Welcome Back to the 2009-2010 School Year. I am very excited to start the new school year and am looking forward to working with the children and parents of West Bridgewater for another exciting year. It is my sincere hope that everyone had some time to relax and rejuvenate over the summer months and is ready to face another year with enthusiasm, high expectations, and encouragement.
I would like to share the opening day message that I gave to staff members on August 31st, so that everyone in the school community has an understanding of the vision for the West Bridgewater Public Schools:
As we begin the 2009-2010 school year we do so with a newly revised Mission Statement that will help to guide our efforts throughout the next generation of our students. Often times people look at a mission statement over and over and they just see words, but these words come from a very thoughtful process that has taken place, and these words have strong meaning to all involved. Many times, hours of revisions, discussions, and debates over the smallest word or words takes place in reaching consensus on a mission statement for any organization. This process is similar to the one that we followed over the course of last year with our strategic planning committee, as we revised the mission statement for the West Bridgewater Public Schools.
In order to really gain an understanding and appreciation for our new mission and, why we needed to create a new and improved one, you have to put the former mission statement into context. What needs to be clear is that our former mission was created in the eighties and revisited in the early nineties. Now keep in mind that this was before the implementation of the Education Reform Act, that completely changed curriculum and assessment in Massachusetts, it was before Columbine, before the accountability requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, and before our world got smaller on 9/11.
All of these events changed the way we educate our students however, our Mission Statement didn’t change. Now don’t get me wrong, many aspects of our work had changed, but we no longer had a shared mission that was guiding our efforts.
So during the strategic planning process last year, teachers, administrators, parents, and community members brainstormed the most important knowledge and skills we believed that WB students should know, understand, and be able to do in order to be college and career ready. It was a thoughtful process with spirited discussion and debate, and in the end, consensus was reached on our new Mission Statement.
I don’t think you can really recognize how outdated our former mission statement was until you compare each mission statement side by side. Then it becomes apparent that our new mission is much more reflective of the times and challenges of today. At first glance you may not think the differences are that significant but they really are…
OLD MISSION
The Mission of the West Bridgewater Public Schools is to work in a collaborative effort to provide students an opportunity to acquire the knowledge, skills, values, and personal growth to reach their individual potential.
NEW MISSION
The mission of the West Bridgewater Schools is to work together with home and community to provide our students a safe environment in which to acquire the knowledge, skills, and values needed for success in a diverse and global society of the 21st century.
There are 3 significant differences:
- To work in a collaborative effort… versus …To work together with Home and Community
- The new statement has stronger, clearer, language reflecting a true bond with the parents and community members versus just an effort of collaboration within the schools.
- This language specifically outlines a real partnership involving parents and community members. Today there are many expected community partnerships with police, fire, day cares, early intervention, organizations for internships, regional collaboratives etc…
2. To provide our students with a safe environment
- Twenty years ago we just assumed that all schools were a safe place for kids to learn and we took that for granted. Columbine changed that assumption and was the impetus behind safe school committees, safe school plans, flip charts, Lock down drills, safety simulations, evacuation plans etc.. Today providing a safe environment for our students to learn is a number one priority for schools.
But the biggest difference is with the knowledge, skills, and values piece:
3. …The skills, knowledge, and values acquired to reach Individual Potential versus …The skills, knowledge, and values to reach success in a diverse and global society of the 21st Century
- Before the Education Reform Act and No Child Left Behind Act, the skills needed for kids to reach their individual potential were not well defined and may have been defined differently for each individual.
- Also, at that time, schools often decided what the student’s individual potential was, and placed them in tracks based on what WE thought they could achieve or not achieve. For many students the bar was never raised, especially those with disabilities, racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic differences.
- In contrast, with the onset of Education Reform and No Child Left Behind Act the skills and knowledge that are needed for students to achieve success in the 21st century are defined, and equitable so that ALL students can succeed.
- Due to the rapidly changing, global, technology rich society that we are living in, ALL students, no matter what subgroup they belong to, need to be taught specific content knowledge and skills for success.
The skills that our new mission is referring to are defined by the Partnership on 21st Century Skills and have been adopted by the MADESE:
The 21st Century Skills needed to succeed due to changes in globalization, demographics, societal values, and technological advances are as follows: Critical thinking, creativity, application, communication, collaboration, problem solving, information/technology literacy, cultural and global awareness and personal and social responsibility.
At the state level, the work for the next several years will be in aligning the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks and the MCAS with these skills. It will be expected of districts to embed these skills into instruction and to use the content areas and technology as a vehicle to teach these skills.
Embedding these skills into our curriculum, instruction, and assessment will lead to a rigorous and relevant educational experience for all of our students. Our new Mission will help to guide our efforts to do this work. I am committed to making this mission statement something more than just words. A rigorous and relevant educational experience will motivate our students to learn, and will provide them the opportunity to achieve success in the 21st Century.
Please view the video by clicking the link below. Some or many of you may have seen it on U Tube or from other sources, but I think in light of my discussion today it is worth taking another look at. This is the newest version of the video…
http://www.schooltube.com/video/25514/Did-You-Know-30
So What Does It All Mean?
I believe that that what it means for the West Bridgewater Public Schools, I can answer in the words of Daniel Pink, “We must prepare our kids for their future not our past”
We don’t know what the future will look like, but what got us to where we are today in education, will not get us to where we need to be tomorrow.
We need to continue to make improvements to our curriculum, instruction, and assessment. We can achieve this by using our new mission to guide our efforts through the next generation of students. In doing so we will continue to engage and motivate our students, and make a great school system an even better one!
Remember, each and every one of us can make a difference in a child’s life. By motivating, inspiring, and encouraging a child in the classroom we can have a positive effect on tomorrow!