Meeting to Consolidate the Mission Statements
Guilford School: May 12, 2008
Present: Julianne Eagan, John Gagnon, Verandah Porche, Brian Remer, Lynn Tobey
We looked at the initial attempt of one group member to consolidate the mission and vision statements then refined it further to arrive at the following:
VISION
Our students will become global citizens who are educationally successful, inspired, confident, courageous, impassioned, and connected to their communities.
MISSION
The Mission of the Guilford Central School is,
to provide a safe, supportive environment where children grow academically, socially, and emotionally and are challenged to reach their potential as local and global community members.
VALUES
We talked about the Values and agreed that we see them as a “work in process.” We may not hit the mark on them all the time but they are what we strive for and hope to achieve. In particular, the value of equal opportunity generated a lot of conversation on May 1. Do we mean differentiated learning, fairness, justice? Does it mean tailored opportunities for students in the classroom? Is it a term too closely tied to employment issues?
We decided we don’t need to resolve it once and for all right now. But it does have tremendous implication for what we do so we need to continue having the conversations with many people at different levels.
This conversation has helped us frame how to talk to other people about our values.
The values remain:
Resourcefulness
Honesty
Responsibility
Kindness
Equal Opportunity
Next Steps:
John will check on what the procedure needs to be to have our work “ratified” or made “official.” We envision some type of event in the first half of June to introduce the Vision, Mission, and Values to the teachers and students. This would be followed by an event open to the wider community in the fall.
