I’m grateful to say we have found our bearings.

Ingrid Lakey '89, P'27, Board of Trustees Clerk

Given whatever map app you use, you could give a pretty accurate answer. Even when an unforeseen traffic jam occurs, almost instantly the app gives you a new route and ETA.

Running a school doesn’t work this way. In the past, as Friends Select’s board of trustees, we might have considered many of the decisions we needed to make to be relatively straightforward and on a clear recurring timeline. We knew which lane we were in. But these days, it can feel as if we are trying to find our way without a map.The COVID-19 pandemic was a massively destabilizing experience. Suddenly, the usual modes of operation were up in the air, unknown, and potentially risky.

Although we aren’t in the depths of that crisis anymore—and I’m grateful to say we have found our bearings—we must also recognize that this is a time of tremendous ambiguity. Climate disruption, artificial intelligence, gun violence, the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action in higher education—we must reckon with each of these issues as a society and as a board.

Advance Friends Select, our strategic plan, has helped us navigate through unknown terrain and conflicting traffic reports for the past six years. We have been diligently working to make the goals—excellence in teaching and learning, financial sustainability, use of space, and strategic partnerships—articulated in that plan a reality. This fall, we will update it to take into account our progress and incorporate priorities like environmental sustainability. Over the past year, we have also created a dashboard that will enable trustees to track information more easily so that we can more effectively make real-time, data-informed decisions. As always, our mission as a Quaker school is the bedrock.

As we face day-to-day obstacles and chart Friends Select’s course for generations, we must continually test if we are accountable to our mission. We have to constantly ask how we can approach each challenge as an opportunity to live more fully into our purpose. In this time of ambiguity, we have to be both reactive and proactive to fulfill Friends Select’s mission today and into the future. Deciding which route to take can be daunting, especially without a map or a clear ETA, but there is no doubt we are on an exciting journey.