Spark 2023 Update, fall 2019

St. Stephen’s Episcopal School

Strategic Plan Update Fall 2019 From The Hill to the World

OUR MISSION

Our shared purpose is to inspire a lasting love of learning and spirit of service so that each of our students lives a life of meaning and enriches the world.

S PA R K 2 0 2 3 V I S I O N

By 2023, St. Stephen’s Episcopal School will be a vibrant and inclusive community inspiring all learners for lives of meaning and impact from The Hill to the world.

Dear Spartan Community, With the first few months of the 2019–20 school year under our belts, including Spirit Week and Reunion Weekend, we have settled into the normal rhythm of life on The Hill. I appreciate everyone who assisted with back-to-school activities, as we helped new students and their families become oriented to campus life while welcoming back the familiar faces of returning students and their parents.

This fall marks the second year of implementation of our strategic plan, Spark 2023. We made significant strides in the first year, completing a number of initiatives and making progress on others.

I met recently with the Spark 2023 goal champions to take stock of what we have accomplished to date and what we will focus on throughout the year.

As satisfying as it has been to check off the projects we have completed thus far, I found the tone and intentionality of the goal champion updates to be even more inspiring. They are laser-focused on those initiatives that will have the greatest impact on our students. They are also acutely aware of the need for balance — between looking for opportunities to deploy innovative tools, techniques and programs and remaining faithful to our mission, core values and enduring principles.

This balanced perspective has helped ensure we continue to move forward without losing sight of those longer-term initiatives on the horizon. As such, our conversation always came back to several fundamental questions. First and foremost, how do we want to support and serve our students? What should our primary goals be, as a school? How can we fulfill our founding purpose? Finally, how can we be good stewards of the land in a way that both harnesses and sustains its distinctive nature?

I hope you will take time to read this Spark 2023 Update, Fall 2019 to learn more about our plans for the future of our amazing school. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns about our achievements to date or the initiatives we will focus on in the coming year.

Sincerely,

Chris Gunnin, Head of School

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Spark 2023 Goal One Strengthening Our Community Through Faithfulness to Our Mission

By 2023, the enduring mission and core values of St. Stephen’s Episcopal School will inform all policies and practices.

Goal Champions: Yvonne Adams and Todd FitzGerald Initiatives “Completed” or “Completed and Ongoing” in Year One 1. Conduct a marketing communications audit to craft a marketing plan to tell our story.

2. Create and successfully implement a formal Parent Ambassador Group.

3. Hire a Human Resources director.

4. Create a budget to support adopting a pool of Upper School substitute teachers.

5. Increase Endowment and Emerging Scholars gifts to decrease reliance on fundraising to balance the annual operating budget.

From August 1, 2016 to October 1, 2019, the school raised $11.16 million for the Endowment, as well as $1.28 million for the Emerging Scholars Program, which funds need-based financial aid awards for first-generation college-bound students.

“This has been my third or fourth run through a strategic planning process [at different schools]. This one stands out as being quite unique, not only because of the number of hours we have committed to the planning and implementation of initiatives but also because it is driven by a larger vision of what we want to give to our students on an intergenerational basis.”

— j o h n r o c k l i n , a c a d e m i c d e a n , c l a s s i c a l l a n g u a g e s d e pa r t m e n t

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chair

Year One Accomplishments for Initiatives “In Process” 1. Increase academic and emotional support for all students in customized and individualized ways.

For the 2019–20 school year, St. Stephen’s expanded our team of full- time professionals dedicated to meeting the learning and wellness needs of our students. After hiring a second full-time learning specialist, the school now has one learning specialist dedicated to the Upper School and one for the Middle School, along with a dean of Middle School who previously served as the learning specialist in that division. These highly trained professionals work with students to help them develop general study skills while addressing their individual learning needs and more specialized academic accommodations. As part of this effort, the school began formally introducing all 9th graders to learning specialists and the services they offer at the beginning of the school year.

In addition, the school now has three full-time counselors: the director of the counseling team, one counselor dedicated to the Upper School and one dedicated to the Middle School. Two of these counselors live on campus. This team is focused on nurturing the emotional, psychological and social wellness of our students. As part of this effort, the school enhanced health courses for 9th graders this fall and introduced Spartan Success, a program that introduces all 9th graders and all new 10th graders to a variety of study, time management and planning skills.

“The strategic planning process allowed every constituent of the school to have a voice in creating this plan. The most amazing part for me is to see how each initiative aligns with our mission and ensures that we will continue living out our mission for years to come.”

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yvonne adams, director of equity and inclusion

2. Expand alumni engagement beyond fundraising.

The school hired a new director of alumni relations to lead this initiative. The new director has 20 years of advancement experience, including 13 years in alumni relations at an independent school.

Under her leadership, the school: • Launched the Spartan Alumni Network, which currently has 214 members, 50 of whom have signed up to be student and alumni mentors.

• Introduced the Alumni Online Book Club, whose 120 members are currently reading and discussing their second book.

• Achieved record-breaking alumni attendance at Reunion Weekend 2019.

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Members of the Class of 1989 took time out to pose for a class photo during one of the many Reunion 2019 activities.

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Spark 2023 Goal Two Balancing the Student Living and Learning Experience

By 2023, St. Stephen’s Episcopal School will be a boarding and day community that provides a balance of joyful exploration, reflection and self-discovery, and the vigorous pursuit of excellence.

Goal Champions: Kim Garey and Jon McCain Initiatives “Completed” or “Completed and Ongoing” in Year One 1. Assess and optimize the Crossroads for a learning center/space that positions learning specialists to best support students.

St. Stephen’s remodeled the Crossroads over the summer, and it opened in time for the start of the 2019–20 school year. This renovation was made possible by last year’s successful Make It Happen auction, part of the Spring Swing fundraiser, which raised more than $100,000 for the project.

Improvements included installing new flooring and furniture, painting walls and ceilings, consolidating storage spaces and upgrading the bathrooms, as well as adding new student and faculty carrels.

In addition to providing dedicated space for students to meet with faculty and learning specialists, the new furniture can be reconfigured easily for club meetings and study groups. There is even a floor-to-ceiling white board on one wall for creative brainstorming and collaborative learning. Making the Crossroads a more interactive academic space also allows the library to become a more focused study area for students.

2. Create a makerspace/innovation lab.

In 2018, St. Stephen’s made an initial investment of $30,000 to create a makerspace called the Project and Idea Realization Lab (PIRL). The dedicated space provides a collaborative environment where students and faculty can engage in a variety of design, innovation and creative activities.

New equipment included a laser cutter, a dual extrusion 3-D printer, a stereolithography printer, a sewing machine, electronic prototyping software, sewable electronics tools, and various hand and power tools.

In 2019, the school purchased a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) router, thanks to a generous donation. With the addition of this tool, students in the PIRL can now design, prototype and produce 3-D work in nearly all mediums, including acrylic, vinyl, resin, metal and wood.

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In addition, students now have access to large-scale production tools that will allow them to work with single pieces as large as 24 inches x 36 inches.

Students are using the router in many innovative ways, including making watch faces for the theatre production of Radium Girls. Other students are taking a certification class to learn how to take advantage of all the powers of the CNC router.

3. Establish a full-time director of outdoor education who could more fully develop opportunities for day and boarding students to experience outdoor education /adventure.

With the appointment of the full-time director, St. Stephen’s has started developing, and in some cases already has implemented, a broader range of outdoor recreational and educational opportunities for students.

The director is working with Middle School faculty to develop new nature-based social, emotional and learning offerings. One of these, the Wednesday Walk in the Woods, is a 30-minute hike along campus trails after Middle School lunch that was introduced this fall. Extensive research has shown that nature-based activities like this can help improve students’ attention, as well as their ability to deal with anxiety, stress and other social issues.

The Field Research Station is another new offering that launched this fall with outdoor activities focused on eliminating invasive species on campus, as well as analyzing and surveying other plant and animal species on campus. The program allows students to participate in hands-on project-based research using our land and its resources, and students may eventually enter these projects as science fair projects in the Austin Regional Science Fair in February. The program is one piece of the larger Land Management Program that will include campus visits by wildlife biologists and land management specialists this fall to discuss ways to integrate land management into our curriculum, as well as the longer-term development of a master plan for the undeveloped part of our campus.

Complementing these on-campus activities will be a growing number of off-campus programs, including overnight campouts at state parks for boarding students, as well as weekend day trips for day and boarding students to Bamberger Ranch Preserve and Shield Ranch, two facilities that have implemented best practices for ethical land stewardship and natural resource conservation.

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Year One Accomplishments for Initiatives “In Process” 1. Establish a task force to research, evaluate current programming and recommend a holistic wellness program that fits the unique needs of St. Stephen’s.

The school formed a task force comprising Upper School and Middle School faculty, as well as coaches, counselors, learning specialists and nurses. Several task force members completed the research/due diligence phase of this effort. This entailed visiting six schools in California and Texas, where they met with wellness program faculty and staff to discuss and glean best practices. The schools included Greenhill School, St. John’s School and The Hockaday School in Texas, as well as Harvard-Westlake School, The Cate School and The Thacher School in California. Based on this research, they will develop a draft proposal for the best way to move forward and then collaborate with all task force members and other stakeholders to gain input and ensure community support. The task force will then deliver a revised proposal to Spark 2023 goal champions in May 2020.

“It’s inspiring for me, personally and professionally, to participate in the strategic planning initiative meetings. After visiting peer schools in Texas and California to discuss their innovative health and wellness programs, I look forward to enhancing our programs to improve the overall well-being of our students while enriching their educational experiences.”

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TO P: In September, faculty members Dean Mohlman and Charlton Perry led a group of Spartans participating in the inaugural activity for the school’s new Field Research Station.

B OT TOM: Students relaxed after exploring caves at the Whirlpool Cave Preserve in Austin as part of the school’s outdoor education program.

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j o n m c c a i n , d i r e c t o r o f at h l e t i c s , e c o n o m i c s i n s t r u c t o r

2. Ensure St. Stephen’s facilities reflect the quality and meet the needs and vision of excellence for each program.

In 2019, St. Stephen’s embarked on a comprehensive Campus Master Plan initiative in which employees, students, parents, alumni and donors forged a shared vision for the future of our campus and facilities. In addition to including stakeholders from our community, the school assembled a team of world-class partners to help with various aspects of the effort. This team includes Page, a multidisciplinary architecture and engineering firm; Building Solutions, a leading facility assessment firm; Rogers O’Brien, a premier provider of commercial construction services; and TOPIO Land Design, a site planning, urban design and landscape architecture firm.

The initial due diligence phase featured a detailed facilities audit and campus assessment, as well as interviews with individual community members, surveys of key constituencies and visioning workshops with

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groups of stakeholders. These efforts helped identify community members’ favorite places on campus, as well as assess underutilized places, ages of current buildings, types of architecture, building use, access to campus, pedestrian circulation routes, parking challenges, landscape typologies, impervious surfaces and view corridors on campus.

Representatives from Page, TOPIO Land Design and Building Solutions then met with the campus planning committee to review the campus physical analysis, the discovery survey results and key findings from the building assessment. The partners also discussed opportunities and constraints gleaned from the analysis, introduced initial program components and solicited committee member feedback regarding additional space considerations.

In August and September, Page hosted a series of Campus Master Plan presentations to key groups, including the campus planning committee, employees, parents and board members. The intent of these meetings was to solicit final feedback from the school community. In the coming months, the board of trustees and school leadership will finalize the Campus Master Plan and, in doing so, chart a bold vision for the future of the school shaped by input from the entire school community. They will then evaluate the various campus and facility projects included in the Campus Master Plan and prioritize them for future investment.

“I’m proud that our strategic plan includes some ‘big thinking,’ as well as some practical things for our campus and facilities that are aligned with our core values. We’re not discussing ‘what fancy building we want where.’ Instead, we’re considering what kind of facilities will fit our mission, and what will serve our students the best.”

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kim garey, head of upper school

Spark 2023 Goal Three Making a Difference from The Hill to the World

By 2023, St. Stephen’s Episcopal School will be an informed and innovative community that champions solutions to social, environmental and ethical issues.

Goal Champions: Wallis Goodman and John Rocklin Year One Accomplishments for Initiatives “In Process” 1. Found the Bishop Hines Center for Social Justice to strengthen our commitment to our Episcopal Identity through social justice, service learning and care for creation.

In the past year, St. Stephen’s has taken foundational steps to lay the ground work for this center, including creating a mission statement, determining four areas of focus and defining enduring principles.

• Mission Statement: The Bishop Hines Center for Social Justice trains and equips individuals to be advocates for justice, practitioners of peace and protectors of the planet.

• Areas of Focus: Racial healing, gender equity, LGBTQ+ justice and care of creation.

• Enduring Principles: Grounded in our Episcopal Identity, the center will enhance adults’ ability to teach and raise up their students, and augment St. Stephen’s students’ experience in our community.

In addition, the school has enhanced the Service Learning Program by improving existing activities and introducing new ones. These include monthly visits to Central Texas Food Bank along with regularly scheduled trips to Trinity Center, Mobile Loaves and Fishes, and iAct Tutoring Program, where our students provide academic support and friendship for refugee children.

St. Stephen’s also is exploring several opportunities to bolster our 15-year relationship with St. Etienne, an Episcopal church and school in Haiti. One is a potential partnership with Zanmi Agrikol (Partners in Agriculture), a nonprofit whose mission is to end malnutrition in Haiti by reintroducing sustainable agricultural practices, which have eroded over centuries of mining and political turmoil, and equipping residents with the tools they need to thrive. By working together, Zanmi Agrikol and St. Stephen’s could help Haitians increase their farming capacity and become more

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self-sufficient while sharing more of those resources with St. Etienne. The school also is exploring relationships with other partners that can provide technology and expertise to improve water quality, as well as increase access to clean water throughout the region.

To support enhanced programming, beginning this fall St. Stephen’s expanded

our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) team, whose director has been joined by two DEI Upper School co-coordinators and a DEI Middle School coordinator. The school will take another significant step toward establishing the Bishop Hines Center for Social Justice when this team conducts a DEI audit in 2019–20, beginning with a school community-wide survey in November. The DEI team will also expand its web presence, promote its equity programming more broadly and host its annual diversity conference, Radical Hope 2.0, this school year.

“We are moving closer to establishing a center that will fulfill our school’s founding vision, enhance the student experience and serve as a resource for other schools, both locally and farther afield.”

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T O P: In September, 9th graders visited the Central Texas Food Bank to learn more about food insecurity and help provide 3,988 meals for Central Texans in need.

B OT TOM: In March, more than 200 students and educators from schools throughout Texas attended “Radical Hope,” St. Stephen’s inaugural diversity conference.

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the rev. todd fitzgerald, school chaplain

2. Connect

administrators and faculty with local experts to support the development of campus-wide sustainability operation; Plan

and implement further conservation practices to establish St. Stephen’s as a model of sustainability and environmental responsibility.

In the past year, St. Stephen’s has taken steps to improve its environmental

stewardship and sustainability operations while positioning itself for even greater advancements in the future. On the educational front, the school hosted its first Sustainability Summit last October, featuring leading experts from academia and industry. This spring, Yosua A. Husodo ’12, who has a B.A in environmental studies and currently is working on a master’s degree in sustainability management, spoke to members of the school community about the urgent need for increased environmental awareness. On September 20, students in the Green Goblins club organized a school-wide Climate Crisis Strike as part of a world-wide initiative to raise awareness of the need to take action now to address urgent environmental issues.

Other efforts led by students, faculty and staff already have made a tangible environmental impact on campus. This summer, the school converted existing inefficient light fixtures to LEDs, which typically use 15 percent of the energy of older fixtures, significantly reducing our carbon

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In September, the school community joined together to spell “Act Now� as part of the Climate Crisis Strike. Led by the Green Goblins club, the event was designed to raise awareness about urgent environmental issues.

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footprint while saving money. Austin Energy predicted that this project, whose pay-off period is just seven months, will save enough electricity in the long term to power the equivalent of 40 homes for an entire year. This fall, students in Environmental Science launched a “Take Care of Our Air” campaign on campus, which is part of a larger No Idling Zone initiative that seeks to reduce the levels of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds released into the environment from idling automobile engines.

Thanks to a water and energy efficiency audit of campus recently completed by the Heritage Institute of Sustainability, St. Stephen’s is poised to make significant improvements in its energy use and water consumption. The report lists several opportunities ranging from replacement of older, less efficient HVAC and plumbing equipment, to sprinkler system upgrades and installation of new submeters. In the coming months, the school will carefully evaluate the recommendations and begin implementing steps that have the potential to achieve up to 15-percent reduction in annual water consumption, as well as significant energy savings throughout the next 20 years.

“The conversations we’re having [about the strategic plan] are ones that Bishop Hines would be proud that we’re having. As we strive to become a campus that runs on sustainable practices and infuses them in learning experiences, the school will reaffirm our fierce commitment to the land and bring to life the concept of ‘care for creation’ that is central to our Episcopal Identity.”

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Strategic Planning Committee St. Stephen’s Episcopal School’s strategic planning process was guided by the following members of the school community, who worked diligently and thoughtfully throughout the 2017–18 academic year to ensure a visionary plan was developed that would carry St. Stephen’s forward for the next five years.

Implementation Oversight Committee Head of School Chris Gunnin and Trustee Jessica Slade Committee Members Yvonne Adams, Janet Allen, Michelle Andrews, Paul Byars ’07, Anne Marie Becka, Alison Chang, Jessica D’Arcy, Laurel Eskridge, the Rev. Todd FitzGerald, Jolynn Free, Rebecca Gibbs, Rebecca O’Hara, Shannon Ratliff ’86, Ellen Ray ’86, John Rocklin, Melissa Rubin, Temple Webber III and Vicki Woodruff

w a l l i s g o o d m a n , d e a n o f f a c u lt y , h i s t o r y i n s t r u c t o r

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St. Stephen’s Episcopal School 6500 St. Stephen’s Drive Austin, Texas 78746 512.327.1213 www.sstx.org www.sstx.org/strategic-plan