Dear Friends,

Several weeks ago at a Tartan Talk, we offered some thoughts about priorities for the future at St. Margaret’s. While the turnout was excellent at both the evening and morning sessions, it seems appropriate to offer a brief summary of some of the key areas of our presentation as a way of setting the scene for the years ahead. These thoughts coincide with the development of a new strategic plan which we look forward to rolling out in the near future, portions of which appear in the italicized paragraphs below.

These are very exciting times to be at St. Margaret’s for a variety of reasons not the least of which is the emphasis we are placing on curriculum review and reform. Under the guidance of St. Margaret’s Academic Dean, Dr. Regina McDuffie, we have embarked on a process of curriculum mapping across the four divisions of the school which has in turn stimulated numerous discussions regarding our commitment to instructional best practices. As with all fine schools, we are determined to engage in a process of continual review and evaluation as we seek to provide the best possible educational experiences for our students. Our overall commitment to this process is summarized as follows:

Our educational programs are guided by a culture that celebrates the process of learning and fosters lifelong learners, critical thinkers and global citizens. Instruction is based on current best practices of a Professional Learning Community and is differentiated to the needs of students while coordinated within grades and between grades.

Clearly, our primary commitment is and always must be to our students as we prepare them for “lives of learning, leadership and service.” We believe that focusing on the process of learning as opposed to solely the results of learning is critical. It is not enough for our students to arrive at the right answers. Rather, we are committed to helping our students analyze a problem, develop a hypothesis or formulate a theory as a way of nurturing students who think critically and understand the “whys” of their education and their world.

We also believe that preparing our students for lives in a global community is central to our mission. In this regard, we are deeply committed to creating a diverse school community “where individual differences are respected and celebrated, and where people from diverse backgrounds come together in a shared pursuit to create community.” It is simply not enough to talk about diversity. Rather, we must be intentional in our efforts to create a school community reflective of the demographics surrounding our school. As part of our strategic planning effort, we plan to include a statement describing both our commitment to and our rationale for striving to create a diverse community. The following summarizes a portion of this statement:

We recognize and appreciate that diversity exists in the languages we speak, the colors of our skin, the traditions we observe, the religions we practice, the structure of our families, the financial resources we possess, the special needs we have, and the gender and age we are. We believe that our separate heritages help define us as individuals, and that our commitment to learning about one another and the larger world unites us as a school community and prepares our students for living in a complex global society.

Finally, we acknowledge that life at St. Margaret’s does not and should not happen in a vacuum. We are, in the end, part of a larger community, and it is critical to our students that we emphasize the importance of working in harmony with those beyond the walls of our school. We are deeply blessed to have such an extraordinary school community that comes together in many meaningful ways, but we also recognize the importance of being an active participant in the larger world. We state that:

Our mission and our future will be strengthened through the development of meaningful partnerships in the larger community. These partnerships will, in turn, deepen and strengthen our commitment to civic purpose and provide our students with meaningful opportunities to broaden perspectives and prepare for lives of leadership and service.

Our plans are ambitious and comprehensive. They also require sound management and adequate funding. In short, excellence is expensive. Preparing our students for the world beyond St. Margaret’s involves many moving parts not the least of which is the retention and ongoing professional growth of our superb faculty and the development of first rate facilities to support our teachers and our students. In recent years, we have made many improvements to our campus, but clearly our Middle School building and our performing arts facilities are emphatically in need of focus and attention. We can and must do better.

We have much to celebrate and much to anticipate as we plan for our future. I very much look forward to pursuing these noble efforts with you and your children.

Warm Regards,

Marcus D. Hurlbut