Part I: Program Enhancements

Goal #1: Deepen our commitment to differentiated instruction

Rationale: Differentiated instruction provides students with a wide range of ways to acquire content and construct knowledge, ensuring that all children learn effectively, regardless of learning styles, individual strengths, or interests. Through differentiated instruction, we teach our students how to work hard and work well, and more deeply, teach them to understand themselves as learners.  Differentiated instruction trains students to think broadly, brainstorm, entertain, and learn from multiple and diverse perspectives in their academic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal lives.

Specific Goals and Objectives:

  • Provide ongoing professional development to deepen faculty’s understanding and implementation of the theory and practice of differentiated instruction
  • Map curriculum to include not only content, but also differentiated methodology and modes of student assessment
  • Include differentiation in the rubric used for observation and evaluation of teachers
  • Be able to report that a significant majority of ninth-graders, via an annual survey,  report that RDS prepared them for high school success at their school of choice 

Goal #2: Continue to cultivate diversity and promote a culture of genuine inclusivity

Rationale: The cultivation of a diverse, inclusive community is one of the hallmarks of an RDS education.  When students are experienced and curious in exploring the depths of diversity, they are more creative, less ego-focused, and more empathetic.  Most important, experience with diversity encourages more responsible citizenship and better global understanding.

Specific Goals and Objectives:

  •  Implement the Diversity Strategic Plan
  •  Develop a Board Diversity vision statement

Goal #3: Strengthen our service learning program offerings

Rationale: Service learning educates students more deeply, fosters community engagement, and helps children to articulate core values. A comprehensive, coordinated service learning curriculum will engage students across the developmental spectrum and encourage them to question, analyze, interpret, and most importantly, act on the social conditions that impact their lives and their communities.

Specific Goals and Objectives:

  •  Implement a comprehensive K-8 curriculum for service learning
  • Assess and meet leadership and staffing needs

Goal #4: Promote environmental sustainability in program and operating decisions

Rationale: Consistent emphasis on the tenets of sustainability prepares our students to be tomorrow’s problem solvers, inventors, environmental stewards, and global citizens. In the school context, we can teach the principles of sustainability, practice them in our daily lives at RDS, and plan for the future through thoughtful operating decisions about the School. 

Specific Goals and Objectives:

  •  Further incorporate the principles of ecoliteracy into the curriculum
  • Apply green building ideas in renovations of existing plant and new buildings, as appropriate
  • Adopt practices consistent with green business standards

Part II: Institutional Enhancements