The effort was one of the top recommendations from a volunteer community conversation group that last winter proposed ways of improving MCPS' performance. As group member Laurie Franklin said back in February, the idea was to get away from the business issues of running a district and focus on how their efforts promote student education.
Franklin was back Wednesday as part of the drafting committee. With her was fellow conversation group member Marta Pierpoint, MCPS trustees Scott Bixler and Toni Rehbein, Lewis and Clark Elementary Principal Karen Allen, University of Montana professor Dean Sorenson, MCPS Superintendent Jim Clark and Assistant Superintendent Gail Becker.
“I see so many schools with mission statements but no mission,” said Sorenson. “They're words on the wall. How can we describe what we are, if we don't know what we believe and value?”
MCPS' 2004 mission statement was on the wall of the board room, albeit hidden behind a coat rack. It read: “The mission of Missoula County Public Schools is to provide a foundation for each student to become a life-long learner, promote the development of the whole individual and prepare each student to become a responsible, productive citizen of our community, state, nation and world.”
To draft a new one, McArthur had the group brainstorm the ideas they wanted expressed. The top topics were “Success for all,” “Outcomes,” “Quality teaching,” “Leadership,” and “Democracy and citizenship.”
They also tried to figure out who the audience was. Business mission statements usually refer to their shareholders and employees. But a school district touches everyone from kindergartners to taxpayers, politicians and teachers unions.
McArthur often suggested “releasing gravity” - ignoring traditional limits that could cripple big ideas. But even that had to be tempered by careful wordsmithing. When he suggested briefly forgetting about budget restraints, Clark's head jerked up like it was on a string.
And when the group kicked around the idea of “innovative leadership,” Clark reminded them of some legal and professional halters.
“I like innovation and I like change, but we're required to use research-based stuff,” he said. It wouldn't be fair to give people the impression they could charge in any new educational direction they want when there are real barriers there.
On the other hand, the idea of leadership had to be bigger than a person with the title of superintendent or principal, the group agreed.
“If we're stimulating the community, we have to tweak our idea of leadership,” Allen said. Part of that was getting the community to think of its schools as leaders for others to look to.
Allen pointed out another challenge there. As a group, educators spend their days largely outside of mainstream adult society. Meanwhile, the general public tends to think that classrooms look unchanged from when they attended school. That gap must be bridged better to improve community involvement, she said.
The final draft starts sort of like: “Our mission is to ensure that each student achieves his or her full and unique potential.” Bixler, who wrote the original version, said he struggled with the proper verb.
“Can we ensure or just assist?” Bixler asked. “I went with the softer word because I wasn't sure we could do that. It's ultimately the student's responsibility to do that.”
But Clark and Sorenson recalled that in a previous mission drafting effort at another school district, the use of a hard-hitting verb made a big difference in how people absorbed the words. The group adopted “ensure” as proof of their commitment to the task.
Then was the question of beginnings. Should it be a formal “At MCPS” or a warmer “Our mission”? The effect was different depending on whether the statement was spoken aloud or read on paper.
Another five sheets of additional bullet points, clauses and declarations were up on the wall, but the committee found itself in sudden agreement with the simplicity of that first statement.
“It's so important for everybody who has to articulate the mission to have it on the tip of their tongue,” Pierpoint said, arguing for less over more. The group struggled with a second line that had leadership combining with quality teaching and community support, or quality teaching and community support combining to create leadership to produce students who are ready to take their place in democratic society and the world.
“There's something about “leadership combining community involvement with quality teaching” that sounds like making a sandwich,” Franklin said. The 5 p.m. deadline arrived before a better solution, and the group adjourned.
The full MCPS Board of Trustees will present the results for public review at its regular meeting next Tuesday. If it finds a suitable construction, it may adopt the mission statement that evening.
Reporter Rob Chaney can be reached at 523-5382 or at rchaney@missoulian.com
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