This article appeared as "Built to Last" in the Winter 2025 issue of Independent School.
The pressures for independent schools in 2025 are tremendous: changing demographics, declining birthrates, and increased schooling options continue to increase the level of competition for students; the cost of independent education has reached a level where many families are reevaluating such an investment; the workplace increasingly needs people who can contribute as collaborative team members in an integrated way; a more diverse student body requires increased levels of personalized coaching and support to manage the increased stress levels and ensure success for all; and students and parents are looking for expanded choices and options as they navigate the complex world of education.
School leaders know that to be sustainable—for their schools to continue to exist and be successful into the future—they must be nimble, resilient, adaptable to changing needs, and able to focus the institution’s strategic mission. But what does it mean to be sustainable?
Different schools and organizations will see this differently. Economists and planners might look at sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the future.” Some schools look at sustainability through a specifically financial lens, focusing solely on the economic forces that generate the bottom line. Others incorporate thinking about how their human systems affect natural resources and endeavor to reduce their carbon footprint. Others might define sustainability as a long-term, systemic investment in personnel that then generates the school’s importance and value. Sustainable might have many definitions, but perhaps ultimately they all come down to a somewhat universal premise: deploying resources in the long term without endangering that or other resources.
The one question every school has to ask is “How do we define sustainability?” Based on their strategic needs and outlook, independent schools must explore what is specific to them in terms of needs, challenges, and aspirations, and how they can deliver on those without compromising the future.
Independent schools’ foreseeable challenges require a more integrated approach to thinking about the future. It is now more important to have a mission-driven framework that allows flexibility that unfolds as time evolves. Building that framework starts with asking questions about what matters, what’s going to matter, and what we need to accomplish—and ensuring that campus planning and strategic planning efforts are aligned. From thinking about mission to putting a shovel in the ground, an intentional approach to sustainability is key to a school’s future.
Staying Student-Centered
Savvy independent schools are refining their value proposition and sharpening their focus to remain competitive in the education marketplace. How do we apply the same lens to the built environment? How often do we consider how mission and values inform our physical spaces? How do we ensure that what we are doing today will be a gift, not a burden, to the future school?
By keeping the student experience at the heart of campus planning—and letting mission and values drive the process––we ensure we’re accountable to do just that. Whether working to maintain a COVID-induced enrollment bump, playing catch-up in a waning population, or enjoying the market leader position, independent schools will continue to face increased competition for students. Keeping their experience primary in our strategic thinking is key.
To stand out, schools have been working to recalibrate value by building a stronger learning experience and improved learning outcomes to attract, retain, and support a more diverse body of students. Many have expanded the range of learning modalities they offer to include more hands-on and project-based experiences as well as interdisciplinary programs in and out of the classroom.
Meanwhile, as the need for teaching and learning spaces increases, so does the need for areas for gathering and connecting. This has become even more important, given the increased need for physical and mental health support and for a more positive and consistent social environment. Building healthy and sustained relationships with those around us is critical to our need for belonging. Unfortunately, spaces to gather and connect are often hard to come by and get squeezed out over time as the need for teaching space increases.
Community spaces have to be carefully planned to maximize flexibility and to provide an inspiring space for coming together. Larger meeting spaces can serve as dining or study spaces that can be modified with furniture for different uses. They are also typically part of resiliency planning in emergency situations. Getting the necessary space for high-demand community spaces while not overbuilding requires thoughtful planning and scheduling.
While some of these initiatives are easily integrated using existing resources, some require specialty spaces and individuals to shepherd their integration into the curriculum, space, and schedule—which can have a significant impact on budgets and strategic and physical planning efforts. Strategic planning and campus planning efforts need to overlap and to inform each other.
Integrating these shifts is more successful when they are planned and part of a multiyear process that starts with small-scale testing of new approaches to measure success and build a more informed case for the school’s strategic goals. Often these experiments grow to guide the evolution of the school’s pedagogical approach and can help tell the impact story needed to gain financial support for future investment and growth.
Priorities and Resources
Needs and ambitions are often more numerous than the time and resources available. Campus planning efforts need to be aligned with what a school can realistically accomplish. It’s helpful to start by looking at what programs should be addressed first and what can wait until later—what are some things that can be accomplished right away with the resources currently available?
But to get perspective and alignment on the bigger picture, engagement across the campus community is crucial. This will help refine priorities, build consensus, and create an inclusive process that makes space for the greater diversity of perspectives and life experiences that can inform needs and priorities for where, how, and when the school will evolve. An inclusive planning process connects the community with the project, making for the most durable, intentional planning process. Experts in built environments and the most strategic thinkers on the board and administration lead the way—and the engagement of the entire school community is an essential part of the process. In most cases, it’s helpful for the process to be demand-side focused—the most accurate insights and relevant innovations will come from the people who use the space on a regular basis. Input from teachers and students can meaningfully inform the shape of physical space and its impact on well-being and the learning environment.
Connecting campus planning with the school’s values has a transformational byproduct beyond the goal of integrating campus with mission. The alignment prepares the school to make a compelling case for fundraising and greater community engagement. Stakeholders are more inspired by buildings and landscapes that are aligned with educational vision and cultural clarity, while plans that seem transactional and one-dimensional tend to leave them wanting more.
Knowing what motivates and repels benefactors is good to know before the final plans are stamped—and may actually reveal areas where more education and outreach are needed to familiarize people with the school’s current goals and culture. The strong partnerships that can be forged through a thoughtful planning process build more than a building or landscape—they build community and institutional tensile strength. Tension and discord are reduced when all stakeholders know what’s at the core.
The Takeaway
A sustainable plan can grow from an overlap between strategic planning and campus master planning. Perhaps most important, the governing and leadership bodies need to understand the overarching views of what is unique about their school, community, and programs—the student experience. How will their strategy and campus help accentuate this identity?
With those answers, schools should then explore:
- how they need to change over the next five to 10 years to meet their goals in pedagogy, student success, financial stability, and faculty support;
- how they use space and how they should be using space to support their student community, and what spaces are missing;
- how they imagine their programming evolving over time and what future changes they might need to prepare for; and
- what activities their strategy will need to enable.
Finding answers to these questions helps build the foundation of a sustainable path forward. As we consider these efforts, it also reminds us of the provisional nature of our planning decisions and the cyclical nature of the questioning, recalibration, and renewal that are required to sustain and strengthen our schools over time.