Mission, Vision and Values
The Elms is the only all-girls, faith-based school for grades 1 - 12 with a co-ed pre-school and Kindergarten in the Cleveland Diocese. Our mission at the Elms is to educate girls and young women to live their lives boldly with purpose, confidence, kindness, resilience, justice and faith. Ranked as one of the top private schools in Summit County, we are known for our academic excellence, caring atmosphere and strong community spirit. We strive to support every girl to become an inquiring lifelong learner, a compassionate and engaged global citizen and a confident and caring leader. Every girl is inspired to reach her full potential.
By the very nature of our mission, the Elms is an individualized educational experience. Because we endeavor to inspire each girl to reach her full potential, there are as many different versions of that as there are girls in the school. That said, girls who are curious, open-minded and hard-working will thrive at the Elms and in our community.
Mission
Our Lady of the Elms, a private Catholic school rooted in the Dominican tradition, educates girls and young women to live their lives boldly with purpose, confidence, kindness, resilience, justice and faith.
Vision
Elms girls become confident leaders, accomplished professionals and advocates for justice and the common good. Prepared to succeed in life they possess a spiritual, educational, global and experiential foundation shaped at the Elms.
Values
Our Lady of the Elms School, founded on Catholic principles and enriched by Dominican spirituality, is sponsored by the Dominican Sisters of Peace. Welcoming and inclusive, the Elms cultivates girls to be tomorrow’s standard bearers for sustainability, equity and reconciliation among people by preparing them to live purposeful, spiritual and trailblazing lives demonstrated through:
Integrity Creativity Humility Faith
Respect Compassion Service Joy
Dominican Pillars
Woven into the experience of every Elms girl is Veritas, the pursuit of truth and justice. Boldly forming the base for our work are the four pillars of the Dominican Charism:
Study Preaching Community Prayer
Strategic Plan
In 2016, with new executive leadership in place and a board willing to engage, several factors contributed to the shared perception that a multi-year strategic plan needed to be developed to guide the school in the years ahead. Primarily, there was strong feeling that school leaders (both board and staff) needed to [a] create a much clearer and shared understanding of the future direction for the school, [b] develop goals which could be measured for success, and [c] engage Boldly Growing: Strategic Road Map to 2023 in a process that would further strengthen the working relationships between leadership and the school’s multiple stakeholders.
Boldly Growing provides a strategic road map to guide Our Lady of the Elms School for the fiscal years 2019 through 2022. In addition to refinement of the mission statement, along with newly created vision and core values statements, the plan encompasses eight strategic initiatives that will be pursued.