Greetings, GreenMount Community,
Today, I would like to talk a little about our
strategic plan. Like most every
organization, The GreenMount School must have a plan for the future in order to
establish goals and the strategies to meet them. A group of parents and staff members are
currently working on a plan for the next five years. This plan considers all of the social,
technological, economic, environmental and political factors that may affect
our ability to remain resilient in the face of many unknowns. This is especially true when we consider the
economy. Over the past decade we have
felt the impact of a sagging economy and, thankfully, we survived a couple of
years during which we saw a stagnation of our enrollment.
Since then, things have improved
greatly and, as you know, we are enjoying a stable enrollment that is near
capacity. In fact, this admissions
season has been quite busy with more than 40 applications in hand for our
kindergarten. This presents its own
“problem” as we have to choose only 12 from a list of some wonderful children
and families.
But who knows how long this
popularity of our school will last? This and other considerations make the job
of the strategic planning committee vitally important. We must use the data we have and to try to
predict which key issues will confront our school. Things like our facility and our relationship
with the city will determine if we must one day look at another location. Other considerations include the curriculum,
teacher and student retention, keeping up with technology, our reserve fund,
and building a strong alumni association.
In May, the committee will produce a final draft of the plan for the
community and at that time we will all be able to share in the vision for
GreenMount. Then it will be up to all
members of the GreenMount community - all GreenMountaineers - to do the best we
can to preserve this unique and wonderful institution.
Changing gears
just a bit…what happened to the Broncos??
Denver fans must be as crushed as the Seahawks fans are overjoyed. But this game illustrates our inability to
predict outcomes even with considerable data in hand. I’m not a betting man, but I will bet that
there are a lot of people out there this morning who have lightened their
pocketbooks after using that data that they considered reliable. I doubt that anyone could have predicted a
point spread of 35! This just goes to
show us that there are so many things that are unpredictable, including the
future of our school.
The good news is that, like the
Seahawks, GreenMountaineers come to play and to win. We have the talent in our school community to
overcome any obstacle and to keep this school vital and progressive. The future may have some surprises for us,
but we are ready for whatever comes our way. I predict the next five years will
be especially grand for the GreenMount School.
Make sure that you remain a part of our success.
Cheers,
Steve
