As
such, we want to make sure that we are authentically Catholic and authentically
college-preparatory. Accreditation by WCEA and WASC assures the community we
serve that we can deliver on both counts. What does that look like? As Brother
Christopher explained to the students this morning, the process involved
spending the last eighteen months seeking the opinions of all La Salle
constituents (Employees, Parents, Students, Alums, Trustees, Regents and
Community representatives) via on-line surveys and various in-person
opportunities (such as Parent Association meetings, Governance meetings, Student
assemblies and Alumni gatherings) to learn from the people we serve what we do
well and what we can do better. These encounters produced hundreds of pages of
data which we then examined and synthesized to produce a “snapshot” of what La
Salle looks like right now and what it should look like in the next five to ten
years.
What
is unique about the process we are experiencing now is that, over the course of
roughly the same time frame we also underwent a strategic planning process which
focused on six broad initiatives we believe will position La Salle for
long-term success in the highly competitive educational marketplace that
surrounds the City of Pasadena. While
the two processes are not necessarily in alignment – one seeks to produce a
“snapshot” of the current situation; the other makes claims about what the
future will look like – they happily overlapped in one particular area: the
development of an educational improvement plan designed to ensure that La Salle
continues to provide a quality product for the students entrusted to our care.
To
that end, four of the six strategic goals:
1. Expand and deepen Lasallian formation
programs to better articulate the School’s Catholic and Lasallian identity.
2. Ensure the delivery of a relevant and
challenging college preparatory curriculum to address the diverse learning
needs of all students.
3. Strengthen the recruitment of a diverse
faculty and staff to better align with a diverse student population.
4. Strengthen the quality of the student
experience outside of the classroom in:
• Athletics
• Guidance
& Counseling
• Student
Life
became the basis of the WCEA/WASC educational improvement plan, while
the last two goals:
5. Ensure campus facilities effectively support
the implementation of the Mission
6. Ensure sustainability of the Mission through
efficient and effective leveraging of Finance, Development and Marketing
functions
anchor the Master Plan that is
slowly wending its way through the Pasadena city approval process. We are proud of the synergy created by the
alignment of the accreditation, strategic and master planning processes at this
particular moment in the School’s history. This alignment tells us that we have
“got it right” when it comes to understanding what our community expects of La
Salle in terms of delivering a high-quality college preparatory education to
the largest and most ethnically and economically diverse student populations in
the Greater Pasadena area.
A
fundamental component of the strategic planning process and, implicit in the
accreditation process, has been the promotion of this value proposition:
What distinguishes La Salle from the other college-preparatory high
schools in the greater Pasadena area is the opportunity for students to nurture
their individual passion in academics, the arts, athletics and/or the spiritual
life. Because it is the largest private high school in Pasadena, La Salle is
able to offer a diversity of opportunities both in and out of the classroom
that is unparalleled among its
peers.
If one views the four goals of
the EIP through the lens of this value proposition, I think it becomes obvious
that the “snapshot” we have provided for the WCEA/WASC Visiting Committee and
the future we envision for La Salle are not only in alignment, but offer an
exciting opportunity to cement our vision of being “the school of choice in the
San Gabriel Valley.”
