A message from Haliday Douglas

Dear SLPS Foundation Supporters and Friends,

It is with joy and enthusiasm that I write to you today as the Interim CEO of the St. Louis Public Schools Foundation. In the coming months there is much to accomplish, and the Board and I look forward to sharing and collaborating with you to optimize outcomes for the young scholars and committed educators of SLPS. I do hope you will gather with us at our Fall celebration to learn more, and ready yourself to engage in the great work in ways that most resonate with you.

We begin our 2022-23 by building-out outcome measures and key activities for our new strategic plan in alignment with best practice research and SLPS’s Transformation Plan.While we will continue our commitments to Health & Wellness, School Innovation, and Teacher Leadership, among a few others; SLPS and the Foundation are poised to have our work together go deeper, building upon the successes of previous years.

A little about me: I am a proud son of St. Louis – born, raised, and schooled. I am one of five children of an amazing single-parent mother whose early cultivation of my imagination and core identity in childhood enabled me to psychologically endure my adolescent lived experiences with severe poverty, gang violence, chronic homelessness, racism in all its forms, mental health challenges, and the terrors of feeling alone in the world with nowhere to go but forward — even before I was old enough to comprehend what forward looked like. What I can also tell you is that had it not been for my teachers and school spaces providing warm meals, clothing, places to sleep and call home (even if just for a little while), encouragement, discipline, and opportunities to see a world outside of that of north city St. Louis, I would never have had the opportunity to write you as I do now – at least not with the positionality to contribute to shifting the life trajectories of today’s youth and families persevering under similar conditions as my siblings and I did some 20+ years ago.

My focus over the next seven months will be on exceeding the Foundation’s performance needs and aspirations. The work of the Foundation must intensify, accelerate, and succeed, and my job is to initiate that work and lay a solid foundation for a dynamic leader to build upon in the long term.

Looking forward to working with you,

Mr. Haliday Douglas
Interim President & CEO, St. Louis Public Schools Foundation
hdouglas@slpsfoundation.org