The Faculty Initiative
Our boys aspire to be good men through relationships with our teachers. Through years of guidance and example, formal lessons and casual interactions, boys come to understand the strong moral and ethical imperatives that underlie everything at Saint David’ s. Through constant exposure to these exceptional people, our boys acquire the habits of thought and strength of character that will guide them through the challenges of the rest of their lives.
Recognizing this, Saint David’ s embarked on the Faculty Initiative as part of the Continuing Our Best Traditions strategic plan— which enhanced the compensation and revolutionized the professional development and evaluation of our faculty— including the establishment of the onboarding of faculty new to the school, the milestone review process, the legacy program, and SMART Goals, along with summer curriculum and travel grant programs, encouraging and empowering faculty to grow and lead as never before. The school committed to remaining highly competitive in its ability to attract and retain exceptional teachers by offering competitive salaries and benefit packages, and by increasing its investment in their professional development. We instituted rigorous goal-setting, attentive mentoring, and a comprehensive milestone performance evaluation process( with precise criteria) to strengthen all of our teachers. The school also added enhanced summer travel and curriculum development grant opportunities, and created a director of supervision and evaluation position in the administration to guide and facilitate this work.
Financial Aid
In keeping with the Catholic tradition, Saint David’ s has always demonstrated a commitment to supporting qualified candidates who could not consider a Saint David’ s education without financial support. Continuing Our Best Traditions honored that core value. With increased commitment to financial aid, applicants seeking scholarships could represent a broader socioeconomic range at a time when the ranks of middle class families were declining in the independent school world.
Over a period of years, with the addition of new monies in financial aid, new grants took a variety of forms, both full and partial scholarships, increasing our socioeconomic diversity by approximately ten full-time equivalent boys. Prior to the campaign, Saint David’ s had $ 2.5 million in investments dedicated for financial aid purposes. At the campaign’ s completion, this dedicated portion of our investments tripled to $ 7.5 million.
Continuing Our Best Traditions: The Campaign for Saint David’ s Teachers and Boys successfully raised a total of $ 20 million: $ 15 million for the endowment for faculty compensation and $ 5 million for financial aid, bringing our endowment and investment reserves from $ 13 million to $ 33 million … and with the additional liquidation of unutilized real estate connected to our 94th Street Gym, our investments grew to $ 43 million.
Spring 2026 • 15