School improvement step one: Come up with a truly inspiring vision statement. Sounds innocuous enough, but how do we actually go about it? Research? Staff input? Hire a wordsmith?
This task presents many challenges. First off, what is inspiring to me may not be inspiring to someone else. For instance I think that “Blast Off- The Future is Now!” is pretty inspiring or “Life is A Stage- Act on it” is a real call to action, but many of my colleagues don’t connect with these sorts of “touchy feely” statements. We ultimately decided to use an in-service day to work on this as an entire staff.
We started the day off with a holiday and Hawaiian theme as staff members had been split into five different groups of mixed curriculum specialists. The team members were identified by what color of holiday garland lei they were wearing.
The first activity was a team building game. Members from each of the five groups were to join hands and keep as many of their 12 balloons as possible in the air without letting go of the joined hands. Any dropped balloons had to stay on the floor. The winning team was the one with the most balloons in the air at the end of 10 minutes.
When we moved up to the library to begin the working portion of our day, I explained that the game was a metaphor for staff working together. The members had their hands joined to symbolize that we are unified in our effort to serve students. The balloons that we had to keep in the air illustrated how we have many responsibilities that are all equally important and the groups who did well were the ones that worked together. The conclusion, (educating students is a team sport) was left unstated. This event segued into the next activity.
Our principal gave his ideas about what we do as a community of teachers and how our approach affects our student’s outcomes as reflected in a myriad of ways: Their ability to feel safe at school, their desire to take risks in the classroom, their formative ideas about the value of education, and even their eventual choices of future careers (not to mention the 800 pound gorilla in the room. . . our districts failed AYP according to the WASL scores from last year). He had used phrases like “Teach Like a Champion” and “EVERY ONE! EVERY DAY!” and my personal favorite— “Whatever It Takes” (which could easily be changed to “Whatever. . . “ on those less than inspiring days of reality in a classroom full of junior high hormones). A power-point presentation set to Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” sent the staff off to their next task.
Our new groups were directed to develop three really inspiring phrases to replace our old uninspiring vision statement. When we returned we shared the three phrases with the entire group. As a result of this work we had 15 inspiring statements to work with. We ploughed through this activity and pared it down to the top three—at this point many folks had begun the arm crossing and body shifting that goes with the defensive postures signifying that this activity should draw to a close. We went off to a catered lunch and the school improvement committee will deal with word-smithing the final choices. The staff will have the final say in determining what our vision statement will communicate. A messy approach? Yes, but truly rewarding. Once again, I’m impressed by the quality and intelligence of the folks I am privileged to work with every day. So what was our final vision statement? Stay tuned…
Pamelia Valentine is a guest blogger and teacher in the Shelton School District.
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Improving My Notion of School Improvement