James Grumbach is a familiar face at Friends School of Portland. He was the first head of Friends School of Portland from 2007-2012. He is currently on the Board of Directors and a grandfather to 4 FSP students. Here are a few thoughts from James on his involvement in his second strategic planning process at Friends School.
How did you feel going into this strategic planning process and how did you feel afterwards?
To begin with, I’m not a fan of strategic planning, but it serves an important purpose. I’m skeptical of the strategic plan part of the function; from my perspective, its best use is as a community-building exercise and a consensus-building exercise.
One of the things I liked about this strategic planning process was, as I recall, it started with the question of “What are we doing well right now?” I think that’s a great place to start because it recognizes that we are in fact doing a lot of things well. We want to focus the strategic planning on those things that we either are not doing and we think we should, or the things we think we could be doing better.
One of the reasons I remain a little bit skeptical is that external pressures are so hard to predict.
You respond to them as best you can and they can change your direction. I think by beginning with “What are we doing well?”, that affirms our fundamental values. What we are trying to accomplish comes from our values.
What is FSP doing well?
I have really wanted the school to have good Quaker process, and the values that drive that process. I have a sense that we’ve accomplished that, and I feel as though we are a Quaker School, whatever that slightly different flavor from other independent schools is. How that fundamentally impacts students is: allowing students to be and to discover, and to become, who they authentically are – and to build confidence around that. We have anecdotal information that many of our students come out of FSP with that good sense of themselves, their ability to engage with adults. That’s the root of what we do well. In addition to that, our students are academically well-prepared, which many families are looking for. That culture of joy we’ve built around learning – I think students really get excited about school, and they authentically want to come to school each day.
How would you characterize the moment FSP is in right now?
Part of the answer is that we’re certainly past our startup years, maybe what you’d call our adolescent years. To use that as an analogy, we are heading into early adulthood.
There was a lot of excitement around the school starting. We did bring something new to the area. There was not just trepidation but excitement when we created the new campus. That move succeeded beyond what we’d imagined. Here we are, well established on this campus.
From the board perspective, we are not going to keep growing in numbers so the increasing challenges will be financial. Therefore, there are some opportunities. For example, it seems to me that the opportunity to continue to grow the summer program helps bring in more income, and maybe opens us up to other revenue streams that we haven’t identified yet. Challenge will bring opportunities.
What were your main impressions of the process?
It seemed to me that a lot of people did a lot of work, and justifiably so. It did not feel like a burden to the board. It seems to me that the strategic planning committee, which certainly had board representation, was well-organized and made sure to reach out. There was a lot of inclusion. The committee came back several times to touch base with the board: this is how it’s shaping, and what do you see? We were asked for our affirmation or some massaging – we had ample opportunity to do that.
What about the content of FSP's Strategic Plan do you find exciting?
We had good conversations about how the financial goals enable the other goals.
Frankly, the part I’m most excited about is the community engagement piece. That’s the piece that has not had as much attention because of how much else has had to happen in the startup of a school. I would like to see more outreach and connection, and that’s part of the avenue to becoming a more diverse community.
On the program piece, I know that can always be fine-tuned – being more integrated. I think the scaffolding in that part is exciting and important.
Any parting words or blessings for our next five years?
My well wishes are for continued staffing stability starting with the administration. I would love to see our current administrative team around when we’re ready for the next strategic planning session. There is an intentionality among the administrative team that I am proud of.
Learn more about our Strategic Plan and planning process…