From our recent Educational Improvement Council (EIC) meeting (our version of the district site-based decision making committee) in which I proposed that we not simple write goals for the district (which are currently nonexistent), but to rewrite the mission, vision, values, and goals by connecting to students, parents, business and community members via social networking (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) to gather feedback on 1) what is school for; 2) why do you do what you do; 3 what matters to you; and 4) why are you here (in Denton ISD). Additionally, I pitched that we completely “rebrand” Denton ISD as we are at the cusp of change in education with the uncertainty in 1) educational funding; 2) assessment; 3) accountability; 4) competition (from charter schools, private schools, home schools, virtual schools, etc.); in addition to be at the “tipping point” of educational revolution and a fundamental change in school as we know it.
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Why are you here? I don’t mean Planet Earth…I mean here in DISD.
The District’s planning process to improve student performance includes the development of the District’s educational goals, the legal requirements for the District and campus improvement plans, all pertinent federal planning requirements, and administrative procedures. The Board shall approve the process under which the educational goals are developed and shall ensure that input is gathered from the District-level committee. BQ(LOCAL)
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Mission asks the question, “Why?”
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Vision asks “What?”
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Values attempt to clarify collective commitments.
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Goals are what the organization hopes to achieve as a result of improvement initiatives.
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Steven L. Layne, Igniting a Passion for Reading
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“I will never, ever, forget the difficulty I had in one of my schools at the annual faculty meeting, during which the principal always announced to the teaching staff the goals that had been set for us by the board of education for the upcoming year. Good friends would harness me to my chair and duct-tape my mouth shut at this yearly meeting for fear I would start a revolution and get myself and multiple other people fired for insubordination. I’m sorry, but is this not the most ridiculous thing you have ever heard? How motivated are you to reach goals someone else is setting for you—and especially an entity you do not even believe should exist? (But that’s for the book I’m still threatening to write.) I never cared two hoots about their goals. I might have, if I’d been a part of the process of crafting them, but I wasn’t. Apparently, my input regarding the goals that my daily work would either achieve or fail to achieve for our district was not viewed as a significant factor in their plan for goal creation. Is it any wonder that so many of our schools are in such a mess? One of my best friends and colleagues would regularly repeat this sentence in our weekly team meeting: “The system is flawed.” I believe she may have made a seriously important discovery. I believe that goal setting can be tremendously motivating—when the people setting the goals are the same people who will be working to make them successful. We can use goal setting to build rapport with kids that will energize and excite them—creating a kind of “catch the wave” mentality. I have found that goal setting works if we set goals for ourselves right along with our students, if we keep the goals visible and refer to them often, and if we show the kids we really do care about how they’re progressing by talking with them about their goals one-on-one.” From Igniting a Passion for Reading: Successful Strategies for Building Lifetime Readers by Steven L. Layne (Paperback - Nov 28, 2009)
What matters to you? As in…what’s really important to you?
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George W. Bush’s “fuzzy math”
look and feel
format
tell a story
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Tenille Shade’s One Word Project video: http://www.dentonisd.org/52552081283326403/site/default.asp
Why do you do what you do? Why are you a teacher, counselor, administrator, etc.? Like…why’d you get into the profession?