Recently, Park hosted a team of marketing consultants working with us to develop a new set of Admission materials, including what is commonly called a “viewbook.” Materials like these strive to engage prospective families with a “view” into Park’s community, educational program, and culture. The team met with Park’s administrative team, current Upper Division students, parents and guardians, faculty and staff, and alumni. They toured campus with students, talked with teachers, and ate in the dining room. They even attended the faculty/student basketball game. After their visit, a team member commented, “I wish my kids could have gone here!”
Their experience proves what we often say: our students, teachers, and families are our very best marketing. In education, words like “marketing” are sometimes viewed with suspicion, as if it involves an act of deception — a spin. For Park and the goals we aim to achieve, I don’t believe this at all. I believe that marketing is simply the revealing of substance. It’s making clear, visible, and accessible what we stand for, what we do, why we do it, and to what impact. It must also be authentic, true, and real for all in our community. In brief, it must capture what makes Park “Park.”
Park has evolved considerably since our last viewbook was developed in 2018. Along with dramatic program developments and campus improvements, we defined The Park Portrait and our core values of academic excellence; diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging; and social-emotional learning. We articulated the vision statement – “Find joy in challenge, lead with compassion, achieve with integrity, and advocate for self and others” – that captures our aspirations for every student and the community as a whole. We launched a new website centered on these values and ideals. And all those definitions, ideals, and statements of values are more than just words: they distill what we do at Park, why we do it, why it matters, and they hold us accountable to our mission.
Schools are hopeful and aspirational enterprises that shape the future. And so, we at Park commit ourselves to our mission, vision, values, and The Park Portrait, knowing in the end, it’s all about our students.
When I think about that “why,” it comes down to this: it’s all about our students. It’s about creating and sustaining a culture that nurtures critical thinking, empowers curiosity, and supports students in believing in themselves. While students grow in literacy and numeracy, they also grow in self-awareness, self-regulation, resilience, and empathy. They celebrate difference, embrace kindness, know they belong, and ensure that others do and feel the same. Every day, as we pursue this work with our students, we reaffirm our values through the ways in which our students learn, grow, and thrive.
In our meetings with the consultants and in my conversations with parents and teachers who participated in these meetings, several themes resonated. When my admin team colleagues talk about the work we do, every programmatic example and learning moment reflects our core values. Asked how their Park experience differs from what friends outside of Park experience, our students underscore not only the academic strengths of their classes but the kindness of their teachers, the climate of respect they enjoy, and the sense of belonging they feel. Our teachers explain the way social and emotional well-being drives academic excellence. Parents and guardians of younger students listen to Upper Division parents talk not just about what their children have learned but who their children are becoming, and they know that’s exactly what they want for their own children.
The excellence of Park can boil down to a specific moment, a given project, or a grade level’s scope and sequence; however, who Park is, what we do, and how we do it is best defined by the collective journey our students experience whether it be 10, 9, or even 2 years at Park and in our community.
Marketing is the revealing of substance, and I am proud of what Park reveals. Our motto, “Simplicity and Sincerity,” underscores the priority we place on creating a safe, engaging, and warm student-centered environment where young people grow as healthy, curious, thoughtful learners who care for each other while they strive to achieve for themselves. I don’t take lightly the opportunity and responsibility we have at Park to help our students grow as constructive, thoughtful citizens, particularly when the world beyond Park feels detached from the qualities we value most. Schools are hopeful and aspirational enterprises that shape the future. And so, we at Park commit ourselves to our mission, vision, values, and The Park Portrait, knowing in the end, it’s all about our students.
