What Does It Mean to Build an Education That Endures?

“I’m home.” 

That’s what one new TAS student told his mother on his first day of school. 

His family had moved from California and waited a full year for a place at TAS. But after his first day, what stayed with his mother was something much more profound: her son’s description of how the school felt to him, how he was welcomed with open arms in a way that he had never felt before. “I’m home.” 

His mother shared the story with parents at TAS’s first PreK-12 Parent Gathering with the Head of School, on Friday, September 4. 

The story offered a simple measure of something much bigger: What does it mean to build a school where students experience the conditions for deep learning and engagement, and how does a school make sure that experience continues long after any one leader, teacher, or family has moved on? How can you make “home” an institution?  

For Head of School David Frankenberg, that question was at the heart of the morning. 

It is also why, in his final year at TAS, David’s message was firmly rooted in the school’s Mission, Vision, and Strategic Plan. 

“My whole message is, it is not about me,” David told parents. “It is not about the direction that I am going in, it’s not what I think is right or wrong. My job as head of school is to strengthen this institution. And the institution is the mission, it is the values of this school, it is the learning outcomes, and it is the strategic plan.” 

The Strategic Plan, David explained, is not simply a list of initiatives. It is a strategy for implementation: a way of translating TAS’s mission and Schoolwide Learning Outcomes into the systems, structures, and daily practices that shape students’ experiences. 

“How do you actually define change in a school?” he asked. “We can have strategic plans, we can have action and progress reports. But I think for me, until a strategic plan or initiative actually impacts a kid inside a classroom, it doesn’t mean anything.” 

That question became the lens through which David described the work underway across TAS. 

The most essential interaction in a school, he said, is the one that happens every day between a teacher and a student. The question, then, is how everything else the school does, from curriculum and professional growth to student support, leadership structures, operations, and the campus itself, can make that interaction better. How does this end up making the student's experience better? 

The Strategic Plan is designed around that idea. 

Across PreK–12, each grade curriculum is being reviewed and rebuilt around the Schoolwide Learning Outcomes. Each subject area will move through a four-phase process of study, development, implementation, and improvement. New progression rubrics are creating a developmental map of learning from early childhood through graduation, with deep involvement from the Heads of Schools.  

A new faculty growth system is bringing greater consistency to evaluation and professional development, with 322 faculty members now in a program called Professional Pathways. The program is designed to help teachers set specific teaching and performance goals, then work strategically toward these goals with the support of colleagues and school leaders. Student support is being reorganized to create a more coordinated PreK–12 model, while changes to schedules, advisory, belonging, wellbeing, and other areas are turning student feedback into concrete changes in students’ daily experiences. 

New leadership structures, including three new principals and a Deputy Head of School, are designed to strengthen collaboration and create greater coherence across divisions. The Office of Learning brings curriculum, teaching, faculty growth, student support, belonging, and educational technology together under one PreK-12 structure, creating a more connected approach to learning across the school.  

Even the physical campus is being considered through the same lens. The 15-year master plan is intended not simply as a facilities plan, but as an expression of the educational vision: a campus designed around how students learn, connect, and experience school. 

All of these efforts, David emphasized, are connected. 

The school’s Theory of Change begins with the mission. From there, the Schoolwide Learning Outcomes, as an extension of the mission, become the architecture of learning at TAS, the competencies every student should develop by the time they graduate.  

The goal is for every class, experience, and system across PreK–12 to contribute to a more coherent and enriching student experience, with all aspects of school life integrated to produce the learning outcomes. 

“The most important piece and what the school should always be held to is its mission,” David said. The mission is “the North Star, it is the guiding principles that delineate what the school should and should not be doing.” 

That mission asks TAS to think about students holistically. This means their learning, their wellbeing, and their service to others. It also asks the school to think about education as something that lasts. 

“The word enduring always speaks to me about a non-transactional education,” David said. “If our education ends the second our kids leave a classroom, or finish a class, or even graduate TAS, it is not worth it.” 

Enduring learning becomes visible when students carry what they have learned beyond school. 

“You know learning is real, when a kid is engaged enough in learning to bring it to the dinner table, and to make connections to the real world,” says David. 

How can learning move beyond the walls of the classroom, beyond TAS, and into the very way students think, question, connect, and understand the world around them? 

That idea of endurance extends beyond student learning. It also shapes how David thinks about the institution itself. 

TAS, he told parents, should be strong enough to stand on its own. Its direction does not change with leadership but instead is firmly rooted in the institution’s Mission, Values, Schoolwide Learning Outcomes, and Strategic Plan.  

The goal of all David’s work as Head of School, not only this year but over the past two years, is to help institutionalize the values and direction of TAS, work that belongs not to one person, but to the entire community and should continue long after any one leader has served. 

That makes the Strategic Plan more than what TAS has accomplished and will continue to accomplish this year. It is about building the capacity to keep becoming the best school it can be. 

And that idea mirrors the question TAS asks of every student: How might you become the best version of yourself? 

This year, David reminds us, TAS is asking that same question of itself. 

The work requires more than leadership. It requires ownership. 

Throughout the Parent Gathering with the Head of School, parents were invited to move beyond simply hearing about the school’s direction and consider their own role in shaping it. Rather than sitting in rows, parents gathered around tables, discussed questions, challenged ideas, and shared perspectives. 

David distinguished between buy-in and ownership. 

Buy-in can mean agreeing with direction. Ownership asks people to understand where the community is going, see themselves as part of that direction, and consider what they can do to help move it forward. 

That distinction came to life in the conversations around the room. Parents discussed discipline and consequences, the balance between high standards and student wellbeing, and how schools can help children become the best versions of themselves without encouraging them to simply optimize themselves around everyone else. 

John Wu, a TAS alum and current parent, captured one part of that tension when he said, “Metrics matter, but I wouldn’t want conformity through optimization.” 

David connected the conversation back to the purpose of the school. 

“We’re not engineering robots,” he said. “This is about helping each kid become the best version of themselves possible.” 

The same principle applies to the institution. 

TAS is not a school that depends on any one leader’s vision. It is building a school in which the mission provides continuity, the Strategic Plan provides direction, and the people within the community have a role in carrying that work forward. 

That includes parents. 

The Parent Gathering with the Head of School was one example of what that partnership can look like. The opportunities ahead offer many more. 

Families will have opportunities to meet with new principals through Principal Learning Tours, participate in PreK–12 Head of School Gatherings, join Leadership Conversations, attend Office of Learning Coffee Workshops, and take part in Parent and Guardian Learning Walks. Other gatherings will explore topics ranging from artificial intelligence and the future of education to university planning for older students. 

These events may look different from one another, but they share a common purpose: creating spaces where families can ask questions, share perspectives, understand the direction of this institution, and contribute to the community TAS is building. 

The morning ended with parents moving from the Harmony Theater into the new Office of Learning, where they could continue conversations with school leaders and members of the Office of Learning team. 

In a small way, the transition reflected the larger message of the morning. 

A strategy only matters when it moves into action. A mission only matters when it shapes decision. And an enduring education only matters when what students experience at school continues to shape who they become beyond it. 

Creating that feeling is not the work of one person. It is built through thousands of interactions between students, teachers, leaders, families, and the systems that make those interactions possible. 

That is the work of an enduring institution. 

And it is work the entire TAS community builds together. 

Watch the Recording of the PreK-12 Parent Gathering with the Head of School