Mission, Vision, Values, Goals

Professional Learning Communities Model

(Content for this MOS taken from “Learning by Doing,” by Rick and Rebeca DuFour, Robert Eaker, and Thomas Many)

As the Siskiyou County Office of Education and many of the districts and schools proceed with establishing professional learning communities (PLC), it is important to consider the district/school mission, vision, values, and goals.

Engaging staff members in a dialogue to reaffirm their mission can be an important step in the improvement process, but transforming schools also requires that educators become clear about the vision, values (collective commitments), and goals that drive the daily workings of the school.  The foundation of a PLC rests upon the four pillars of mission, vision, values, and goals.  Each of these pillars asks a different question of the educators within the school.  When teachers and administrators have worked together to consider those questions and reach consensus regarding their collective positions on each question, they have built a solid foundation for a PLC.  If staff members have not considered the questions, have done so only superficially, or are unable to establish common ground regarding their position on the questions, any and all future efforts to improve the school will stand on shaky ground.

The question might be asked, “Given the many demands on teachers and principals, why should they take time to reflect on the fundamental purpose (the mission pillar) of the organization?”  In fact, the first question any organization must consider if it hopes to improve results is the question of purpose (Drucker, 1992).  Why does our organization exist?  What exactly do we hope to accomplish?  Research has repeatedly found a correlation between clarity of purpose and effective schools (Lezotte, 1991). Rick DuFour says that the mission of  a school can be stated simply as:  “To ensure the learning of all students.”

The vision pillar asks, “What must we become in order to accomplish our fundamental purpose?”  Vision provides a sense of direction and a basis for assessing both the current reality of the school and potential strategies, programs, and procedures to improve on that reality.  Researchers within and outside of education have routinely cited the importance of developing shared vision.  The very first standard for school administrators drafted by the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (1996) calls upon educational leaders to “promote the success of all students by facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared by the school community.”

Collins and Porras (1997) found that although creating a vision can be a helpful step in the improvement process, it is never sufficient.  The third pillar of the foundation, the values pillar, is an attempt to clarify the values (collective commitments) teachers and educators must make and honor in order to achieve the shared vision for their school or district.  The values pillar asks, “How must we behave to create the school that will achieve our purpose?”  When members of an organization understand the purpose of their organization, know where it is headed, and then pledge to act in a certain way to move it in the right direction, they don’t need prescriptive rules to guide their daily work.  Shared values/collective commitments have been described as the “vital social glue that infuses an organization with passion and purpose” (Bolman and Deal, 2000).

The final pillar asks educators to clarify the specific goals they hope to achieve.  It identifies the targets and timelines that enable a staff to answer the question, “How will we know if all of this is making a difference?”  Effective goals foster both the results orientation of a PLC and individual and collective accountability for achieving results.  They help close the gap between the current reality and where the staff hopes to take the school (the shared vision).  Most importantly, measurable, results-oriented goals are essential to sustaining the momentum of any improvement initiative.  They play a key role in motivating people to honor their commitments so the school moves closer to fulfilling its fundamental purpose of learning for all students.

For more information contact Mike DeRoss at 842-8404.