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MISSION STATEMENT
Brooklyn Friends School provides a college preparatory program serving students from preschool through grade 12. It is committed to educating each student intellectually, aesthetically, physically and spiritually in a culturally diverse community. Guided by the Quaker principles of truth, simplicity, and peaceful resolution of conflict, Brooklyn Friends School offers each student a challenging education that develops intellectual abilities and ethical and social values to support a productive life of leadership and service.

CORE VALUES
Academic and Personal Excellence: Those who aspire to integrity, embrace challenges, and internalize the goal of being the best they can be, enable the full development of their minds, character, and spirit. They build a strong foundation not only for success in school, but for a rich and rewarding life as well.

Community: A community bound and dedicated to the School’s mission provides an environment of mutual care and teaches its members how to work together in the common pursuit of learning.

Diversity: A multicultural school community creates an enriched learning environment through the exploration, understanding, and appreciation of differences. It prepares students for living in an increasingly diverse and global society.

Respect: The dignity of all and a sense of inclusion are fostered by active listening to and active engagement with others. Respect is most powerful when it characterizes the relationships and interactions between and among all segments of the school community: parents, students, teachers, staff, and alumni/ae.

Service: Developing the practice of serving others benefits oneself, the school community, and the world beyond. Graduates with a lifetime commitment to making the world a better place fulfill a major aspect of the school’s mission.

Silence: Quaker Meeting and other dedicated periods of silence provide precious opportunities to be in more direct contact with the light within and among each of us. These are times to reflect on one’s values and aspirations, community concerns, and matters of deeper import that often are submerged in the noise of everyday life.

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PART I:  EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

VISION
As a Quaker independent school, Brooklyn Friends regards each child as the bearer of special gifts and strengths. Its pedagogical approach is to tap into these gifts, extend the imagination, curiosity, and love of learning so prominent among students in the early grades and over the years transform these into a life-long passion for learning. Faculty – student relationships, characterized by caring and respect, are considered the key to creating a community of engaged learners. In keeping with its Quaker mission, the School is committed to ensuring that values and service remain integral to every aspect of the School’s educational program and an essential component of what the School believes marks a truly educated person.

Within a liberal arts tradition that embraces the arts and multicultural and international perspectives, the program seeks to ensure that the School’s students are competitive with academically ambitious students throughout the world. In this process, the School will provide increased opportunities for students to gain recognition for their efforts through local, state, or national competitions, external performances, and displays of their accomplishments and creativity.

The School considers the mastery of basic or foundational skills both educationally valuable in itself and a necessary means to attaining higher-order thinking skills. It is the School’s goal to ensure that high expectations, exemplary instruction, and an environment conducive to learning characterize every classroom, grade level, and division. And finally, the School recognizes that the success of this vision will depend on the dedication, knowledge, and effectiveness of faculty committed to ongoing professional growth.

GOALS

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• Promote students’ understanding of economic, social, and environmental problems and issues through an international lens.
• Draw out the connections between global and Quaker perspectives.
• Use the external assessments administered by the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program to ensure our students are competitive with achieving students throughout the world.
• Determine how the School can best prepare students to graduate with facility in reading, writing, and speaking a second language, introduce and integrate second language study in the earlier grades to achieve that end, and examine what second languages the School should offer.
• Capitalize on our status as an IB school to encourage more student exchange programs, as well as explore how to make it possible and economically feasible for individual students from abroad to spend a semester or year at the School and for our students to spend a semester or year abroad. 
• Promote communication and joint projects with students and others in other countries through the use of the Internet.

International Baccalaureate (IB) Program

• Successfully implement the IB Diploma Program for the first junior and senior participants (2007 – 2009).
• Review and modify, as necessary, scope and sequence in PS – Grade 10 to embrace the IB learner profile and ensure that our students are prepared in each of the major disciplines to participate successfully in the IB Diploma Program should they choose to do so.
• Investigate the advisability of adopting the IB Middle Years Program and the IB Primary Program.
• Explore the advisability of eventually having all juniors and seniors participate in the IB Diploma Program. 

Professional Development

• Commit more funds for professional development, with the goal of moving each division to the next level of excellence, ensuring the use of best practices and multi-sensory approaches in the classroom, and furthering overall instructional effectiveness through course and degree work, summer seminars, grants, fellowships, and visits to other New York City schools. 
• Broaden the professional outreach of the faculty, among members of the School community and among Quaker and PS – 12 educators, by creating an in-house faculty journal, and encouraging them to conduct workshops for each other, write for professional journals, sit on professional boards, and present at academic conferences and workshops. 
• Explore opportunities for teacher and administrator exchanges within the country and abroad. 
• Invite nationally and internationally recognized educators and specialists to the School to engage in meaningful dialogue with the faculty.

The School’s Quaker Mission

• Continue efforts to recruit Quaker faculty and educate the community about Quakerism and the Quaker dimension of the School, maintaining the centrality of silence, Quaker Meeting, values, and the commitment to serving and making the world a better place.
• Explore the advisability of undertaking a self-study of the Quaker dimension of the School to identify areas for improvement.

Technology

• Prepare students to use technology in a manner that is safe, ethical, and educationally productive.
• Explore how best to provide students with the greatest accessibility to technology at the point of learning. In keeping with this goal, the School will investigate the advisability of a student laptop program. 
•  Provide faculty with the training, assistance, and technological resources to enable them to further the learning of their students through successful integration of technology into the curriculum.

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PART II: COMMUNITY

Vision
Students, faculty, administration, parents, and alumni/ae of Brooklyn Friends School form a vibrant community that enables its members to thrive. The community reflects what the School is and its vision for the future. Its diverse composition and the opportunities for people to work together in multiple ways across differences is a compelling aspect of life at Brooklyn Friends School. As we look to the future, it is important that we enhance and celebrate the School community by fostering the diversity we value so highly; recruiting, retaining, developing and celebrating our faculty; strengthening our governance to meet the challenges of the next five years and beyond; reinforcing our relationship with the Quaker community; and broadening and deepening our relationships with the larger community of Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan.

Goals

Consistent with the School’s ongoing examination of issues of diversity, we will work to strengthen the racial and ethnic diversity of our students, faculty, administration, and Board of Trustees, increase the socio-economic diversity of our student body, and continue efforts to foster dialogue that recognizes differences and affirms commonalities. 

• The Board of Trustees and administration, drawing on other resources as needed, will create a strategic plan to address these issues, with a completion date of no later than the Spring of 2009. The Plan will aim to clarify what BFS means by diversity, what purposes we want it to serve, where we want to be in 3-5 years and what action steps we need to take to achieve our goals.

Strengthen BFS’s ability to recruit and retain excellent faculty and enhance their commitment to the School’s mission and connection with the community.

•  In order to recruit and retain a high quality and diverse faculty, who are at the heart of a Brooklyn Friends education, the compensation package must be the best that is possible. Significant efforts must be directed to overcoming financial and other constraints to make this possible.
• Opportunities for professional development continue to be offered with increased financial support.

Maintain efforts to strengthen the student body by:

• Continuing to increase the retention rate of students moving from grades 8 to 9.
• Continuing to ensure that the School’s students are competitive in their efforts and achievements with academically ambitious students everywhere.
• Continuing to enroll students who will contribute to the community through community service, social activism, the arts, and athletics and actively support the Mission and values of the School. 
• Increasing enrollment to a total of 900 qualified students within the next ten years.

Strengthen the integration of alumni/ae into the community by:

• Enhancing communication to alumni/ae about BFS and raise parent, faculty, and student awareness of and interest in the alumni/ae community.
• Increasing opportunities for alumni/ae participation in the school via speaking engagements, guest teaching, internships and other mentoring programs, and community service projects.

Strengthen and clarify the policies and procedures of the Board of Trustees by:

• Assessing its structure and procedures regularly to ensure effective governance and communication.
• Assuming the responsibilities for the implementation and oversight of the goals of this Plan.

Strengthen relationships with the various communities of Brooklyn, and especially downtown Brooklyn, taking advantage of the growth and development in these areas by articulating and promoting the School’s unique qualities. As a Quaker independent school that has served these communities since 1867, Brooklyn Friends has particular values and perspectives that will enhance potential partnerships and lead to new opportunities. This work will be accomplished by:

• Deepening our relationships with Brooklyn institutions—academic, government, arts, and business—forming mutually beneficial alliances and playing a role in the transformation of downtown Brooklyn.
• Working with the Brooklyn Monthly Meeting to foster a strong relationship of mutual care.
• Implementing a summer educational and cultural enrichment program, modeled after Horizons National, for children of low-income families in Brooklyn.

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PART III. FINANCIAL RESOURCES

Vision
Over the past five years the Brooklyn Friends School has achieved a level of financial stability that positions it well for the immediate future. It has substantial cash reserves, effective financial systems, and experienced and able financial stewardship. The School’s recent financial successes come largely from robust enrollments and strong fiscal management of annual operations. A recent, successful capital campaign has resulted in significant improvement to the School’s facilities.

On the other hand, the School has neither the endowment nor the history of strong annual giving that allows it to fulfill the dreams the community has for it or even comfortably weather a succession of leaner years. In addition, current fiscal strengths of the School are due in part to the absence of any debt and to compensation levels that rank below the median for New York City independent schools. The increasing need to be competitive in hiring and retaining the best faculty possible, as well as the need to take on debt in financing additional facilities, will necessarily change the fiscal picture.

Clearly, then, the School’s main priority over the next three to five years must be to achieve substantial progress towards long-term financial stability and growth. Tuition, compensation, financial aid, voluntary giving, and endowment are all interrelated. A growth in expenses to meet the needs and dreams of the School community must be balanced by a growth in revenue. Recognizing the limits of reliance on tuition revenue, the School plans to strengthen its finances over the next few years primarily through a methodical increase in enrollment, as well as increases in voluntary giving and the endowment.

Goals
Emphasize and strengthen the role of the Board of Trustees in assessing and garnering the financial resources required for the success of the School’s mission and goals. The Committee will be active and visible leaders in cultivation, solicitation, and giving. It will also work with the Trustees of the New York Quarterly Meeting to develop a governance and corporate structure that provides clear lines of accountability and responsibility.

Increase salaries over the next 3–5 years to the 50th percentile of our NYC PK – 12 benchmark schools to ensure that the School hires and retains the best possible faculty and administrators.

Maintain competitive benefits, with consideration to employee survey and additional benefits not currently offered, such as housing loans, emergency funds, and staff-paid dental plan.

Increase the amount of money available for staff workshops and coursework to the recommended rate of 1.5% of the operating budget in order to ensure their ongoing professional growth.

Keep tuition increases within or below the Independent School Management recommendation of the inflation rate plus 2%.

Increase financial assistance 0.5% per year from the current 13% to 15% of the budget to make Brooklyn Friends more accessible to those who cannot fund the entire tuition, including the School’s middle class families. In addition, the School will explore ways to help students in need participate in exchange programs or programs that involve study elsewhere for a semester.

Increase annual contributions to the Brooklyn Friends Fund by 25% within the next 5 years.

Increase to 85% the annual participation rate of parents in the Brooklyn Friends Fund in the next 3 – 5 years.

Triple the current endowment within the next 5 years or sooner.

Cultivate alumni/ae and students so that a stronger sense of the importance of giving back to the School emerges among the School’s graduates to ensure that future generations of students will enjoy the same benefits from a Brooklyn Friends education as they have. Strengthen efforts to bring alumni/ae participation in annual giving to the 15-20% level as is common in other independent schools and increase their participation in capital and endowment giving as well.

Plan and implement a comprehensive capital campaign to help meet the school’s initiatives and goals laid out in this Strategic Plan.

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PART IV. FACILITIES

Vision
The School’s facilities should serve the educational program well, enhance the quality of life of students, faculty, and others, and strive for an aesthetic of elegant simplicity. In addition, the architecture, systems, and practices should be environmentally friendly to the extent feasible and economically prudent so that the School can model for its students wise stewardship of the earth.

The renovations and expansion of facilities over the last several years have been major steps towards meeting these goals. The present facilities, however, do not meet all the needs of our educational program. For example, there is a need for additional gym space, music room, conference rooms and offices, and a black box theater. Although the facility at 55 Willoughby is serving the School well and was absolutely essential to meet the needs of the Upper School, it is rental space and will in time need to be replaced.

The School’s facilities must thus be expanded to meet these needs, as well as accommodate an enrollment that is projected to reach 900 students within the next ten years. This need comes at a fortunate time for the School, since the growth and transformation of downtown Brooklyn offers significant opportunities to acquire and develop suitable space. Funding for expansion and other facility needs will come from a combination of financing, depreciation, and capital campaign contributions.

Goals
Acquire, build, and design at least a 50,000 square foot addition to the facilities. Preference is for contiguous space, so that once again the entire school can be housed in one location. Alternatively, in the absence of available contiguous space, the School would acquire nearby space and design it to house the Preschool and Lower School. Under this latter plan, 375 Pearl would house the Middle School and Upper School.

Refurbish 375 Pearl Street on a floor by floor basis, including installing better lighting, raising the ceilings, standardizing the flooring, and adding and improving storage, with the emphasis on the classrooms.

Upgrade the infrastructure of 375 Pearl as needed to maintain the building and the safety of the community.

Develop a consistent palette and furniture and equipment style within each facility.

Consider environmental implications of School practices and any changes to the facilities, determining, for example, possibilities for “green” lighting and energy use, insulation, mechanical equipment, resource utilization, temperature control, and data processing.