Mission of Wyndmere School

A little bit later today, the staff and I are going to sit down and start tweeking our mission statement. It has been in place for nearly 10 years and it is time we reevaluate it and ensure it coincides with the true mission of our school. Our current statement reads as follows...

The mission of the Wyndmere Public School is to provide a safe, respectful, and caring environment so all learners will have an equal opportunity to achieve lifelong success.

When evaluating a mission statement there are three important questions to ask. 

1.  Is it clear?

2.  Is it specific? 

3.  Is it measurable? 

Let's start with question 1. One key to having a clear mission statement is removing ambiguity. In the end it is important for the mission to be so clear and there leaves little room to find multiple meanings. When our staff met last week, there was little clarification needed for the first part of the statement, but the last portion leaves much for the reader to infer. This is something we need to improve on. 

As we move on to question 2, there remains much to be detailed. The statement "equal opportunity to achieve lifelong success" is much to broad a goal to set, much less achieve. This means we as a staff need to become much more specific on what we are intending to accomplish. 

Finding an answer to question 2 will always bring us to step 3. Once we have set a clear and specific mission for our school and students, how are we going to know if we are successful. If I were to refer you back to the statement of "equal opportunity to achieve lifelong success", I would challenge anyone to provide me with a measurement of success in achieving that goal. 

The task of evaluating and rewriting a mission statement is never a quick process. Everyone will have opinions on the language and intent of the mission statement, but nevertheless it is still an important process. Once we are able to set our mission, it is going to be much easier to get staff, administration, students, the school board, parents and the community working together to provide the best possible atmosphere for our kids to succeed in. 

In closing, I have noticed there has been some regular traffic on this blog and I am very excited about that. I am hoping that people are willing to post reply's to the same questions I am asking my staff. The more information provided in this process will only ensure we find the success we are looking for.