Mission and Vision

Mission and Vision Stephanie Dulmage

Why Examine/Redefine Mission and Vision? • Mission and vision statements should be reviewed yearly. • AdvancEd District Accreditation is a systems approach to school improvement. • All parts of a system should be aligned with the district vision and mission. • Building shared vision fosters the commitment to the long term. • Strong vision and mission should drive all decisions, resources, and systems and gets you through the “tough” times. Stephanie Dulmage

Working Definition of Mission Clarity of purpose should be the goal of any mission statement. Our “mission” gives focus To the question, “Why do we exist?” DuFour and Eaker, 2008 Stephanie Dulmage

West Bloomfield School District Mission The West Bloomfield School District educates students to be their best in and for the world. Stephanie Dulmage

Two Very Important QuestionsDan Pink in Drive • What’s my sentence? • Was I better today than yesterday? Stephanie Dulmage

Defining Mission Protocol • Team members, staff, parents, students take 3 minutes to write a statement or “sentence” as defined by Dan Pink that answers the question “why do we exist or what is our purpose?” • Statements are passed to other team members to highlight significant phrases or words. • All highlighted statements are recorded for all members to see. • Define the mission based on the 3-5 most frequently highlighted passages. • Use the “Fist of Five” or other consensus tools to vote on the mission. Stephanie Dulmage

Task:Define Elementary, Middle, and High School/OEC Mission • Divide into elementary, middle, and high school/OEC groups. • Choose a facilitator and a recorder to create a “group memory” chart. • Use the protocol to define a mission that aligns with the district mission. • Record your group’s agreed upon mission statement. Stephanie Dulmage

Working Definition of Vision • The process of developing a shared vision or describing the school/district we seek to become involves a collaborative dialogue that assesses the present and envisions the future. • A shared vision addresses the question: “What kind of school/district do we hope to become?” DuFour and Eaker, 2008 Stephanie Dulmage

2. Create Preferred Future (Vision):Dialogue for Understanding 3 3 3 3 3 1. Examine the Current State:Dialogue for Understanding 3. Strategies: Discussion for decisions on how to get to future (vision).

Excerpts: The Fifth Disclipline by Peter Senge • Building Shared Vision • “When there is a genuine vision (as opposed to the all-to-familiar ‘vision statement’), people excel and learn, not because they are told to, but because they want to. But many leaders have personal visions that never get translated into shared visions that galvanize an organization… What has been lacking is a discipline for translating vision into shared vision - not a ‘cookbook’ but a set of principles and guiding practices.” • “The practice of shared vision involves the skills of unearthing shared ‘pictures of the future’ that foster genuine commitment and enrolment rather than compliance. In mastering this discipline, leaders learn the counter-productiveness of trying to dictate a vision, no matter how heartfelt.” (Senge, 2006) Stephanie Dulmage

West Bloomfield School District Vision • We will develop socially responsible citizens empowered to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing global society, and who are characterized by curiosity, creativity, critical thinking and the ability to effectively communicate and collaborate. Stephanie Dulmage

Learn To Change, Change To Learn Video • Show video • Dialogue about future and preferred realities • Encourage “out of the box” thinking • Complete vision protocol (writing a new vision or rewriting) reflecting on the preferred realities and the P3T mission activity. Stephanie Dulmage

Defining Vision Protocol • Each team member will take 5 minutes to individually generate a vision statement for each of the key concepts (the three to five most underlined) and write each on a post-it note. • Team members will put the post-it notes on the chart under the applicable key concept. • The team will collectively decide where the overlaps are and which can be condensed. • Consensus building - each team member should take one dot for each key concept and use it to vote for one statement under each category. • The vision statement for the school will be drafted from the concepts that receive the most votes. This could be a comprehensive statement written in paragraph form or as a stem with two to five individual statements listed underneath. Stephanie Dulmage

Task: Generate an Elementary, Middle, and High School/OEC Vision Statement • Divide into elementary, middle, and high school/OEC groups. • Choose a facilitator and a recorder to create a “group memory” chart. • Use the protocol to generate a vision statement that aligns with the district vision. • Record your group’s agreed upon vision statement. Stephanie Dulmage

Resources For Vision, Mission, and Systems Thinking • The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of a Learning Organization Peter Senge • The Radical Leap: A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership Steve Farber • Professional Learning Communities At Work and Learning by Doing DuFour and Eaker • Drive Daniel Pink • All Systems Go: The Change Imperative For Whole School Reform Michael Fullan • Motion Leadership: The Skinny on Becoming Change Savvy Michael Fullan Stephanie Dulmage

Mission and Vision