From the Pillared Portals to a Brilliant World - Winchester Thurston ...

cover story
WT at 125:
UNVEILING A
STRATEGIC PLAN
Road Map for the Next Three Years.
Compass for the Longer Term Horizon.
As WT begins its 125th anniversary year,
the Board of Trustees has approved a
three-year strategic plan that establishes
faculty and programmatic innovation as the
highest priorities. “These two aspects of
our school have the greatest impact on the
education and the future of our students,”
says Gary Niels. “While our strategic plan
has five major domains, all of our initiatives
and efforts come back to ensuring we are
preparing our students for the challenges
and opportunities of the 21st century.”
5 Domains
Strategic Plan Framework: 2011-2014
Great Teaching: Hire, retain, develop, and
reward a uniformly talented and dynamic faculty.
As a college preparatory school, Winchester Thurston’s core
purpose is to prepare its students to excel in post-secondary
education, and to contribute to the world in meaningful
ways. A dynamic, rigorous, innovative learning environment
is essential to the development of the next generation of
scholars and entrepreneurs. And it depends on a uniformly
excellent faculty—passionate teachers who are continually
growing and who demonstrate devotion to their own learning
and development; smart teachers who hone their practice and
bring their ideas to the classroom, challenging their students
to achieve; entrepreneurial teachers who take the initiative to
engage their students in learning beyond school walls. WT’s
highest strategic priority is to strengthen its ability to attract,
retain, develop, and reward a uniformly excellent faculty.
8 T h i s t l e t a l k S u m m e r / F a l l 2 0 1 1