Realizing Your Vision and Mission
Vision and mission statements provide schools with an essential overview of where they want to go and what they want to be. Few thriving schools or companies attained their success without developing such statements as elements of their school improvement plans or business plans. But merely drafting statements is not enough. To realize your school's vision and mission, you must model your school's beliefs, values, and collective commitments while demonstrating enthusiasm for what will come next. Perhaps most important, your vision and mission establish clear expectations and standards for your staff. We further discuss how to get the most out of your staff in the following chapter.
Getting Started
- Identify and train vision and mission oversight teams.
- If there are existing vision and mission statements, review them to determine their relevance and accuracy.
- Devise a meaningful plan to involve the staff in either revising the existing vision and mission statements or creating new ones.
- Ask probing questions to guide staff in developing their vision and mission.
- Use data to identify areas that need improvement and establish SMART goals.
- Recruit members for a school improvement plan team.
