 8th grades.

Objective 22: Office of Enrollment Management Create an Office of Enrollment Management led by a member of the Sr. leadership team and tasked with designing, executing, and measuring the performance of a vigorous recruiting and retention program.

GOAL III: We will infuse into our culture the discipline to look further forward – well beyond the current academic year and into those that follow.

Objective 23: Beyond the Horizon Develop a forward-looking cash planning process used to identify early, and address preemptively, future financial issues that arise.

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STRATEGIES The strategic planning process for St. Philip’s School and Community Center can be thought of like planning a road trip. The Pillars, Goals and Objectives on the preceding pages describe a destination… the “place” St. Philip’s will get to and what we will find when we arrive. Where St. Philip’s is headed, many things will feel familiar, but others will be different. At our new destination, the people we travel with will be by our side, but we’ll pick up new travel companions along the way, and when we get to where we are headed, we will find a lot of new acquaintances; many will become new friends. Just like a road trip, the St. Philip’s strategic plan leaves us excited about where we’re headed, curious about what we’ll find, a little nervous about the trip, but really eager to get started.

So, if the Pillars, Goals and Objectives are the destination, what are the Strategies? The Strategies are the road map. They describe the route we will take to get from where we are now to where St. Philip’s is going.

The Strategies that follow are not one road map but many… one for each Objective. They answer the questions we must consider when we take a trip, questions like: • • • • •

Who will lead us on this trip and who is traveling with us?

When should we get started, and how long will it take to get there?

What do we need to bring and what do we need to leave behind?

How much will this trip cost?

How will we know when we’ve arrived?

All of the Strategies for the St. Philip’s strategic plans are in the Appendix, and they begin to answer these questions. Note that the word “begin” has particular significance because each of the Strategies starts with a vision for each Objective and assigns primary responsibility to one or more members of the St. Philip’s faculty, staff or board; they are the Strategy leaders. From that point, each Strategy describes the initial steps the Strategic Planning Committee believed would be needed to reach each Objective.

In short, each Strategy is a beginning, an initial path from which to get started. It is left to the strategy leaders and the St. Philip’s faculty, staff, board members, volunteers, and donors that join the effort to set the final, complete road map to reach their Objective.

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St. Philip’s School & Community Center - Strategic Plan

Strategies

Available in the full St. Philip’s Strategic Plan PILLAR ONE Objectives 1 and 2: St. Philip’s Student Pathway.................................................................................................... 24 Objective 3: High Achiever Trajectory........................................................................................................................ 27

PILLAR TWO Objective 4: Data Federation......................................................................................................................................... 30 Objective 5: Donor Moves Management................................................................................................................... 33 Objective 6: Volunteer Experience to Engagement............................................................................................... 36 Objective 7: National Community of Practice.......................................................................................................... 39

PILLAR THREE Objectives 8 and 9: Alumni Communications & Alumni Acheivements........................................................ 42 Objective 10: Alumni Engagement.............................................................................................................................. 43

PILLAR FOUR Objectives 11: St. Philip’s as an Anchor Institution................................................................................................. 46 Objectives 12: Advancing Equitable Development............................................................................................... 48 Objectives 13: Community Programming................................................................................................................. 53

PILLAR FIVE Objective 14: Academic Career by Design................................................................................................................ 56 Objective 15: Faculty and Staff Highlights................................................................................................................ 59 Objective 16: Core Process Assessment..................................................................................................................... 61 Objective 17: Faculty Sourcing Models...................................................................................................................... 63 Objective 18: Substitute Teaching Academic Academy....................................................................................... 66

PILLAR SIX Objective 19: Market Positioning and Brand Strategy......................................................................................... 69 Objective 20: Marketing Plan Capacity..................................................................................................................... 71 Objective 21: 7th and 8th Grade Expansion............................................................................................................ 74 Objective 22: Office of Enrollment Management................................................................................................... 77 Objective 23: Beyond the Horizon............................................................................................................................... 80

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St. Philip’s School & Community Center - Strategic Plan

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS St. Philip’s leadership wishes to thank the many faculty members, staff, trustees and volunteers listed below that comprised the St. Philip’s Strategic Planning Committee. Various sub-sets of the Strategic Planning Committee attended many dozens of meetings, both in person and remotely, to envision, debate, and design the Pillars, Goals, Objectives and Strategies in this plan. All told, this group contributed countless hours to complete this plan over a 24-month period spanning three different academic years. To complete this process despite the interruptions our school and our community faced took an enormous commitment. It is truly an example of what can be accomplished with some Devine help and influence.

Strategic Plan Committee: Jackie Andrews Candance Conerly David Cowling Terry Flowers Alicia Holmes Kathy Hubbard Bill Keslar John Kiser

Kellee Murrell Geoffrey Orsak Sheila Pate John Ralston Tearod Robertson Benaye Rogers Julie Saqueton Arnold Spencer

St. Philip’s also wishes to acknowledge the help from, and extend our thanks to, the hundreds of faculty members, staff members, volunteers, parents, friends, and neighbors who contributed their voices to define the future of St. Philip’s School and Community Center.

Thanks to all and to God be the glory.

For information about St. Philip’s School & Community Center: www.stphilips1600.org 214-421-5221

For information about the St. Philip’s strategic planning process: Dr. Terry J. Flowers, Perot Family Headmaster tflowers@stphilips.com 214-421-5221

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