Our Future in Focus Strategic Plan

• Launched The Compass Project, our character and leadership development initiative.
• Helped students of all ages discover their values and learn the necessary skills to become leaders and global citizens through this initiative.

• Continue to move MHS from a rules-based to a values-based culture built on mutual respect, integrity, positive spirit, and commitment.
• Extend The Compass Project to all aspects of student life, expand The Compass Project and Sacred Values education among the MHS community, leverage partnerships, and expand student voice and leadership opportunities.
• Provide students with the ability to live out the MHS Sacred Values along with the skills and work ethic to lead fulfilling and productive lives when they graduate.

• Deepen impact of The Compass Project across all areas of student life.
• Expand awareness of The Compass Project and ways to support student growth among parents/sponsors.
• Refine tracking of student outcomes tied to character and social and emotional learning skills.
• Grow The Compass Project support system among staff and external partners by expanding mentoring and community service programs.
• Develop additional opportunities for student voice and leadership.

• Students to discover their strengths, interests, and purpose so they can graduate career, postsecondary, and life ready.
• Over the next five years, pre-K through eighth-grade career exposure and exploration will drastically transform to educate students on the full range of career pathways, including those that do not require a four-year college degree.
• MHS will also reorient all pre-K through 12th-grade education around career exploration, exposure, experiential learning, and preparation.
• The vision also includes teaching all students logic and problem-solving through computer programming.
• This strategic plan will aggressively build upon programs initiated in 2015-20, including pre-apprenticeships/apprenticeships.

• Increase career speakers and professionals’ involvement in pre-K-8 learning.
• Use data to identify students’ strengths and interests, personalize learning, and broaden career exposure.
• Outline courses of study, competencies, and credentialing for career clusters.
• Educate students, beginning in elementary school, on the full range of career pathways.
• Build out authentic work experiences and pre-apprenticeships/apprenticeships.
• Provide all students foundational computer programming instruction and advanced learning opportunities.
• Increase rigor and relevance of academic content and integration with CTE areas.
• Intensify teaching of lifelong learning skills, work ethic, and self-regulation.

• Launched the Graduate Programs for Success (GPS) Division in 2016 to better prepare, transition, and support MHS high school students and recent graduates.

• Expand the certificate and apprenticeship opportunities for recent graduates.
• Build upon our work providing real-time supports to graduates in the military, workforce, community colleges, technical schools, and four-year colleges and develop additional pathways for postsecondary success aligned with GPS and our pre-K-12 program.
• Provide more robust individualized career planning assistance for alumni and students.
• Create a deepened understanding by staff, students, and parents/sponsors of the wide range of career and credentialing opportunities for students.

• Expand postsecondary career-related partnerships with career and technical schools and businesses.
• Provide in-depth professional development to key staff members on an annual basis.
• Expand students’ and parents’/sponsors’ understanding of the wide variety of credentialing opportunities in all career areas.
• Create more robust individualized career planning.
• Develop an apprenticeship boot camp experience for recent graduates.

Identify, design, and begin implementing a strategic program that will enable us to serve a greater number of children than ever before.

The program we pursue will maintain our high level of excellence, demonstrate our proven expertise in the education field, and be aligned with the Hersheys’ Deed of Trust. We look forward to finalizing the focus of this goal and bringing it to life to transform more lives in the future.

• Use research, feedback, and data to determine program.
• Develop plan for implementation.
• Impact more low-income children than ever before.

• Identified that the acquisition, development, and retention of talent has been one our school’s top 10 core strengths.

• Heighten our focus on talent recruitment and professional excellence to grow our current workforce and develop a talent pipeline for the future.
• Inspire employees to play a more active role in their own professional development while also delivering a technology platform for individual and schoolwide learning.
• Grow the leadership abilities of staff at all levels to support succession planning and future success for our school, students, and graduates.

• Use marketing, recognition strategies, analytics, and technology for recruitment and retention.
• Continually update recruiting strategies to align with the evolving marketplace.
• Grow employees’ leadership abilities through professional development.
• Evolve performance management to focus on coaching and motivating employees.
• Launch an organizational technology platform for learning and professional growth.

Our welcoming and family-like environment is what makes our school unique. It drives people to work here, inspires parents/sponsors to enroll their children, nurtures students, and connects alumni.

As our school grows, it will be important to retain the tight-knit community connection we have enjoyed and valued for more than 110 years.

• Build on this strength by uniting all members of the school community, fostering connections and collaboration, and safeguarding loved traditions.
• Our goal is an MHS community where every student feels supported, every staff member understands their role in our mission, parents/sponsors feel connected, and graduates stay engaged.

• Build new opportunities for student voice and leadership, mentoring, and collaboration among Elementary, Middle, and Senior Divisions.
• Celebrate individual and group successes and MHS traditions.
• Increase teams’ collaboration across MHS.
• Empower teams to make decisions.
• Strengthen partnerships with parents/sponsors.
• Increase alumni engagement and opportunities for student-alumni connections.