Annual Message from the Head of School
Watch Dr. Grauer's Keynote Address at The Grauer School's 29th Annual Graduation Ceremony - June 5, 2020
The Grauer School’s strategic plan employs powerful data from virtually all school stakeholder groups as they identified the core values and core features that bind The Grauer School community together. Our biggest work, which is ongoing and permanent, is providing the inspiration and role modeling necessary to enable all our stakeholder groups to embrace, work, and live in accordance with our values. Of course, turning theory to action has always been the forté of The Grauer School.
We are thrilled with the completion of the school campus, a far-sighted vision that was realized in 2019 with the completion of our Justice Center for The Performing Arts building. We have also made great progress on expansion of the school's board.
Further to the goals of the plan, we are growing endowments for both teacher development and student financial aid. And, perhaps most important, our strategic plan calls for the constant clarification and advancement of our mission: “To teach and encourage students to be resourceful and intrinsically motivated as learners in a compassionate, college preparatory environment.”
"Stuart is a fascinating educator who has created a special
school environment that promotes healthy intellectual, social,
and emotional development of high school students."
–David Jaffe, Superintendent, Rancho Santa Fe Schools
Pedagogically, we are asking our teachers not only to teach State curricula and skills, but to prioritize values and qualities we believe that our students, and our nation and world, will need later in the century: courage, compassion, and resourcefulness. These values and qualities will set them apart in the future as they assume the leadership roles they are bound for: a passion for the process of discovery; a natural sense of communicating collaboratively in class, across cultures, and in online groups; an ability to organize and present complex portfolios and exhibits; and a sense of the connectedness of their daily work with its impact on the larger world. These are “millennial skills,” and our “200 strong” (teachers and students), high performance, independent school organization is better positioned to convey them than any other model we can find.
To this end, we have developed the Small Schools Coalition (SSC), a growing membership organization responsible for leading the way in research and communications as our region and nation learns about the power and effectiveness the small school model has in promoting student development, safety, and scholarship. Developing this larger network is enabling The Grauer School to stay in forefront of what’s best about secondary education for students, families, and teachers.
Read Dr. Grauer's Fearless Teaching Column
Also with an eye to the future, we continue to build and broaden the leadership capacity of our faculty as a whole and, in particular, among our teams, centers and departmental heads. With energetic and far-sighted leadership coming from our student ASB, our leadership team, our programming team, our department chairs, our Board of Trustees and its standing committees, our Parent Association, the Green Grauer Association, as well as the most solid, experienced, passionate staff and faculty we’ve ever had, our students and families are in very good hands.
Watch "The Grauer School Goes Green" (YouTube)
The school is positioned well. As our reputation for extraordinary quality and results penetrates deeper into the region and demand for what we and no others can do, our enrollment is capped. Hence, we are in great demand. The school now has full enrollment and long waiting lists, attracts passionate and compassionate faculty members, and holds a powerful mission and vision to support us as we approach the future, united in a single, simple credo: Our students mean the world to us.
Enjoy our website, and come by for a visit!
—Dr. Stuart Grauer, Ed., Head of School Emeritus
Read about our School Philosophy
"As a former student of Dr. Grauer's at the International School of Berne, Switzerland, I am proud to be able to witness the maturation of his ideals and perspectives about the world around us. Dr. Grauer deeply cared about his students and the influence of his message. He is a gifted mentor and teacher, and his students are fortunate to have him as a leader."
–O. Laufer, Former Student of Dr. Grauer