Our Wildcat Promise

We believe the expansive academic and extracurricular offerings at NFA are a major strength and provide an unparalleled educational experience for students in southeastern Connecticut. These opportunities, including the Slater Memorial Museum, are a part of our DNA and have been generously supported by a culture of philanthropy that the NFA Foundation continues to manage today. Our students tell us they believe the breadth of our core curriculum and elective offerings give an array of choices that enables them to pursue their passions and interests. Our alumni echo this sentiment, reflecting on their memories of the Academy as an introductory and formative life experience. All stakeholders spoke passionately about the power of a school where a large alumni base were actively engaged to preserve the ways of the past while evolving to meet the needs of the future. Many of these stories recounted a time where a favorite faculty/staff member went above and beyond to help a student in need. NFA was, and is, a place of passion, family and tradition. 

 

When asked to identify areas of improvement, our students shared frustrations with the tension of taking advantage of the opportunities at the Academy while meeting a variety of  requirements within their daily schedules. They shared a desire to have the ability to take more post-secondary classes, including elective and career education programming. As a part of this conversation about access and opportunity, students voiced concerns about a perceived imbalance of student experience based on academic and social abilities. When referencing the types of instructional experiences that best met their needs, they expressed appreciation for student centered classrooms where they were given choice in learning, engaged in inquiry based activities, had time to work with peers and personally connected with their teachers. 

 

Our educators and administrators also discussed the struggle of how to increase credit attainment, build workplace skills, improve graduation rates and maximize SAT scores while confronting varying degrees of student ability, motivation and accountability.  Equally important, our faculty expressed the importance of maintaining our organizational motivation and sense of “why” in a world that might at times lose sight of the power of purpose. Finally, our students and families underscored the importance of extracurricular and sport offerings. They cited clubs/sports as a major factor that allowed them to find their peer group and community on campus. They hope the Academy will continue to improve and enhance these types of experiences.  

 

We believe daily life at NFA must be grounded in a culture of respect, personal accountability and kindness towards others. Our students, faculty and staff deserve to learn and work in a place of order, learning and safety. We believe the foundation of this culture is built through strong relationships that include all members of our school community. The strength of our relationships defines our ability to thrive and manage challenge. We must intentionally cultivate these relationships as a priority on our campus. While we recognize the context of a present world troubled by fraying societal norms, we will resist this trend at our school. We believe that the unit of change begins with a relentless insistence on our individual and collective power. In our student and staff reflections, we noted areas of improvement that included the inappropriate use of cell phones, disrespectful use of our school bathrooms, absenteeism and general behavioral conduct.

 

Our faculty and staff shared concerns about our student support systems designed to meet the needs of students identified with disabilities, multilingual students (ML) and our process for transitioning students into their freshman year. They also noted a need to improve the way in which we managed our crisis/trauma responses and cross campus collaboration. 

 

From a strengths perspective, current efforts to improve administrative and faculty visibility were noted as important factors in developing a collaborative school culture. Adding to this point, our students spoke to the power of taking ownership of our school through enhanced opportunities for student leadership and community building. To this end, all stakeholders expressed an insistence that spending time teaching these values had never been more important to our shared campus experience.  

 

We believe the economic, educational, cultural, intellectual, linguistic and racial diversity of our school is a major strength. We embrace this diversity by working to understand, respect and empower all our students and faculty to know that they are seen and they are welcome. Our students, families and alumni tell us about a campus where they felt accepted and loved for who they were. These stories are the driving forces that continue to bring alumni back to have a similar impact on current students. 

 

Our families tell us of the power of school to home relationships that were promoted by faculty and staff who made the effort to reach out and communicate around their child’s success or failure. In these stories, they made it clear how much they valued this simple gesture of engagement and respect. We also acknowledge that the increasingly divergent academic and social experiences of our students demand new skills, structures, and methods to ensure our universal guarantee to all students.

 

We accept the expectation to meet the standard of excellence of our most prolific scholar and most struggling student. We understand the power of being multilingual and the difficulty of learning in a country that does not speak your native tongue. As we acknowledge the current reality, we seek to improve the way we support our students and faculty in the classroom. We are committed to progressively addressing these needs in a way that ensures equity and excellence for all.  

 

We believe the opportunity for a student to attend and graduate from NFA is a life changing experience. As a school of choice, it is our goal to provide this opportunity to as many students as possible. In addition to the greater impact we believe that NFA alumni can have on our world, fully enrolling our school is a vital component to being able to provide the wealth of current programs.

 

As the current trend of the population of secondary school students in southeastern Connecticut declines and families face a context teeming with school choice, NFA must find new ways and new markets to increase enrollment. In our conversations with students, parents, faculty and partners, we heard encouragement to reposition NFA as an individualized and learner centered environment with multiple paths to success.

 

In addition, we heard about the need to overcome certain external beliefs including concerns around our size and capacity to meet the needs of all students. While our size and diversity are critical elements of the quality of experience that sets NFA apart from other secondary educational opportunities, we take collective ownership to constantly strive to be all families preferred school of choice.  

 

We believe the strategic and effective management of operations sets the conditions that lead to the growth and sustainability of our school. Our Human Resources, Finance and Facilities Departments must work in collaboration with the NFA Foundation to shepherd our school through evolving and complex conditions. From our students, parents and alumni, we heard how our educators, staff and administration had made a powerful impact in their lives during their time at the Academy.

 

At NFA, our employees are our strength. To grow this critical aspect of our school, we must enhance the systems that promote our school as the premier educational employer in the region. From our trustees, we heard concerns regarding the financial challenges we face as a result of declining enrollment. We recognize their desire to steward the resources of the Academy by having the ability to forecast, manage and account for all fiscal matters. From our students and faculty we heard concerns about an aging campus including needed updates to our cafeteria, classrooms, bathrooms and air conditioned spaces. Our stakeholders worried about the age of our athletic facilities and our need to modernize training and workout areas. While significant investments have been made in technology in the past, we were encouraged to continue to invest in upgrading technology systems across the campus. Finally, we heard a call for deepened alumni engagement  with the NFA Foundation to uphold the legacy of philanthropy that has been a founding staple of our school.