This fall, the Stephen Gaynor School Board of Trustees approved the strategic plan for 2022-2027. The plan is the culmination of a year’s work by over 40 members of the Gaynor community, including faculty, staff, parents, trustees, grandparents, former parents, and alumni.
Head of School Dr. Scott Gaynor said, “In this 60th anniversary year for the school I can think of no better way to honor the legacy of our co-founders Dr. Miriam Michael and Yvette Siegel-Herzog than to imagine the possibilities for our progress and improvement.” He continued, “Over the course of a year the strategic planning team, led by Trustee Andy Bast and Director of Communications Deanna Ferrante, carefully reviewed many facets of the school’s curriculum and programming and thoughtfully recommended goals and initiatives that will elevate our work and mission and strengthen our leadership role in the world of special education.”
The participants were tasked with reviewing the current state of the school, including strengths and perceived areas of improvement, and then creating a roadmap to guide the school over the next five years. The consensus from the review was that Gaynor is a high functioning institution that does an excellent job of educating children with learning differences.
The strategic planning team was divided into four subcommittees: Faculty and Staff (co-chaired by Trustee Kristy Baxter and Assistant Head of School Jill Thompson), Students (co-chaired by Trustee Keech Combe-Shetty and Director of Lower Division Donna Logue), Families (co-chaired by Trustee Jillian Marcus and then-Director of Admissions Juliana May), and Board of Trustees (co-chaired by Trustee Benjamin Hamilton and Chief Financial Officer Ellen Lee). Board Chair Megan Hogan provided guidance throughout the process, ensuring that the goals of the plan aligned with the board’s priorities, and Assistant Director of Advancement Emily Barnes was a key member of the steering committee.
After reviewing the SMART goals and themes developed over the planning process, the steering committee and subcommittee chairs identified the overarching themes to include:
- Elevating the instructional practices of classroom teachers
- Focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion
- Focusing on employee retention and recruitment
- Leveraging expertise in executive functioning
- Encouraging robust parent engagement
- Expanding outreach to the community
- Broadening the enrollment pipeline
- Growing the endowment
The steering committee determined that SMART goals fell within two main categories: strengthening our core competencies in curriculum development and teaching excellence, and broadening Gaynor’s reach to a wider and more diverse audience.
STRENGTHENING CORE COMPETENCIES
At Gaynor, the child is at the center of all curriculum development and professional learning. The school is also dedicated to creating and maintaining a community of belonging in which everyone’s identity is valued, respected and heard. The strategic plan will support the professional development of faculty to ensure that each child receives an individualized program tailored to their learning style and needs, and will address the need to include DEI goals across the curriculum.
Goal 1 is Enhancing the Curriculum. Students learn best when they experience a consistent, comprehensive educational environment throughout their tenure at Gaynor. The next five years will see a continuation of the work begun in the previous strategic plan on creating and implementing a school-wide scope and sequence in all subjects which includes a continuum of general skills and academic content. This five-year plan will focus on writing, social studies/history, and informational skills. A key element will be ensuring that the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion are embedded throughout the curriculum.
Goal 2, Elevating the Instructional Practices of Our Teaching Faculty, builds upon the co-lead teaching model piloted in 2020-2021. Over the coming years, school leadership will prepare faculty for an expansion of the co-lead model by identifying co-lead teams and providing professional development, team planning, and coverage systems.
Goal 3 focuses on Enriching Social-Emotional Learning. Over the course of five years, all students will gain a foundation in social emotional tools and strategies that promote a healthy self-concept, problem solving skills, and a collaborative learning community. This will also help prepare students to be engaged global citizens.
BROADENING OUR REACH
Stephen Gaynor School is a recognized and respected leader in special education. Our curriculum is designed to unlock each child’s potential and to address who each child is as a unique learner. The school is dedicated to creating and maintaining a community of belonging in which everyone’s identity is valued, respected and heard. Over the next five years, we will undertake several initiatives designed to broaden our reach to prospective families, faculty and staff, and the wider community.
Goal 1, Expanding Employee Recruitment and Retention, will focus on collecting and examining data to quantify employee satisfaction and identify measurements for retention, recruitment, and the restructuring of resources, as well as to recruit more diverse faculty and staff.
Expanding Access, Equity, and Belonging is the theme of Goal 2. Over the next five years, the school will examine opportunities to expand access, equity and a sense of belonging in all areas of a family’s experience at Gaynor, with a focus on reducing barriers to application and engagement.
Goal 3 focuses on Developing Strength in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). The school will evaluate the ways in which Gaynor can create and maintain a community of belonging in which everyone’s identity is valued, respected, and heard, and then implement consistent DEI standards.
Goal 4 is Onboarding New Families and Engaging Alumni Families. A key initiative will be to develop a formal onboarding process that fully encompasses each family’s needs. Other initiatives include developing programming for Gaynor alumni and their parents and formalizing the Gaynor alumni internship program.
Helping parents stay current with important topics relevant to their children’s education is the theme of Goal 5, Creating and Implementing a Parent Education Continuum. The goal is to create, formalize, and communicate a comprehensive parent education curriculum and toolkit based on current educational offerings and needs, and to highlight the courses and workshops that all Gaynor families should take.
A review of all of the SMART goals made clear the importance of comprehensive outreach. Goal 6, Improving Outreach in the Greater Community, addresses this need. There are families who may never become part of the Gaynor community through matriculation, but who could benefit from the school’s expertise and experience. Over the next five years, the school plans to define the roles and responsibilities of a new Office of Outreach and Innovation which would be tasked with finding opportunities to extend our faculty’s professional expertise as well as the school’s reputation as a leader in the field.
Finally, Goal 7 focuses on the Board of Trustees: Increasing Trustee Visibility and Community Engagement. The next five years will see an analysis of the composition of our community and outreach initiatives in order to facilitate a more diverse Board of Trustees, with the ultimate goal of helping to build a faculty, staff and student community that better reflects the New York City population. Board leadership will continue to focus on education and tools to increase the board’s awareness of DEI issues. The aim is to increase the visibility of the board, educate the community about the board’s role, and improve broader board connectedness to fundraising and advancement in order to better support these efforts.
Dr. Gaynor said, “This plan is deeply rooted in our mission, seeking to improve upon our already stellar educational model for teaching students with learning differences. Emerging from the plan are goals that strengthen that model and aim to broaden our reach so that the elements that make Gaynor so unique can be shared with the greater community. It is an exciting time for Gaynor, and I look forward to working with our entire community on implementing this plan.”