More than a century ago, John Diman founded St. George’s School with a grand vision in mind.  Hoping not just to prepare students for college, but to produce graduates who would serve the world, he was far ahead of his time.  Today, despite all the changes of the past century, that founding vision is alive and well on the Hilltop.  In this light, we are pleased to present to you the School’s 2006 Strategic Plan.

This plan is the collaborative work of hundreds of members of the School family - students and parents, faculty and staff, Trustees and alumni.  It is built not just from the work of the past year, but upon dozens of preceding efforts, including the 1999 Long Range Plan, Review 2000, and our most recent NEASC self-study.  We would like to express on behalf of the School our abiding gratitude for these earlier efforts and especially thank those who participated and served so willingly in the survey and focus groups, the financial planning team, the off-campus retreat, and the revision sessions.  Special thanks are due as well to those members of the community who served as part of the Strategic Plan Steering Committee, a group of parents, Trustees, and faculty whose work, input, and counsel over the last year have been invaluable.

This plan differs greatly from a traditional “long-range” plan.  It is not a laundry list of needs or shortcomings to be addressed.  Instead it describes initiatives in seven interrelated strategic areas. These areas function like spokes on a wheel, with each supporting the overall structure of the plan.  The students and the Mission of the School are the hub of the wheel, stabilizing and connecting the spokes.  More specifically, each spoke in turn is made up of a number of clear and attainable tactics that can be examined at any time to measure our progress.  The plan is deliberately clear, concise and flexible.

This flexibility, the ability to adapt our school to the changing, evolving world around us has long been a hallmark of St. George’s.  The 2006 Strategic Plan is therefore our latest effort to continue becoming not just a “better” school, but one that is distinguished by its ability to combine rigor with warmth, tradition with innovation, and the pursuit of excellence with the cultivation of our students’ hearts and souls.

We look forward to your joining us on the road ahead.



Francis S. Branin, Jr.                        Eric F. Peterson
Chair, Board of Trustees                   Head of School

In framing the planning process and in crafting the plan itself, certain community values and core principles featured prominently.  These qualities are part of the enduring foundation of St. George’s and they provide the stable base on which all future efforts will build.  Shaping and informing the school’s work everyday, the following principles lie at the heart of the plan:

The Mission of the School:  We continue to rely every day on John Diman’s original words in his “Purposes of the School.”  We remain committed to helping students to develop the “particular gifts that are theirs,” to preparing them to “handle successfully the rigors of college” and most of all, to helping them create lives of “constructive service to the world and God.”  The Mission lies at the center of our work, and every initiative we are pursuing is aligned with its goals.

A Commitment to Developing Mind, Body, and Spirit: We have long believed in the importance of developing of students’ lives across a wide range of experiences.  To that end, we remain explicitly committed to pursuing academic and artistic excellence, to physical vigor and athletic competition, and to the school’s spiritual traditions and Episcopal affiliation.  Over the last century, despite changes in the curriculum, athletic and artistic offerings, and the frequency of Chapel services, these elements of St. George’s have endured.  In this respect, the next century will be no different.

A Small Boarding School:  For all of the growth and evolution of the School over its history, our students’ central experience of living and working alongside talented peers and devoted mentors remains fundamentally unchanged.  We are a small, residential community and we are committed to remaining so.  We believe that maintaining our enrollment at or near present levels and sustaining our commitment to the residential life of the School will enable us to best foster the blend of personal warmth, intellectual rigor, and community connection that distinguishes St. George's.   

Fiscal Responsibility:  The present success of St. George’s has been made possible by the generosity of prior supporters and the careful stewardship and management of the School’s finances.  Today, with an organization and program that are more complex than ever, we remain mindful of the need to work continually to reduce costs, restrain spending, and to keep the School on sound financial footing.  This fiscal responsibility extends not just to our operational budgets, but also to our need to manage our existing financial resources with maximum effectiveness, and to seek where appropriate any additional sources of revenue for the School.

The plan that follows is deliberately different.  The product of an innovative and collaborative process, it incorporates an honest assessment of the present while focusing clearly on the future.  Building on the School’s traditional strengths, the plan identifies seven strategic elements as most important to our students’ and the School’s success in the next five to ten years:

•    Advances in Science and Technology
•    Community, Responsibility, and Leadership
•    Culture of Innovation
•    Diversity, Gender, and Equity
•    Global Engagement
•    Professional Excellence
•    Sustainability and Stewardship

Each of these elements has described within it a short series of tactical initiatives that are actions, not simply ideas.  Each specific initiative has in turn been evaluated to ensure that it a) supports the Mission of the School, b) is achievable based on cost and complexity, c) adds value to a student’s experience at St. George’s.  The plan therefore represents our best attempt at devising a blueprint for our future, but like all blueprints we expect that it will be modified, adapted and revised as we move forward.

Read the entire St. George's School Strategic Plan

In recent years, “excellence” has become a ubiquitous buzzword in schools.  But what does excellence mean, really?  From John Diman’s words in 1896 to the demands of the 21st century, excellence at St. George’s has always been measured broadly and over a lifetime.  Of course we pursue it in all that we do.  But excellence alone, in isolation, has never been enough.  Instead, St. George’s is a school that delivers excellence with a heart, whose graduates are distinguished not merely by the power of their intellect, but by the depth of their courage and the scope of their service to the world.  These qualities have always infused St. George’s, and they always will.

It has been said that the future is waiting for each of us.  Not so.  The future is not waiting, not for an instant.  Rather, it approaches at speed, careening towards us with a full head of steam.  If we choose to stand and await the future’s arrival, we risk being buried in the dust of its passing.  Therefore, we cannot afford to wait.  We must go out and embrace the future on our own terms.  This plan represents our best efforts to do so.  We will build on our school’s great strengths, and prepare today for the demands of tomorrow.  As the initiatives of this plan become reality, we will continue to cultivate in our students the desire and ability to lead lives that matter, both to themselves and to the world.  Let us go forward together, with this purpose in mind.

In 1896, the Rev. John Byron Diman, founder of St. George's School, wrote in his “Purposes of the School” that:

"the specific objectives of St. George's are to give its students the opportunity of developing to the fullest extent possible the particular gifts that are theirs and to encourage in them the desire to do so. Their immediate job after leaving school is to handle successfully the demands of college; later it is hoped that their lives will be ones of constructive service to the world and to God.”

As we begin the 21st century, we continue to teach young women and men the value of learning and achievement, service to others, and respect for the individual. We believe that these goals can best be accomplished by exposing students to a wide range of ideas and choices in the context of a rigorous curriculum and a supportive residential community. Therefore, we welcome students and teachers of various talents and backgrounds, and we encourage their dedication to a multiplicity of pursuits—intellectual, spiritual, and physical—that will enable them to succeed in and contribute to a complex, changing world.