TILS A-c

School Vision Statement

Activity: I was a member of the committee who conducted a faculty meeting to revise the
schools vision statement. The committee was made up of four teachers, the instructional coach
and all administrators. The original meeting was to discuss the Professional Development outline
for the day that the faculty was to begin the process of revising the vision statement. We decided
to open the meeting discussing why this vision revision was needed, and with over one hundred
faculty members, we decided to have break out sessions for groups to discuss their ideas and
present to the whole group. We would take pieces from the presentations that everyone liked and
continue to break out as many times as necessary (two more times).
Description: Our school has been open since 2001, and the principal decided that the schools
vision statement needed to be refreshed because the original vision needed to be revised to keep
up with the changing society, technology and more importantly, expectations.
a. What went well?
The planning and execution part of this Professional Development went extremely well.
Everyone on the committee agreed to the procedures and what the expectations for the
actual meeting day needed to be. The day, itself, went really well. There was some
pushback from faculty, but overall, everyone participated.
b. What did not?
The one thing that stood out was the push back from certain faculty members. Since the
faculty is so large, some people can get away with not actively participating; however,
what can be done about those members? I noticed it and would walk around trying to get
everyone involved, but who am I but a colleague?
c. Given the chance to do it again, how would you do it better?

If ever given the opportunity to lead the revision of the vision statement at a school this
size who is broken into academies, the first thing I would do is have this event over two
days. The first day would have this discussion in a smaller settings with their academy
only and administrator. They would be able to develop their vision as well as make
improvements to bring to the entire faculty the next day. The second day would be
presenting their revisions and ideas to the faculty. From there, there would still need to be
breakout sessions; however, with the entire faculty, it would be more focused and
hopefully more involvement from everyone.