Approved by the Board of Trustees on June 21, 2022, the School’s renewed mission statement, guiding principles and strategic priorities express an unwavering commitment to excellence in education and lifelong service to the greater good by placing the student experience at the center of everything we do. As SPS moves forward, it does so with a commitment to its founding values alongside a willingness to evolve to continue drawing forth what is best in our students and in every member of our community.
St. Paul’s School educates students to build purposeful lives in service to the greater good. We engage young people in a diverse, inclusive, and ethical community, dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in character and scholarship and inspired by the beauty and spirit of our Millville home.
We gather to address important questions with open minds, robust dialogue, and mutual respect.
We inspire one another with creativity, self-discipline, and an eagerness to learn.
We embrace the benefits of a diverse, global community, cultivating and deepening our empathy, compassion, curiosity, and intellectual vitality.
We thrive through personal accountability, moral courage, and service to others.
We share responsibility for cultivating a healthy, equitable, caring, and joyful school culture, integrating social and emotional competency into every aspect of the St. Paul’s experience.
We value the learning process as much as the achievement outcome; we fail with patience and humility; and we embrace humor, enthusiasm, and friendship in our lives and work together.
We must invest in the relationships that define the St. Paul’s School experience: attracting and welcoming an extraordinary community of learners, living our values of kindness and respect, and embracing equity, inclusion, and diversity as essential elements of a strong, resilient, and Beloved Community. We will:
St. Paul’s is strongest when we attract faculty and staff who love working with teens, who bring expertise that enriches our program, who value the rich diversity of our community, and who instinctively work to address challenges and strengthen the organization. To ensure that all of our employees can deliver their best, we must provide an attractive workplace, continuous professional development, and an evergreen program that promotes social and intellectual vitality. We will:
In classrooms and common rooms, on the field and on the stage, St. Paul’s invites students to pursue excellence, take positive risks, find belonging, forge identity, establish healthy patterns, learn teamwork, practice leadership, and exercise good decision-making skills. These activities provide inspiration and joy, forming the basis of the lasting friendships that define the St. Paul’s experience. We will:
The rich history and beauty of our Millville home provides common ground for our shared experience and must continue evolving to support our distinctive nature as a fully residential school. Master planning must prioritize student and faculty needs, programmatic support, safety and security, peer and competitor benchmarks, and long-term plans for climate change and environmental sustainability. Lastly, the grounds must connect students with a growing understanding of national and global systems, helping them understand how their ethics and actions affect others and the world. We will:
Set climate action and environmental sustainability goals … through enhancements in outdoor education and by incorporating environmental sustainability into the fabric of our learning, campus, and community
The shared experience of a St. Paul’s School education links current students with graduates. This connection positions alumni as powerful models of service to the greater good. SPS will prioritize renewed engagement with our alumni and parents to reinvigorate pride in the School and our mission. In strengthening those structures that support the lifelong value and meaning of the SPS experience, we will ensure that alumni and parents understand the dynamics of today’s educational, social, and economic landscape. We will:
Due in large part to intergenerational and technological trends, St. Paul’s and its peer schools now work within an environment of extraordinary change. In this context, we will emphasize agility and long-term planning across all of our systems and structures, staying true to mission while strengthening our leadership position and promoting the continued thoughtful evolution of St. Paul’s School. We will:
“We are where we are supposed to be, in a place that was built for us to be doing the work of our school — built with the continual optimism and hopes of decades of students, teachers, staff members, alumni and families who believe that we come together here, in this place that was built for us to do this work, to educate ourselves to build purposeful lives in service to the greater good.”