by Margot Ross ’24
December 5, 2023
The 2023-2024 school year is shaping up to be one of major administrative and missional changes at USN. Not only are three major posts turning over—the offices of Chief Financial Officer, Head of Lower School, and Head of High School — but USN also recently announced the formation of a Strategic Planning Committee.
The Committee is a team of 19 administrators, parents, trustees, current board members, former board members, and faculty. Some of the most notable Committee members include alumnus Benjamin Goldberg ‘98, owner of Strategic Hospitality (the parent company of restaurants such as Kisser, Locust, and Bastion); Juanita Traughber, USN’s director of marketing & communications; Anne Westfall, USN’s director of development; and Robbie McKay, high school English teacher and cross country coach.
The creation of a strategic plan will outline USN’s main institutional priorities in the coming decade and establish plans for large-scale change; however, the process of strategic planning still mystifies many students.
Before Director Amani Reed outlined that process, he explained the difference between reaccreditation (which will take place during the 2024-2025 school year) and the creation of a strategic plan. According to Reed, the process of reaccreditation involves administrators internally evaluating whether or not the school is carrying out its mission statement. Then, an outside group (in USN’s case, the Southern Association of Independent Schools) sends an accreditation committee USN to independently assess USN’s adherence to its mission through classroom shadowing, documentation, and interviews.
The process of creating a strategic plan is slightly different in terms of time frame, scope, and level of student participation. Whereas reaccreditation happens every five years, strategic plans are typically created every 10-15 years. But the time frame can shift depending on school circumstances. This particular strategic planning cycle was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
How USN interacts with its mission statement during strategic planning is different as well. While reaccreditation focuses on adherence to a mission statement, strategic planning involves assessing USN’s mission and the school’s most unique aspects. Those “unique aspects—” the qualities that make USN a distinctive institution—will help Strategic Planning Committee members decide what to preserve when they outline the school’s priorities for the coming decade.
“Accreditation begins with us looking inward first, and it’s driven by the mission–are we living our mission and doing everything we can to run an exceptional school? Strategic planning asks us to look at our mission to see if it’s the right mission,” Reed said.
Committee members will also asses what makes USN exceptional: in other words, why prospective families might choose it over competing institutions. Similar to the “unique aspects,” USN’s points of excellence will help the Strategic Planning Committee decide what to maintain and what to change during the process.
“We’re really looking at [everything]…the size of the school, the type of program that we offer, the mix of the students in terms of their families and their experiences. We’ll take it a step further to think about the academic program–if it’s adaptive as we want it to be and how we’re restricted by external forces,” Reed said. “We’ll also get a chance, I hope, to talk about how we view the community–what it would mean for us to have a space to gather as a community. [Right now], we can’t all be in one room together [as a school].”
Finally, students are slightly more involved in the strategic planning process than reaccreditation. During strategic planning, students will be able to give administrators input on what they view favorably or unfavorably about the school, which will inform decisions made by the Committee and guide them as they choose their strategic priorities for the coming decade. The primary way students were able to communicate their opinions was through response to the Strategic Planning Survey, which was sent on October 26.
While the survey closed on November 1, Reed emphasized that students would have other opportunities to share their input throughout the process.
“There will be other surveys, because we want to make sure everybody has opportunities and access. We’ll do a lot of different kinds of focus groups. The last one was a fairly random selection of eight or six students from a handful of grades…the more students the better, so that’s going to be a big part of it,” Reed said.
Students, are not the only constituents the Strategic Planning Committee will hear feedback from, however. This phase of the strategic plan—what Reed calls “data gathering”— involves soliciting feedback from a wide variety of different stakeholders. Parents, faculty, administrators, alumni, and staff will be able to communicate their visions for USN’s future through participation in surveys, focus groups, and interviews.
A key player in that step is Mission & Data, a consulting firm hired by USN that offers services in Strategic Plan Implementation & Accountability. Mission & Data will be primarily responsible for collecting and interpreting responses from USN’s stakeholders.
“The two principal partners at Mission & Data have a deep experience in this work…they both have experience as previous heads of school. They both know USN, which was an important part of the process,” Reed said.
After data collection, the committee will choose the priorities that will guide its strategic plan. Reed anticipated that the committee would most likely identify four or five priorities to focus on in the coming decade.
Then, the Strategic Plannung Committee will conduct further research about whether or not it’s fufilling those established priorities, and steps it might take to do so.
Finally, the Committee will carry out action steps to fully work towards the priorities outlined in the strategic plan.
While the time frame for strategic planning is indefinite, students should know that they’ll have an opportunity to contribute to discussions on USN’s key priorities soon.
