Strategic Plan

Financial Stability Goals

• Rebuild Lower and Middle School enrollment.
• Become the market leader in partnering with families to keep the school affordable.

Initial Implementation Steps

• Develop sharper value propositions to differentiate Seven Hills from other local options.
• Aggressively market affordability and the “flexible tuition” concept.
• Develop strategies to strengthen retention at key exit points.
• Develop strategies to attract and retain a more diverse student population.
• Fund significant increases in the financial aid budget.
• Continue to control costs across all areas of operation.
• Leverage facilities and explore expanding services to drive new revenue.

FACULTY EXCELLENCE Goals

• Attract and retain the most talented and committed teachers available.
• Sustain the most congenial, collaborative work environment possible.
• Incentivize creativity and innovation in program and pedagogies.

Initial Implementation Steps

• Provide compensation and benefits, competitive with the strongest independent schools in our region.
• Strengthen relationships within and among school divisions.
• Support wellness and work/life balance for faculty and staff.
• Create and support faculty teams to research and design curricular innovations.
• Leverage professional development funds and curriculum grants to stimulate creativity and innovation.

dIVERSITY, eQUITY, AND INCLUSION Goal

• Realize fully our commitment of diversity, equity, and inclusion.,

Initial Implementation Steps

• Continue to build the diversity of our student population.
• Recruit, support, and retain an administration, faculty and staff, whose diversity aligns more closely with NAIS benchmarks for peer schools in our region.
• Provide on-going faculty training to ensure that all teachers have the necessary skills to work effectively and confidently with colleagues, students, and families from a wide variety of backgrounds.
• Enrich the curriculum to ensure that students at all levels have opportunities to explore the rich diversity of human experience and view the world from a wide variety of perspectives.
• Design mechanisms to engender greater student buy-in and empower students, in all four divisions, to take responsibility for sustaining an inclusive and equitable community.

FUTURE-FOCUSED LEARNING Goals

• Develop curricular and co-curricular experiences to foster global awareness, civic engagement, and meaningful interdisciplinary problem-solving.
• Build out opportunities for student leadership, work, and entrepreneurship experience within and beyond the Seven Hills community.
• Review curriculum and teaching practices through the lens of diversity and inclusion to promote cultural competency.
• Develop a more systematic approach to promote digital literacy.
• Build out STEM offerings to include some high-end, culminating problem-solving projects, fusing coding, engineering, and robotics. 

Initial Implementation Steps

• Focus professional development and curriculum development grants to create interdisciplinary learning experiences that focus on contemporary issues and foster civic engagement.
• Design and support co-curricular programs to foster student leadership and entrepreneurship.
• Develop strategic partnerships to exploit, even more fully, the educational resources of Cincinnati for “real world learning.”
• Review curriculum offerings through the lens of diversity and inclusion and make modifications where necessary.
• Develop a scope and sequence of necessary technology skills and a strategy to integrate it into the curriculum.

HEALTH, WELLNESS, AND COMMUNITY Goals

• Sustain a culture that fully supports students’ physical and emotional health and well-being.
• Sustain and build upon the strong sense of community that defines Seven Hills.

Initial Implementation Steps

• Develop strategies for reducing student stress/workload and creating a more balanced experience.
• Refine the new programs in social and emotional learning and develop a plan to assess the growth in students’ non-cognitive skills.
• Build out programs to foster independence and the life skills necessary for a successful transition to college.
• Leverage new facilities to showcase student achievements and to build community through the arts and athletics.
• Create shared experiences to bring together students from the two Lower School divisions (Doherty and Lotspeich).
• Develop a plan to reconfigure the Middle School facility to build closer grade-level communities.
• Develop an approach to dining that supports community-building and student entrepreneurship.
• Develop common grade-level academic experiences, possible extensions of the May Term, and peer leadership programs to build community in the Upper School.

Initial Implementation Steps

• Develop a Master Site plan for the Doherty campus and prioritize the plan for implementation.
• Develop a space utilization plan to maximize the impact of spaces freed up by construction of the Schiff Center and Fieldhouse, including:
  • New fine and digital arts studio space
  • Gathering space to support a new model for dining, to optimize efficiency, nutrition, and community building.
  • State-of-the-art STEM spaces for Middle and Upper School
  • Additional tennis courts
• Expand and renovate the Middle School to meet more fully the academic and social needs of Middle School learners.
• Explore facility adjustments to accommodate growing Early Childhood enrollment.
• Evaluate need for additional parking in the light of new facilities.
• Develop a plan to make the school’s facilities more energy efficient and reduce our carbon footprint.