Meet Your New Trustees

Long Range Plan Update

The Grace Church School Long Range Plan is a roadmap for the school, creating a vision of the future and outlining how we will get there. As we begin the final year of the current plan (2015-2022), the Committee is pleased to update the community on progress made during Year 6, the 2020-21 school year.

While the ability to monitor progress of the Long Range Plan continued to be impacted by the Coronavirus Pandemic in the 2020-21 school year, the year was not without achievement. Despite the considerable energy and effort required of the administration and faculty to open the school during a pandemic, there were several areas of progress.

Goal 1: At Grace we promote excellence in mind, body, heart and spirit across the school community, divisions and academic disciplines. We integrate fully the unique richness of our surrounding area with our programs in order to give our students greater engagement with the wider world.

• The school leveraged the advantages presented by hybrid learning to continue to bring guests to all divisions for enriching classroom visits via Zoom; likewise, the search for outdoor options inspired teachers and students to explore the city’s outdoor spaces for performances and learning.
• Grace’s administration, faculty and staff continued to model remarkable commitment and creativity during a challenging year, and acquired new tools which will benefit students into the future. Faculty received professional development and cutting-edge research and classroom tools that not only assisted in the development of remote teaching skills, but also helped to integrate knowledge across disciplines.
• Student resilience and adaptation to pandemic-related requirements such as hybrid learning, social distancing and mask wearing, handily demonstrated our program goal to prepare students academically and intellectually to embrace the challenges that they will encounter.
• On-site Coronavirus testing and the introduction of a bus service for students were among several additions that demonstrated that relationships take precedence over the demands of systems and efficiency in our community.

Goal 2: Our Episcopal identity provides the foundation upon which our intentionally inclusive community is based, where each person is welcomed and valued and all voices are heard.

• The Institutional Culture Committee (“ICC”) was established as a new committee at the board level, working alongside the administration to address the challenges to progress toward the school’s DEIAB (diversity, equity, inclusion, antiracism and belonging) goals.
• In summer 2020, the Board commissioned an independent assessment of the school’s DEIAB work, which broadly engaged the Grace community through focus groups and
• In spring 2021, a Task Force was formed for an internal examination of the school’s efforts to foster a sense of belonging for all members of the Grace community and to identify blind spots that might be hindering those efforts.
• A community update bringing together the work of the 2020-21 school year regarding Grace’s antiracism commitment is expected in Fall 2021.

Goal 3: All four divisions are united into one JK through 12 School that inspires, engages and challenges students in each stage of their learning and growth.

• Remote learning and social distancing notably reduced opportunities to create and nurture links between the two campuses and integrate new parents into the community. There is much ground to be covered under this goal when classes and events return to in-person full time.

Goal 4: We are committed to increasing the financial resources of the School, within a prudent capital structure, to achieve the sustainable financial health required to build and nourish programs that attract outstanding students and faculty. We work to develop structures that responsibly provide for affordability at all levels.

• We continued to maintain tuition at a level that equals at least the median of our peer schools, and exceeded our financial aid goal by providing assistance to 27 percent of students and providing an average grant that equaled 80 percent of tuition.
• We improved the ratio of the school’s endowment to its outstanding debt.
• The school achieved the goal of increasing Annual Fund contributions one third by 2021.

The NYSAIS 10-year accreditation was postponed by a year due to the pandemic and will begin in Fall 2021. In light of the pandemic, the rescheduled accreditation and the transition to a new Head of School in July 2022, the Long Range Planning Committee’s work for the upcoming year will focus on creating a shorter term “Bridge Plan” in lieu of embarking upon a new 7-year Long Range Plan. The details of the Bridge Plan will be communicated to the community in a future update.