I currently work in a Pre-K age 3 through 12th grade private school. From a system design lens, it’s organized by functionality. Here is a breakdown of the departments that make sure the school is meeting its mission on a daily basis:
Teaching & Academics#
- Divisional Staff
- Teachers
- Grade Level Teachers
- Content Area Specialist Teachers
- Substitutes
- Assistants
- Academic Support
- Teachers
- Athletic Coaches
- Librarians
- Leadership
- Head of School
- Associate Head of School
- Division Heads
- Associate Division Heads
- Head Chaplain
- Educational Technology
- Board of Directors
- Special Programs/Departments
- Outdoor Education
- Community Service
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- Community Programming
- Summer School
- Summer Campus
- After School Programs
- Social Emotional Wellness
- Counselors
- Social-emotional learning coordinators
Non-Teaching Staff#
- Administrative Staff
- Divisional administrators
- Human Resources
- Business department
- Accounts Payable
- Accounts Receivable
- Comptroller
- Curriculum
- Academic Officers
- Deans
- Facilities
- Maintenance team (includes repairs, updates, and grounds)
- Cleaning and snack delivery
- Facilities administration
- Externally-Focused Facing Divisions
- Advancement
- Admissions
- Communications
- Alumni Relations
- Other
- Information Technology (IT)
- Campus Safety
- School Store
- SAGE (contracted dining services)
- The Learning Community
- Students
- Caregivers
External systems that impact our internal system: the National Association of Independent Schools, the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest, and the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas to name some.
The mission of my school is “igniting a life of purpose through the development of an educated conscience.” The systems above all work to accomplish this goal. Inputs into our educational system include the work done by advancement (who work towards growing our endowment and raising funds for large projects), admissions (who work to ensure the school has students who are most likely to thrive in our environment - this provides both the students for the system as well as capital in the form of tuition), and the school store also generates capital, but that is used to support students receiving financial assistance.
The business office ensures that the capital that comes in and goes out is properly allocated, used, and tracks the financial health of the school overall. HR is responsible for ensuring that the entirety of our staffing is mission-aligned, purposeful, and are properly supported through compensation, benefits, and professional development.
Communications plays an interesting, vital role. They not only provide vital communication inside of the school, but both inward and outward facing portals, our website, digital and print publications (aside from student publications), and our social media presence. They not only promote what is going on internally to share our daily lives with our community, but the externally-facing communications tools (social media and websites, for example) also serve to support the admissions department in finding and recruiting learners for our community.
The leadership teams ensures that the projects, programs, and curriculum that drive the school meet the needs of students emerging now, but also that the school will thrive and continue to meet its mission for decades to come. Executive leadership (head of school, assistant head of school, division heads, head chaplain) also serve as the representative of the school to external stakeholders and the school board of directors. The heads of the divisions each ensure that their division is working towards the goals created by the head of school (that the school board approves). The curriculum is reviewed and modified by the chief academic officers and, either a division head or the deans. The educational technology team The head chaplain and division chaplains have a special responsibility to the second half of the mission statement: creating an educated conscience. This work is supported by our community service coordinator who ensures students realize their gifts need to be shared with others, both near and far.
The day to day work of ensuring the delivery of the mission is done by the divisional staff (classroom teachers, assistants, academic support, athletic coaches, and librarians) as well as SAGE dining services, campus safety, facilities, IT, and the social-emotional wellness team. Divisional staff provide the direct instruction we think of when we think “school.”
Facilities ensures that our environment is safe, inviting, clean, and delivers the snacks our students enjoy each day. IT ensures that the infrastructure that allows us to connect to the digital world around us (and print!) is supporting our daily work. The social-emotional wellness team works to incorporate social-emotional wellness and growth into the classroom environment, but also support students on an individual basis in order to ensure they feel loved, welcome, seen, and supported at times when they need additional support to feel emotionally ready to learn. Campus safety ensures the physical safety of our entire community by checking that people entering campus have a reason to be there, and are not a threat to our community, as well as providing safety practices to keep our physical bodies safe from environmental harms. SAGE meets the nutritional needs so the whole school has their human need for food met to continue the hard work of education on a daily basis.
The learning community are who we are here to impact. The caregivers provide the extended learning environment to ensure learning outside of the physical building can continue, and deliver the students to the school each day. Students participate in the learning by being actively engaged, attending class, and exploring their interests and passions and they move through the student experience.
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