Trustees approve new strategic plan:

Take steps to coordinate programs among Lower, Middle, and Upper schools.

Create a program for orienting and educating parents and faculty on an ongoing basis.

Enhance and upgrade the faculty and its effectiveness.

Design and implement one or two uniquely excellent programs, possibly in collaboration with other colleges or institutions in Rome.

Ensure a broader experience and enhanced life skills for all graduates to include studio or performing arts experience, team sport experience, public speaking, and swimming.

Strengthen and enforce the Honor Code to validate the School’s historic claim of “honor above everything.”

Revise Darlington’s foreign language program to ensure excellent outcomes in Spanish throughout the School and in at least one other language in the Upper School.

Continue to create a school culture that emphasizes a safe space for religious inquiry.

Continue to create a school culture that narrows the distance between boarding and day students.

Study to revise the School’s daily, weekly, and annual schedule to ensure that all six of the School’s mission areas are addressed for every student on a regular basis and to accommodate a more customized and individualized approach to student learning.

Develop outcome measurements for graduates.

Develop more effective methods to tie Darlington to the Rome community and to use Rome in educating our students.

Create facilities that support these strategic objectives and the School’s six-fold mission, with specific, prioritized attention to the following: Middle School, performing arts center, performing arts practice and rehearsal rooms, arts studios, additional academic spaces, girls lacrosse field, and student center.

Strategic Plan Goals A new strategic plan is taking Darlington into the School’s second century thanks to the efforts of 122 alumni, parents, and faculty who met at the beginning of the 2002-03 academic year at weekend planning retreats over the course of six weeks. Each of the retreats focused on one of the six pillars in the School’s mission statement: intellectual, spiritual, moral, physical, cultural, and social. Work is already underway on two goals: Darlington is revamping the foreign language department to emphasize proficiency in Spanish and French and the School hired a chaplain for the 2003-04 school year to create a safe space for religious inquiry.

Steps to meet the foreign language goal include upgrading the quality of the faculty with more native and fluent speakers; shifting the focus of the teaching away from the written language to the spoken language; establishing home-stay programs in Mexico and Spain; and identifying on-campus informal uses of Spanish. “We want to graduate seniors who can speak and think in Spanish rather than seniors who have merely completed a two-year language requirement yet are not able to communicate comfortably in the countries of the target language,” David Hicks, Darlington president, said.

Spanish is already being taught at all levels of Lower and Middle schools. Students will take Latin in Middle School for one more school year and, beginning in the fall of 2004, only Spanish will be offered. For Upper School, beginning this coming fall, German I and Latin I will not be taught; however, French I will still be available.

Students already taking German or Latin II, III, and AP will be able to continue their work in those languages until they graduate. “The goal is to graduate bilingual students. In order to do that, we want to maximize our limited resources and concentrate on fewer languages,” Carlos Ortega, foreign languages department chair, said. “With the growing numbers of Spanish speakers who live in Georgia and throughout the United States, we have decided to focus on Spanish proficiency. Also, since we start Spanish at the Lower School, it makes sense for students not to change their language upon entering the Upper School.” The decreasing number of students enrolled in Latin (only 10 this year at all levels) and German in the Upper School was also a factor in the decision to concentrate on Spanish. “Ultimately, this decision will give our graduates a competitive edge when applying to college,” Hicks said.

Another goal identified in the strategic planning process is to create a safe space for religious inquiry. To that end, the School has, after much searching and careful interviewing, hired a chaplain for the 2003-04 school year. The Reverend John Edward Merchant will officially join Darlington on July 1, 2003.

Merchant is currently serving as headmaster of St. George’s Episcopal School, Milner, Ga. He has been chaplain of three schools, Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School, Atlanta, 1998-2000; Saint James School, St. James, Md., 1985-91; and Episcopal High School, Jacksonville, Fla., 1978-82.

Merchant has 21 years of experience in education, including serving as principal, assistant headmaster, and headmaster of various independent schools. He has a bachelor’s degree in education from The University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn., and a master’s degree in divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, Va.

Merchant enjoys an outstanding reputation as a teacher of both English and history, and his principal role at Darlington will be as a history teacher. He will live on campus, and as chaplain, he will offer pastoral care to the School community and coordinate Wednesday chapel services, although these will continue to offer a variety of faith expressions. He will also work with the religious life prefects in planning Sunday services and House Bible studies. “I am thrilled that John will be joining our faculty,” David Rhodes, headmaster, said. “John will bring a wealth of knowledge and wisdom in dealing with young people and working as a chaplain. He has a true pastoral personality.”

Darlington alumnus and former faculty member Hardin Byars ’67 of Innovus Consulting served as facilitator for each of the strategic planning retreats. At the beginning of each retreat, faculty members representing each of the three schools, Lower, Middle, and Upper, gave participants background information on what is currently being done at Darlington in the area of each retreat’s focus.

Two members from each of the retreats joined a steering committee chaired by trustee John Irby ’79 to pull together the ideas generated in the retreats and develop a document that the Board of Trustees approved during its winter meeting. The board has asked School leaders to identify more action steps in support of its approved goals. Once a full complement of action steps are identified, the board itself will form a subcommittee to design a business plan to support the strategic plan. The full board will discuss and act on the completed package at its fall 2003 retreat in September.