School improvement . . .still.  It goes on and on like the gift that keeps on giving or the tiny leech that cannot be located, but sucks the victim dry a little at a time.  Slight anemia, a little dizziness and bang you’re laid flat out face down. That’s about where we are now.  The end of the year; the school board presentation behind us; a glorious vision statement. . .  and no mission.  

Well, that’s not quite right.  We do have a mission and we are “working on” the statement. We’ve been floating some ideas around and trying to put things together that make sense.  We have a committee of seven folks who research ideas and work with our principal each Monday. During the last meeting we narrowed our focus by concentrating on the key words we used in our vision statement: Responsibility, Respect, Resilience, Inspire, Academic Excellence. What did we mean when we wrote those words?  We made lists about each of the words and we pondered the ideas together.  

We were given the charge to “research and come back with more resources next week.”  So off we go to various websites like this one: mission statements.  Members send links around to each other and we research—together and separately. When I visited the link above, I got fired up and inspired and I developed a draft and put it together—complete with graphics!  

I won’t include the graphics but here’s the draft from that inspiration:

“The mission of Oakland Bay Junior High School is to build academic and personal responsibility, to shape respectful positive citizens, to develop resilient life skills that inspire hope while creating an environment that cultivates a passion for learning which will generate academic excellence in every individual every day.”

This one, and the others that my colleagues come up with, will go through several wordsmith’ed incarnations until we are all satisfied that it truly represents our mission. Then it will be out there! That’s how we’re learning and growing together while we work collaboratively to develop a REAL school improvement plan. A plan that is flexible enough to expand with us, dynamic enough to change with us, and pragmatic enough for even the most conservative among us to invest in. Let the leeches do their best—we will be respectfully responsible about developing our resilience as we strive to inspire academic excellence in our students!  Hmmm that almost sounds like a mission statement. . .

Pamelia Valentine is a guest blogger and teacher in the Shelton School District.

Previous Blogs:

School Improvement—The Vision is just the Beginning

School Improvement—The Mission for a Vision Continues

Gettin' Visionary with School Improvement