Dear Friends,

For our first eighteen years, Friends School of Portland has been guided by the Quaker values of integrity, truth, equality, peace, community, stewardship, and simplicity as it has grown from a 31-person class on Mackworth Island to 141 students in our forest-circled campus off of Route 1. In 2023, we are rooting down into our home to further settle in and organize around our deepest values with love, while also branching out to strengthen our interdependence with our larger community beyond the campus and reach for a future we believe is possible.

The path ahead means thinking intentionally about our continued use of space, land, and resources. It means staying in close contact with each other, supporting individual and group needs, and further embodying equity. It means deepening our understanding and practice of our core academic approach as well as partnerships and exchanges beyond our campus. 

This growth and future will be possible with a plan that ensures we use our resources with care. In order to provide for the members of this community – both its students and adults, and all those we look to welcome – we will need to focus on building strength, solidity, and security.

During our ten-month strategic planning process, supported by Courtney Bourns Consulting, we received input from students, past and current families, faculty and staff, board members, advisory committee members, graduates, friends, and Friends to envision our next chapter. In conjunction with our New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) reaccreditation feedback in 2022 and our Friends Council on Education self-study in 2019, the strategic priorities that have emerged are Belonging and Community, Program and Partnership, and Financial Stewardship.

We thank you for lending your visions and hopes to Friends School throughout this process, and we now call on this strong community to help continue to move this plan forward.

With gratitude,

Sara Primo, Head of School & Lise Wagner, clerk