Guiding the Future through Strategic Planning
The Jewish New Year has begun and I would like to extend a wish for a sweet and happy New Year to Yavneh families and our community.
I am extremely excited to continue to serve as the Vice President of Strategic Planning for the Yavneh Board of Trustees during a period of dynamic growth, innovation, and advancement of the school. As part of my charter, I partner with the Board of Trustees to design and shepherd the long-term vision of the school and ensure Yavneh’s mission, philosophy, and core values guide our decision making and policy development. The strategic plan offers direction to the head of school and senior team as they manage and grow Yavneh.
An Exciting Year Ahead
This coming year is an exciting one. The Board is embarking on a new strategic planning process to set the framework for the school for the next five years of expansion. Why is a strategic plan important? The strategic planning process identifies actions that will best enable Yavneh to advance its mission. Through our engagement with staff, faculty, community, parents, students, and Board, we will set priorities and agree on methods for implementation – basically what we need to do as a school to achieve our long range goals.
As part of our successful accreditation process completed earlier this year, the California Association of Independent Schools (CAIS) provided some guidance and input into the 2019 strategic planning process. The major themes of recommendations are as follows:
Teaching and Learning: Continue to partner with faculty to sustain an environment of collaboration and continue to design innovative instruction and learning to maintain our leadership position across public and independent schools.
Infrastructure: Work with the campus to scale IT infrastructure in order to expand the capacity needs of the school’s educational technology to further support 21st century student learning.
Institutional Stewardship and Leadership: Facilitate a joint effort between the Board and Staff to drive an expanded annual fundraising and development campaign in order to accelerate the growth of the school.
Financial Achievements: Drive both the administration’s financial team and Finance Committee of the Board to develop a three to five year long-range financial plan using key financial standards from NAIS, CAIS, and Cal-ISBOA as benchmarks.
Faculty and Staff: Continue to benchmark best practices on building the educational team and supporting the teaching and administrative talent.
What Are the Next Steps?
Over the last several months, the Board of Trustees has worked on an outline of the strategic plan. The working committee incorporated the CAIS recommendations, inputs from Board members, and suggestions from the community.
On November 7th, we will host a community Town Hall from 6:30pm to 8pm to present the strategic plan framework and solicit initial ideas and comments from our parents. The session will be engaging and inclusive and we encourage you to mark your calendars for the event. We all have an opportunity to envision and reimagine the future of the school and where we should focus our efforts.
Final Thoughts
Our school continues to be an anchor and guiding light in our community. The strategic plan will set the roadmap for where we are going and we have a responsibility to continue to strengthen Yavneh for future generations of students.
The Board of Trustees appreciates your support and commitment to Yavneh Day School and I thank you for partnering with us on the education of our children and growing a truly amazing school.
I hope you and your children have a terrific year and I am very excited for what the future will bring. Shabbat Shalom, Shana Tovah and Chag Sameach,
Adam Dorsay
VP, Strategic Planning
Yavneh Board of Trustees
