St. Mary School DeKalb Strategic Plan

2023-2026
Below is our Strategic Plan which we created to guide our school from 2023 – 2026. Please read through this and ask us questions! We’d love to hear from you ... and even more, we’d love your participation when we kick off the various initiatives. Be on the lookout for more information. We look forward to implementing this plan over the next three years.
Catholic Identity: St. Mary School will seek to fully form the minds and hearts of Catholic children in their faith, promote family engagement and practice of the faith, and instill virtues essential to responsible participation in society in all students regardless of their religious backgrounds.
  • Goal #1: To initiate a family-focused faith formation advisory committee during FY2024 whoseobjectiveitistoworkwiththeschool principal and pastor to identify ways to better engage school parents who are Catholic in developing their faith as a family, create spiritual practice and faith formation experiences for students, and introduce the Catholic faith to non-Catholic families that may be interested in learning more about the Catholic faith and what their students are learning in school.
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Financial Sustainability: St. Mary School will effectively attract sufficient resources and manage those financial resources while growing enrollment and meeting the need for K-8 Catholic education in the community.
  • Goal #2: To develop along-term, sustainable, financial plan for the school which critically reviews current sources offunding (tuition, parish subsidy, grants, and fundraising) and expenses to more equitably balance our income and reduce our overall fundraising demands on current families while increasing financial support from alumni and community members by the end of FY2024.
  • Goal #3: To collaborate with the parish Finance Council and develop a capital expenses plan to ensure the school’s physical assets (including the security of the school) are properly planned for and funded by the end of FY2025.
  • Goal #4: To convert the Guardian Angel Fund into an ongoing endowment by the end of FY2026, leveraging Empower Illinois as available, so that the school can predictably provide tuition assistance to families with qualified financial need.

Academic Excellence: St. Mary School will attract and maintain highly qualified faculty and staff, enable our students to learn and excel, and educate the whole person, including academic, spiritual, and emotional learning.
  • Goal #5: To define a relevant, peer school benchmark for teacher salaries during FY2024 and achieve that benchmark by the end of FY2026.
  • Goal #6: To identify and build any additional teaching infrastructure to support students in achieving their full academic potential, both those requiring additional assistance as well as those that require advanced study by the end of FY2026.
  • Goal #7: To strengthen our learning environment to enable our teachers and students to have access to resources to develop their emotional and mental health, as well as appropriately address behavior expectations by the end of FY2025.

Community & Engagement: St. Mary School will engage all alumni, students, staff, faculty, parents, parishioners, and community members in building a strong school community.
  • Goal #8: To develop a communication and engagement plan during FY2024 to engage non-English speaking families in our school communications and events.
  • Goal #9: To strengthen the partnerships between the school, our families, our teachers, the parish, and our community and increase our levels of volunteerism and community service, both internally and externally, by the end of FY2025.