The future is scary. It’s frightening to think about the unknowns of what’s ahead, whether it’s college in the next couple years or even just next week’s algebra test. However, looking forward is what helps us to improve in the future.

In this spirit, the Administration held a day-long meeting on Monday to discuss the future for St. Louis U. High. For months, the five charters of the Strategic Summit, led by and composed of faculty members from all departments, have been looking ahead and making preparations to improve the school. Now, as we approach the final months of the 2021-2022 academic year, the five charters are finalizing their plans and proposing their ideas to the administration.

“There's been incredible amounts of really good, thoughtful work done by the faculty and staff who are on these committees,” said Fr. Matt Stewart, SJ, a member of the administrative team that is reviewing the proposals made by the Strategic Summit charters. “And there's some really cool stuff that's starting to emerge.”

The administrative team is composed of seven members: Principal Ian Gibbons, SJ; Assistant Principal for Student Life Brock Kesterson; Assistant Principal for Mission Jim Linhares; Assistant Principal for Academics Kevin Foy; Athletic Director Chris Muskopf; math teacher Craig Hannick; and Stewart, who represents Campus Ministry.

On Jan. 3, this team held a preliminary meeting to sift through the initial proposals made by the five charters. The faculty members for each charter presented their findings and suggestions for how to move forward to the administrative team.

The admin team then met on Monday in order to review the proposals and finalize the timelines for each. The majority of the day was spent putting together the various elements of the three completed charters—Graduation Requirements, Grade-Level Guides, and their major focus of the day, Schedule and Calendar.

“Our job was to look at it and ask, does that make sense? Is that where SLUH should be heading?” said Gibbons. “And we were able to endorse that, and we were able to tweak all sorts of things.”

The Schedule and Calendar Committee discussed everything from quarterly class rotations to special schedules to the rules of determining how long classes and passing periods are. Solving the complexities of fitting every detail to work for the school community at large is a daunting task, but one that was welcomed by the administration.

“All of these things have to get tweaked,” said Gibbons. “And they have to work within the system. And that's one of the things we were doing today was the minutiae of seeing, are there blind spots? Does the math work out? Is this a realistic plan? Does it make sense for what we're trying to do? And it's not flashy or exciting, but it's really vital work.”

Administrators expect to wrap up the Graduation Requirements, Scheduling and Calendar, and Grade-Level Guide charters and announce their plans in the coming weeks.