Wellington will be the best place to teach and learn for those seeking educational excellence in a highly- connected, future-focused learning community.

We will cultivate a joyful, innovative, and diverse learning community united by a shared mission and core values supporting educational excellence, character development, and personal growth. Wellington will realize its potential as a unique and exceptional educational choice for students, families, and educators to learn and grow.

1. Establish Wellington as the employer-of-choice for outstanding educators by offering competitive compensation, clear advancement pathways, and robust professional development while maintaining transparent expectations and evaluation processes. We will sustain a professional environment that inspires, supports, and retains talented educators.

2. Develop educator pipelines that attract faculty and staff from backgrounds reflective of our student population, through fellowship programs, mentorship tracks, and national recruitment partnerships.

3. Enhance our campus through a comprehensive master plan, creating learning environment at all grade levels that embody our mission-level commitments to engaged, collaborative learning while meeting our growing enrollment.

4. Establish an Office of Community Engagement & Belonging to reinforce Wellington’s values and community expectations, strengthen campus inclusion and culture, and deepen engagement between Wellington and the larger Columbus community.

5. Advance programming for executive function and well-being across the whole community by articulating PreK-12 social-emotional learning and executive function curricula. Commit to prioritizing and balancing the demands of academics, arts, athletics, family, and personal needs of students and families through coordinated scheduling and programming.

Wellington will elevate the standard for educational excellence and student engagement.

Wellington will build on its foundation of rigorous academic excellence through innovative programs that inspire the highest levels of student engagement. Our students will develop a lifelong love of learning and the skills to achieve in and contribute to an increasingly complex and competitive world.

1. Strengthen Wellington’s educational program by advancing curriculum, instruction, learning resources, technology, family partnership, and professional development.

2. Create the Center for Student and Teacher Engagement to drive student programs that inspire engagement, purpose, and skill development, while offering teachers exceptional professional learning and growth opportunities.

3. Ensure all students are challenged at every stage of their education via small group learning environments, engagement feedback, differentiated instruction, and multiple levels of courses for supported, on-level, and extended learning pathways. Wellington will further support the diverse learning needs of its students with a thoughtful approach and programs addressing executive function and metacognition resulting in each student accessing a path to educational excellence while building the skills needed for lifelong success.

4. Expand engineering, entrepreneurship, and apprenticeship programming to equip every student with valuable hands-on skills, problem-solving abilities, and the capacities to drive improvement and innovation.

5. Evaluate and refine how Wellington structures and uses time beyond the traditional school day and calendar extending Wellington’s mission and impact to afterschool programs, summer offerings, and to the larger Columbus community.

6. Advance co-curricular programming including athletics, global and outdoor learning, service learning, and ensuring the flexibility for students to pursue interests beyond Wellington.

7. Invest in and expand The Wellington Initiative to enhance learning and instruction at Wellington while inspiring educational innovation nationally by sharing the School’s approach to advancing student engagement.

Wellington will strengthen its financial foundation, securing its permanence and continued excellence.

We will secure Wellington's future through strategic financial growth, expanded philanthropic support, and a deepened culture of giving. By building a durable endowment, increasing annual support, and developing innovative revenue streams, we will ensure the resources necessary to fulfill our ambitious vision. Financial strength will be built upon a foundation of pride and belonging that extends from current students and families to our growing our alumni community, creating a virtuous cycle where engagement fuels investment in Wellington's future, and that investment creates an even more engaging experience for generations to come.

1. Launch a capital campaign and grow the endowment to equip the School with the resources needed to achieve its ambitious goals over the next decade while ensuring long-term stability and sustainability through and strategic philanthropic investment.

2. Increase enrollment by 60 to 80 students (primarily in Middle and Upper School) supporting investments in educators and programs that strengthen the School’s reputation and attractiveness, maintain a low teacher-to-student ratio, and expand tuition assistance to improve access and community diversity.

3. Cultivate an engaged alumni network that extends the benefits of a Wellington education well beyond graduation, developing longitudinal surveys to track alumni outcomes.

4. Build on the existing culture of philanthropy raising Wellington’s annual giving benchmark above $1 million while increasing participation across all constituencies.

The strategic plan was officially unveiled at the annual parent social on Tuesday, September 30, 2025 by Head of School Eliza McLaren and Board of Trustees Chair Jim Croft P '17 '20 '22.

Jim Croft, Tucker Bohm, Gerrie Brand, Ted Manley, Matt Scantland, Andy Thomas, Bob Wheeler, Tim Fish, Shelley Brown, and Eliza McLaren.

Emily Berty, Erica Clark, Keith DeVoe, Elissa Francis, Louis Frank, David Glover, Kelly Heineike, Dara Jackson, John Kruzan, Sloan Magliery, Amanda Pierce, Rishi Raghunathan, Lindsey Smith, Gina Spicer, Brandon Sullivan, and Laurie Beth Sweeney.