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Headmaster welcome
Fast facts
Philosophy
Academics
Spiritual life
Character education
Multicultural programs
Travel programs
Siempre Verde
Information technology
Strategic plan
History
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Strategic Plan 2000
Lovett's Strategic Plan 2000 presented an
exciting vision of The Lovett School's future. It was the product of a
three-year planning effort and the important work of many people--faculty,
staff, parents, grandparents, alumni, and trustees. Their work involved
nine areas: governance, endowment and development, faculty and staff,
character education, educational environment, inclusivity, co-curricular,
technology, and facilities. The school made strong progress toward
these plans, as described in the "status" items, below. A new
strategic plan was approved by The
Lovett School Board of Trustees in Fall 2006 (see link to the right).
In addition to a new set of goals, this plan also incorporated and built
on some of the plans outlined here.
Governance
| The Lovett School will seek and maintain a board of trustees of talent, commitment,
and generosity. |
| Plans |
Status |
Develop appropriate mechanisms to ensure an annual evaluation of both the headmaster and the board.
Commit to a process of continuing growth and development for board members.
Seek greater diversity on the board. |
Lovett achieved initial implementation in each of these areas, helping to ensure a board noted for high levels
of community standing, professional expertise, and participation in the school. |
Endowment and development
| Lovett will increase both its endowment and the Annual Fund, ensuring the school's capacity
to fund its broad objectives. Lovett will also raise capital dollars, as needed, to renovate and replace facilities. |
| Plans |
Status |
| Strive to increase the Annual Fund and endowment, in terms of both dollars and participation. |
The 2005-06 Annual Fund raised more than
$2 million in restricted and unrestricted gifts, surpassing our goal for the
year. Nearly 85 percent of Lovett parents participated, as did nearly 85
percent of Lovett faculty and staff members, and 100 percent of the board
of trustees. The 1926 Society (Annual Fund donors of $1,500 or more) grew to include
more than 650 members and is
credited with nearly 80 percent of the total dollars raised. |
| Increase awareness in the Lovett community of planned giving--the act of making gifts from an estate to a nonprofit
organization, such as The Lovett School. |
Lovett has instituted recognition efforts for those friends who have notified the school of their planned giving
intentions, and has launched an educational campaign about planned giving options. Since 1998,
the school has received news of planned gifts worth up to $5 million. |
| Ensure that special programs such as Breakthrough Atlanta, a study-skills
based enrichment program for middle school students from inner-city schools, and Siempre Verde,
Lovett's Ecuadorian cloudforest preserve and research station, are self-funding. |
A new development officer for Breakthrough Atlanta was hired in the summer of 2003. With a background
in corporate sales, he has offered innovative ideas in fund-raising strategies. The
Breakthrough
Endowment Fund, created in 1997, is currently valued at approximately
$719,249. While most of
Siempre
Verde's
operational costs are covered through trip fees, Mrs. Dorothy Fuqua issued a $250,000 challenge grant
to stimulate the creation of a significant Siempre Verde Endowment Fund.
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Faculty and staff
| Recognizing that Lovett's present and future success is largely dependent on its personnel
resources, every effort will be made to recruit, retain, evaluate, train, support, and reward a diverse,
professional, committed, and positive faculty and staff. |
| Plans |
Status |
| Offer increasingly competitive salaries and benefits.
Increase funding and opportunities for professional growth.
Foster creative and innovative teaching by reducing class loads.
Increase time allocated for faculty to plan, observe, and communicate with peers.
Provide adequate faculty office and work space.
Examine the current ratio of faculty to administrative staff, ensuring that the school is operating as
efficiently as possible.
Continue emphasis on technology training and utilization.
Maintain communication among faculty, staff, parents, and students. |
Lovett achieved initial implementation in several of these areas
involving staff
benefits, including an increase in the cap for
continuing education reimbursement and improved paid vacation and sick time accumulation. Lovett also revised and improved its contribution schedule for employees' retirement accounts, making it one
of the most generous plans among independent schools. Several new faculty enrichment funds
were created,
helping to improve faculty salaries and benefits and allowing for more opportunities for travel and enrichment
activities. Several of the other goals, such as provision of faculty office and workspace and reduction of class
loads, were implemented with the completion of Phase I of the Master Campus
Plan. In the new Upper School, for
example, resource centers are now available for each department.
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Character education
| The development of good character is essential to all Lovett programs and activities. The tenets of the Lovett
Honor Code and related virtues--such as honesty, respect, responsibility, and compassion--are fundamental goals.
Thus, character education is the conscience of the Strategic Plan. It is our most important task--helping our children
to become good human beings. |
| Plans |
Status |
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Develop an integrated K-12 curriculum stressing good character, defined as "having integrity and the courage
to do the right thing, simply because it's the right thing to do, in public and in private."
Appoint a faculty coordinator to facilitate, implement, and monitor all aspects of the character education program.
Increase the emphasis on community service.
Recognize students through an award program that emphasizes the Lovett community's commitment to character.
Create an endowed fund to support character education efforts. |
- Lovett adopted a Character Pledge during the 2000-01 school year, which reads as follows: "We, who are
members of the Lovett community, seek to live lives of good character. We believe that good character grows
from daily acts of honesty, respect, responsibility, and compassion. We pledge ourselves to develop these ideals
with courage and integrity, striving to do what is right at all times." All students, faculty, staff, and the rest
of the Lovett community are invited to sign the pledge each year.
- The Character Education Coordinator started in
the 2002-03 school year. The coordinator's primary role is to work with staff, students, and parents to further
integrate character education into the school curriculum. The coordinator plays an active role in teaching,
supports the school's expanded service learning program, and is a resource for character education materials and programming.
- Two new funds are helping to support these efforts: The C. Knox Massey, Jr. Family Character Education and Community Service Fund,
which supports the annual budget of the Character Education Coordinator,
and the Jack and Anne Glenn Character Education Speakers Fund, which will
bring speakers who address character and virtue to campus.
- Character education and service are recognized and awarded in each
division.
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Educational environment
| The school will sustain a challenging, collaborative educational environment that respects and nurtures
student uniqueness and fosters excitement for learning. Lovett will develop a broad-based college preparatory
curriculum to prepare students of the twenty-first century. |
| Plans |
Status |
| Reduce class size, especially in the Lower School.
Eliminate the Pre-Kindergarten (4-year-old) program.
Relocate the Kindergarten to the main campus.
Restructure the Lower School into three divisions: a K-Grade 1 Early Childhood Wing, a Grade 2-3 Primary Wing,
and a Grade 4-5 Elementary Wing.
Reorganize the Middle School around a "team cluster" concept.
Continue emphasis on interdisciplinary studies and integration of the curriculum.
Increase time allocated for teacher collaboration and planning.
Increase student enrichment opportunities.
Continue to recognize and respond to individual learning styles.
Develop a "signature" experience for Grades 10 and 12, akin to SING and JOE in Grades 9 and 11.
Create a Community Center for campus life. |
- The relocation of the Kindergarten and restructuring of the Lower School were implemented with the move
to a new facility in August 2003.
- The Middle School goals were achieved during the 2000-01 school year.
- The American Studies Cultural Collection has been created, which offers new resources for the interdisciplinary
American Studies program, thanks to generous gifts from the Edward E. Ford Foundation, the Lewis H. Beck Foundation,
and several Lovett families. An American
Studies Institute has been created, as well.
- The Learning
Lab, with expanded staff, now offers a learning styles inventory for all new students. Improved
tutoring facilities opened with the 2002-03 school year, and new study skills classes are regularly offered.
- A team of faculty has created a Grade 10 project that focuses on the environment and ecology, specifically
the Chattahoochee River. In Grade 12, an expanded senior project and senior seminar program is filling the niche.
- Lovett's new Upper
School and Loudermilk Student Activities Center opened in August 2002. It includes a café, senior lounge,
student lounge, campus
store, and e-mail station.
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Inclusivity
| Human beings and human communities must learn to live together, work together, play together, and
learn from each other if we are to be a just and humane society. Our educational institutions have a
major responsibility to help lead the way in this endeavor. As such, Lovett will continue to build a
school community drawn from the broadest possible range of ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, racial, and
religious backgrounds who can benefit from a challenging academic program. |
| Plans |
Status |
| Enhance an already-strong financial aid program through fundraising for scholarships and publicity of such
scholarships. |
Lovett is committed to admitting qualified applicants, regardless of a family's ability to pay. More than
$1 million in need-based financial aid assistance was granted to students for
2004-05. Currently, nine percent
of the student body receives some financial aid, and 90 percent of the families who apply for aid are awarded
such aid. Since 1998, more than $1 million has been donated to the endowment, earmarked for financial aid,
and seven new scholarships have been established. |
| Create and staff an Office of Multicultural Programs and Services to promote and celebrate diversity on campus. |
Since 1999, Lovett has had an Office of Multicultural Programs and Services.
Among the goals for this office is the provision of a forum for community members to learn about and discuss issues of
diversity and to investigate a multicultural curriculum. |
| Assess programs, on an annual basis, toward diversity goals. |
Ongoing. |
| Increase diversity of faculty and staff and continue diversity training for all faculty and staff. |
The school actively recruits minority faculty through job fairs, the Internet, and advertisements
in targeted publications. The Office of Multicultural Programs and Services offers diversity enrichment
workshops on an ongoing basis, including a recent "Inclusivity Series." This series of workshops addressed
harassment and discrimination within a school setting. |
| Increase "comfort zones" for non-majority students, such as through the use of student mentors for new
minority students. |
The Director of Multicultural Programs and Services serves as a resource and a counselor for
students confronting issues related to inclusivity. The director is also working with alumni of color
to implement a mentoring program.
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Co-Curricular
| All Lovett students are encouraged to participate in Lovett co-curricular activities--those
optional activities,
rehearsals, and events that occur after the regular school day has ended. |
| Plans |
Status |
| Increase offerings and physical facilities for co-curricular programs, including non-athletic opportunities,
such as debate and High-Q.
Reduce teaching loads so that all faculty have an opportunity to participate in co-curricular programs.
Future hiring and appointments should keep in mind Lovett's co-curricular offerings and needs for qualified sponsors
and coaches. |
The implementation of the Master Campus Plan has and will continue to address the need for facilities to better
house Lovett's co-curricular activities--art, theater, athletic fields, and indoor athletic facilities. A reduction in
teaching loads, as recommended by the Faculty and Staff Subcommittee, is in the process of being implemented to allow
faculty greater opportunity to participate in this area.
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Information technology
| Lovett will maintain its status as an educational leader in technology. Technology will continue to
serve as a means, rather than an end, and will be fully consistent with our philosophy of learning. |
| Plans |
Status |
| Train and prepare all students to use technology at levels appropriate to their grade.
Train faculty and staff in the use of technology at levels appropriate to their needs.
Provide necessary financial support to achieve technology goals.
Support technology applications to provide for more effective and efficient administrative services.
Utilize the communication and educational capabilities of the Internet.
Ensure existing and future campus facilities are responsive to technology goals. |
- A faculty laptop program allows full-time faculty to apply to receive laptop computers for year-round use,
at home and at school. These laptops are fully portable on campus via a wireless network.
- Faculty may receive interest-free loans for up to 24 months to purchase a personal computer.
- Lovett is involved in ongoing and extensive implementation of the rest of these goals, including the creation of
a new website in 2004; parent discussion groups on technology use in 2005;
and a series of workshops on internet use through the Neighborhood
Independent School Collaborative.
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Facilities
| Lovett will provide an aesthetically pleasing, functional space in its buildings and grounds to a student body
of 1450 to 1475 students in its educational mission. |
| Plans |
Status |
| Develop a Master Campus Plan in response to the goals of the Strategic Plan. |
The Master Campus Plan, as developed by Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott (SBRA), blends
the programmatic needs of the Strategic Plan with the realities of Lovett's current facilities. SBRA took many
factors into account in its attempt to strike a balance between renovation and new construction.
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Master Campus Plan, Phase I
- Construction was completed in August 2003 on a new Lower School, which includes a library, gymnasium, and three wings: early childhood, primary, and elementary. The location of this new school is on the site of the old Lower School, Maintenance Shop, and Little Gym.
- Martha Woolman Hall, the former Preschool, was converted to a new home for the Physical Plant Operations.
- The new Upper School/Loudermilk Student Activities Center (SAC) opened in Fall 2002 on the site of the old SAC. This 123,000-square-foot facility features a gymnasium, indoor track, café, bookstore, campus shop, student lounges, classrooms, state-of-the-art science labs, and teacher workspace.
- A new Visual Arts Center was created in the space of the old Lower School Library.
- A large and open quadrangle was created between the new Lower School and the existing Dining Hall, Alston Memorial Chapel, and Vasser Woolley Library; the Post Plaza, a new, welcoming entrance courtyard to the campus,
was created between the new Middle and Upper Schools.
- Additional staff, student, and visitor parking lots were created by the construction of a new parking lot at the campus's south entrance and a new three-story parking deck at the campus's north entrance.
- Co-curricular space and green space were added to campus by converting the old senior parking lot along the river into an athletic field.
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Master Campus Plan, Phase II and Beyond
- Build a new Middle School.
- Allow for increased Fine Arts facilities adjacent to the Fuqua Center.
- Build a Community Center, incorporating the Vasser Woolley
Library, technology labs, and key administrative offices.
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Strategic Plan
2007-2011 |
