BLOG #4 792 Capstone - Comparing Mission Statements NVUSD Mission Statement: Transforming lives by instilling and inspiring lifelong learning in every student. As I searched around our district website I was surprised at how little I found about technology and 21st-century learning. We talk about it all the time in staff meetings and district trainings. I feel like it has been a very big focus for years now and yet it does not seem to be clearly spelled out in our district mission statement. I get that mission statements are often kind of broad, especially for a big company or district in order to actually include everything the district does under one big mission umbrella. But it was still a little puzzling to me that the word “technology” was absent. I wondered if the people writing the mission statement assumed that “technology proficient” would be implied because of the world we live in today. I decided to create a wordle of the student goals section of our Strategic Plan and then decided to compare it with a couple of other school districts. It is really interesting to compare the missions, student learning goals (see the wordles), and the logos of each district. After comparing, I decided NVUSD is looking pretty good. Our mission statement is actually a nice short sentence that you could explain to someone in an elevator conversation if you ever get past the awkward moment of watching the floor numbers zooming past in silence. There is always room for improvement, but our mission statement and wordle look a lot like Santa Clara Unified. If it works for the Silicon Valley people we must be in the ballpark! I like that our district plan as far as students has a focus on the words “support students” similar to Santa Clara’s “develop students”. St. Helena’s goals were really short as the Wordle exhibits. San Diego County's Mission Statement was rather wordy and their Wordle shows a very broad spectrum of ways to support and evaluate students. It is interesting that graduation is such a focus, while other districts put more stress on creating "lifelong learners". The last phrase in Palo Alto’s #1 priority, which they refer to as “promises”- there is something sweet about that- is what I think echoed in my brain the most and may find it’s way up onto a wall in my classroom.
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AuthorHello! Welcome to my blog! This will be a fun place to share thoughts about teaching and learning. I am a middle school science teacher at Redwood. When I'm not teaching, I'm hanging out at home with my family or enjoying nature somewhere in the valley. Archives
March 2021
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