School History

This roadmap reflects the hearts and minds of not only the board and administration, but also faculty, staff, students, parents, and alumni.

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  • Trails to Transformation

    Maumee Valley's 2021-2026 Strategic Plan
At Maumee Valley Country Day School, we are beholden to an innovative spirit and tradition of excellence that has defined our school for well over a century. We remain undeterred in our collective commitment to educate and inspire tomorrow’s leaders by cultivating creativity and encouraging exploration.

We also recognize that the strategies, methodologies, partnerships, and resources needed to not only embrace but advance our mission are ever evolving. This plan serves to provide the pathways that best position us to meet our goals and realize our potential—from curriculum to community, funding to facilities, people to processes, and communications to collaborations.

Introductory letter from Board President, Head of School

After more than a year of strategic planning, we are excited to share our direction for the next five years. The planning process challenged trustees and administrators to think creatively about the world today’s preschoolers will face when they graduate.

The process also compelled us to dig deeper into our past and present to clarify where we now stand. Many of you—more than 100 alumni, parents, students, faculty, and other community members—also helped the school name its core strengths and purpose, those tenets which we should take with us as we move into the next several years.

Additionally, we engaged the consulting services of Independent School Management to help us marry our strategic and financial plans such that they are sustainable and take advantage of best practices. Thank you to everyone who participated. You have assisted the school in finding its way forward.

Our theme for the next five years is trailblazing.
At an institutional level, trailblazing means continuing the school’s long tradition of innovation while cultivating our natural and financial resources and our people. At a more personal and programmatic level, it means providing both the safety and challenge needed to support all learners as they take risks and find their own paths. You can expect to see more focus on leadership development, college counseling, faculty development, and parent education.

You may also see the school strengthening connections across grades within our student body, inviting more parents to participate in school events, forging new ties to the business community in our region, enlarging our campus, and helping students navigate beyond our walls.

Even here in the description, you will notice a strategy of inclusion to strengthen ties and promote access to ideas and educational resources in our community. The plan is an ambitious one that gives the Board of Trustees and administrators many avenues to choose from over the next five years; the school will not follow every offshoot of the plan in the foreseeable future.

What remains consistent and paramount across all of these options is our commitment to helping learners explore their fullest potentials by granting them access to a broader scope of resources. What we offer you here is a scenic outlook, a high point clear from the underbrush where you can see much of the path behind us as well as the road ahead.

This is our roadmap for the next five years, as well as an updated mission statement and guiding principle.
It reflects the hearts and minds of not only the board and administration, but faculty and staff, students, parents, and alumni as well. We would not have reached this point without you. Please enjoy this strategic direction. We look forward to seeing you on the trail ahead.

Diana Block
President, Board of Trustees

Lynn D. Casto
Head of School

Four Primary Focus Areas

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  • Community Connection

    Solidify our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion as community standards.
    1. Examine our systems, processes, and curriculum to ensure equity and inclusion.
    2. Hire a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator to shepherd our current work and future growth.
    3. Refine hiring practices so that our employee community reflects the diversity of our students and families.
    Expand opportunities for community engagement.
    1. Nurture peer family relationships and connections to the school.
    2. Enhance parent education programs.
    3. Match students, parents, faculty, and alumni through Maumee Valley to foster deeper, lifelong connections.

  • Academic Opportunity and Innovation

    Cultivate Intellectual Excellence
    1. Emphasize learning as a journey, not just a fixed destination.
      • Develop a system that allows students to demonstrate their level of understanding in each component of the revised Portrait of a Maumee Valley Graduate.
      • Moving toward mastery: clearly define course skills and competencies such that students may demonstrate their understanding of course concepts along a continuum of growth.
    2. Make the world our classroom and bring our classrooms to the world.
      • Students conduct research and demonstrate their learning by solving real-world problems. Create opportunities for students to engage in relevant, real-world learning by establishing community partnerships locally, nationally, and globally that extend learning beyond the campus.
      • Expand our Forest School Inspired Programming and Outdoor Education.
    Creatively Explore Passions
    1. Blaze a personal trail.
      • Increase the number of interdisciplinary courses that allow students to explore interests while also receiving academic credit.
      • Enhance the independent study and passion project programs such that all students have the opportunity to explore their interests and passions and share their experiences.
    2. Create your vision of success.
      • Develop a more robust college counseling program that focuses on building relationships with students and their parents early in the academic journey.
    Inspire Positive Change in the World
    1. Enhance our community of belonging.
      • Implement restorative practices schoolwide, emphasizing each individual’s responsibility to create a healthy community.
      • Innovate our Advisory Program to include explicit lessons on social-emotional learning, including an emphasis on identities that allow students to develop a deep understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
      • Provide opportunities for students to enhance school spirit and build student programs and relationships across divisions.
      • Enhance service-learning opportunities.
    2. Learn to lead.
      • Expand student leadership programs to enhance communication skills, exhibit positive influences, cultivate emotional intelligence, and nurture healthy relationships with others.

  • Organizational Excellence

    Establish systems and structures to solidify Maumee Valley’s success.

    1. Develop a competitive faculty, staff, and administrative salary and compensation philosophy and policy to recruit, retain, and reward exceptional employees, making MVCDS the first choice for talented employees.
    2. Bolster our world-class, innovative, student-centered faculty culture.
      • Increase professional development funding.
      • Cultivate an environment of professional learning to support faculty and students.
    3. Perpetuate a board culture that is strategically oriented, financially prudent, mission focused, and philanthropic.

  • Building Toward Tomorrow

    Be intentional and strategic about financial sustainability, specifically aiming to increase revenue in areas other than tuition.
    1. Implement the five-year strategic financial plan.
    2. Increase the endowment to $20 million by 2030.
    3. Establish planned giving, major gifts, and grant writing programs while maintaining our annual giving.
    4. Regularly review and update facilities master plan.
      • Upgrade our technological capabilities to expand our program reach both stateside and worldwide.
      • Prioritize space and facility renovations to optimize and enhance our academic, artistic, and athletic programs.

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  • Your Educational Journey Begins Today

    Welcome to Maumee Valley
    For more information contact us at admissions@mvcds.org or by calling 419-381-1313.
1715 South Reynolds Road, Toledo, OH 43614
phone: 419-381-1313 | fax: 419-381-1314
Maumee Valley Country Day School is the only PreK-12th grade accredited, co-educational, and independent school in Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan.