Strategic Plan
2025-2030
Seven Oaks is poised to enter its second decade having fulfilled its founding promise: to develop a close-knit community dedicated to training the minds and improving the hearts of young people through an education grounded in the liberal arts and sciences, with instruction in the principles of moral character and civic virtue. The school has enjoyed stable leadership, an award-winning faculty, and a growing student body. It has gradually come to have a stable financial position as well. The schoolremains fully committed to its mission and confident in its overall approach to curriculum and instruction.
Our vision is to be a model among K-12 classical schools: academically excellent, philosophically sound, and rooted in the local community – large enough to offer robust programming and sustainable in our operations, but small enough to preserve a strong sense of community – with an outstanding faculty of teachers that view their work at Seven Oaks not as a stepping stone but as a destination.
It is time, now, to plan for the future. The strategic plan that follows is intended to articulate our major priorities and goals in a way that helps to guide the school’s leadership for the next 5-10 years.
Pillar One
Recruit and Retain core faculty and staff
The school’s greatest asset is its employees. The quality of our employees will be the chief determinant of the quality of the school. The top strategic priority, therefore, is to attract and retain excellent teachers and staff to the extent that resources allow. In terms of resources, the intent is to cover these initiatives through state funding in order to ensure sustainability.
Broad goal: Attract and retain missionally-aligned, intelligent, coachable, and joyful teachers and staff.
Specific objectives:
● Significantly raise top-end teacher pay within 5 years.
● Continue cultivating a close relationship with Hillsdale’s K-12 Office in order to give teachers every opportunity for ongoing recognition, influence, and growth.
● Pilot multi-year employment agreements among established faculty
● Implement a retention incentive program paid out after each seventh year of full-time teaching.
● Leverage the school’s rental homes as an encouragement to home ownership.
Pillar Two
Improve Exsisting Infrastructure
Though much work has been done in the years that the school has owned the building, the school still faces a backlog of deferred maintenance, as well as a variety of items which, if completed, would contribute significantly to the function, health, and aesthetic of the building.
Though some projects (e.g., HVAC) may be accomplished by phasing the work over a number of years, it is assumed that substantial progress through this list will be accomplished by means of funds raised outside of the school’s regular income. This section therefore highlights the necessity of growing the school’s development program, in part because we intend to avoid taking on additional debt over the term contemplated by this plan.
It should be further noted that while the school has ranked these items in terms of priority, the actual order of implementation will likely be driven by opportunity.
Broad goal: Improve the function, efficiency, and aesthetic of the school’s building and grounds.
Specific objectives:
● Complete these tasks as opportunities arise, irrespective of the priority level and without new debt.
● Build a development program that routinely brings in $500,000+ annually within 5 years.
● Identify and apply for grants that could bring any of the above items within reach.
Pillar Three
Add New Infrastructure
The school has ambitions of creating new programming and supporting existing programming in ways that will require new infrastructure.
Broad goal: Ensure the school’s physical capacity supports its long-term mission and vision by improving the school’s operational capacity, function, efficiency, and aesthetic.
Specific objectives:
● Acquire adjacent properties and develop site plans for the school’s current and prospective property.
● Acquire a satellite property of 20+ acres for future athletics fields and facilities.
● Provide each established team sport with essential training facilities.
● Provide each established school club with essential meeting facilities.
● Bolster the opportunities for students to directly interact with nature.
● Develop site, staff, and curricular plans for a preschool.
Pillar Four
Develop strategic partnerships
The school is an act of the community. It exists because of partnerships, including the partnership of the local citizens who comprised the founding board, as well the partnership between the board and Hillsdale College. In a similar spirit, the school has always regarded itself as a public institution that has a role to play as a hub of community life, as well as an appropriate locus of community support.
Going forward, the school intends to continue cultivating a spirit of community and of partnership. The school is itself a kind of community and partnership that includes families – parents and students and siblings and close relatives – and staff. Beyond that, internal partnerships exist between the school as an institution, the parent association, and now the Athletics Booster Club.
There are partnerships with individuals and organizations external to the immediate school community as well. These include policymakers at the local, state, and national levels; interest groups that share points of common concern with the school; mission-aligned donors, individual and corporate; foundations; and community groups (e.g., the Boys & Girls Club).
Broad goal: Build strategic partnerships that advance the mission of the school.
Specific objectives:
● Maintain a close working relationship with Hillsdale College’s K-12 Office.
● Develop healthy working relationships with affiliated volunteer networks (e.g., the Athletics Booster Club) that includes clear roles and responsibilities and strong patterns of communication.
● Cultivate the donor base to support the goal of $500,000+ in annual giving within 5 years.
● Develop a relationship with aligned policy organizations.
● Join like-minded coalitions that advocate for charter schools in Indiana.
● Collaborate with the Ellettsville BGC to identify a long-term school-based site for Seven Oaks.
● Develop relationships with each member of our delegation in the U.S. Congress and State Legislature.
● Explore the potential of collaborating with local developers and/or the town of Ellettsville for capital projects (e.g., an Ellettsville Twin Lakes, safe routes to school).
Your connection
Rooted in Purpose, Rising in Promise
This milestone year marks more than an anniversary, it celebrates the flourishing of a community united by a shared belief: that education should form both the mind and the heart.
Every Gift Grows Something Lasting
Your generosity has made our growth possible. As we enter this milestone year, your support will sustain what makes Seven Oaks distinct: small class sizes, devoted teachers, and a culture of safety, service, and civic leadership.
Join Us in Rising Together
When you give to Seven Oaks, you are planting roots that deepen a child’s confidence, a family’s stability, and a community’s future. Together, we are rising, building on a foundation of wisdom and virtue that will grow for generations. As we celebrate this milestone, we invite every family, friend, and alumnus to support the next 10 years of Seven Oaks.
Do you feel you can help us further our progress in any of these categories. If so, contact our Director of Development, Hannah Hirsch. hannah.hirsch@sevenoaksclassical.org
