2022-2027 Strategic Plan for Norwood School

List of 5 items.

• 1. Fortify Norwood’s identity as a national thought leader for child-centered PK-8 education.

  • Clearly articulate and strategically communicate what child-centered education embodies at Norwood and how students are known and supported throughout their individual development arc.
  • Leverage Norwood’s new, state-of-the-art Marriott Early Childhood Building to facilitate the development of training, research, and curriculum initiatives for the early childhood education field.
  • Strengthen and celebrate middle school student milestones to engrain the middle school tradition at Norwood as a unique and culminating achievement.
  • Elevate and expand Norwood’s existing arts and athletics programs to become signature components of Norwood’s child-centered curriculum.

• 2. Engrain Norwood’s commitment to diversity, equity, and belonging into the fabric of the community.

  • Ensure a holistic approach to the school environment with meaningful cultural proficiency, connection, and authenticity to support each student’s well-being, personal identity development, and full potential.
  • Identify and create additional on-ramps to the Norwood community to equitably reflect the diversity of communities in which we serve students and families.
  • Broaden our communication strategy around diversity, equity, and belonging to establish more channels for dialogue within our school community.

• 3. Leverage our expansive campus as an outdoor classroom and learning lab further elevating Norwood to a regional leader in environmental education.

  • Enhance Norwood’s science curriculum to integrate environmental stewardship more deeply throughout each student’s academic journey.
  • Design and create classroom and activity spaces that provide hands-on learning experiences for students of all ages and for all subjects. 
  • Develop and implement new opportunities to incorporate renewable energies that move Norwood toward a net-zero carbon footprint.

• 4. Position Norwood as a premier educational employer by offering compelling compensation, benefits, and professional growth opportunities that meet the needs of our faculty and staff.

  • Foster a professional culture that is attentive to faculty and staff work-life balance and provides an equity of responsibilities and opportunities.
  • Focus on compensation and benefits for faculty and staff through a holistic audit to identify areas of opportunity and priority. 
  • Align the professional development program with the goal of lifelong learning to ensure continuous professional advancement throughout a Norwood career.

• 4. Develop long-term sustainable systems that will propel Norwood’s mission, strong PK-8 reputation, and financial foundation.

  • Maintain the strong culture of philanthropy and sustained giving within the Norwood community to support reinvestment in faculty, facilities, and financial aid.
  • Increase and diversify non-tuition sources of revenue to facilitate ongoing programmatic innovation.
  • Evaluate Norwood’s current marketing and enrollment management strategy to identify new areas of prospective student engagement and elevate Norwood’s public profile as the PK-8 leader.