100 word response 1 reference/intext citation due 2/8/2024
Baptist
School Mission Statement
The mission of my organization is to partner with business and community members, parents, and students to provide a safe and quality learning environment. We promote academic, intellectual, personal, and social development of our diverse population in preparation for college and career pathways.
School Vision Statement
The vision of the organization is to inspire and prepare our students for a competitive global community. We will instill in them critical thinking skills, a desire for learning, and a respect for the core values of integrity, compassion, and perseverance.
Core Values
Citizenship – Helping create a society based upon democratic values including rules of law, equality of opportunity, due process, reasoned argument, representative government, checks and balances, rights and responsibilities and democratic decision-making.
Cooperation – Working together toward goals as basic as human survival in an increasingly independent world.
Fairness – Treating people impartially, not playing favorites, being open-minded, and maintaining an objective attitude toward those whose actions and ideas are different from our own.
Honesty – Dealing truthfully with people, being sincere, not deceiving them or stealing from them, not cheating, or lying.
Integrity – Standing up for your beliefs about what is right and what is wrong and resisting social pressure to do wrong.
Kindness – Being sympathetic, helpful, compassionate, benevolent, agreeable, and gentle toward people and other living things.
Pursuit of Excellence – Doing your best with the talents you have, striving toward a goal and not giving up.
Respect – Showing regard for the worth and dignity of someone or something, being courteous and polite, and judging all people on their merits. Respect takes three major forms: respect for oneself, respect for other people, and respect for other living things and the environment.
Responsibility – Students will think before they act and be accountable for their actions, paying attention to others, and responding to their needs. Responsibility emphasizes one’s positive obligations to care for each other.
Vision Statement Analysis
2.
Analyze the Statement against the five distinct precepts.
An organization’s mission and vision statements are essential for good corporate culture and competitive value-based functioning of an organization in its respective environment. While a company’s mission statement defines the performance and the objectives the organization goals to achieve, a vision statement primarily focuses on the future state the organization envisions. The school’s designed vision statement is as follows: “The vision of my organization is to inspire and prepare our students for a competitive global community. We will instill in them critical thinking skills, a desire for learning, and a respect for the core values of integrity, compassion, and perseverance.”
Attracts Commitment and Energizes People
Firstly, the presented vision statement is articulated clearly and concisely, allowing for attracting commitment and motivating involved stakeholders to perform to the best of their ability. Indeed, as Bora et al. (2017) stated, a vision statement identifies the business strategy of an organization by indicating the aspirations and future achievements. The analyzed vision statement reflects the business goal of the school and validates the performance of the involved parties for an improved community where students raised in the school will be influential decision-makers. The commitment aspect of the vision statement is implied in the long-term goals of preparing students for a competitive global community, which requires professionalism and engagement of employees. On the other hand, the positive approach to articulating the driving forces of the change the organization is aimed at energizes individuals to contribute their competencies and experience to the commonly beneficial endeavor.
Creates Meaning in Workers’ Lives
Secondly, to create meaning in employee’s professional lives, a vision statement should articulate the outcomes of their work and the impact of the achieved goals on the community and society. The vision statement is expected to be “distinctive, motivating, and clear.” At the same time, it “should be realistic and measurable” so that the organization and employees can identify whether their goals are achievable (Fulea et al., 2018, p. 75). In such a manner, a powerful vision statement provides workers with a meaning of life by introducing agendas that empower them and demonstrate that their skills and knowledge are required to lead the organization toward its envisioned future. The analyzed vision statement implicitly provides the school workers with meaning in their lives by outlining the core values and long-term goals that can potentially change a new generation’s lives.
As a school, we develop young citizens who understand the world around them, value other perspectives, communicate and collaborate with culturally and linguistically diverse audiences, and take the appropriate action to improve local, national, and global communities.
Establishes a Standard of Excellence
Thirdly, the analyzed vision statement is designed to set high-performance standards and demands full integrity and outstanding performance results. Since the organization is a school where teachers provide intellectual services, performance excellence standards are significant. According to Bowen (2018), “although vision statements may originate with key founders or visionary leaders, many scholars view vision as originating from organizational culture” (p. 1). The school’s organizational culture is validated by the core values of integrity, responsibility, and excellence. Therefore, when stating that the organization will instill critical thinking, learning, and value respect in students, it is implied that the workers are expected to perform these skills at an exceptional level to share their experience with students. Thus, the vision statement establishes a standard of excellence but in a somewhat implicit form without directly identifying skills or competencies workers must have to achieve the outlined goals.
Bridges the Present to the Future
Fourthly, the core characteristic of a well-developed vision statement is establishing an organization’s future state through a well-led performance of all stakeholders. The leaders’ strategy and commitment predetermine the highlights of a vision statement, which illustrates the organization’s aspirations (Bowen, 2018). The analyzed vision statement directly addresses the future through the perspective of the present state of the organization. It is indicated that the school will instill skills in students to prepare them to live in a competitive global community. The future of society is integrated into the vision statement, emphasizing the educational institution’s central role in preparing the young generation for the upcoming social changes. However, the present situation is not articulated in the vision statement, making it unclear how the future relates to the current state.
Transcends the Status Quo
Fifthly, for a vision statement to be effective and illustrative of the organizational goals, it should introduce the perspectives for outperforming the current achievements. The current version of the school vision statement does not explicitly address how the status quo will be transcended. It is implied that continuous improvements are planned to meet the challenges of the ever-evolving competitive global community. However, the vision would benefit from the clear identification of how the current achievements will be outperformed. In such a manner, workers will be more motivated, and the overall purpose of the organization adequately validated from the perspective of continuous development.
3.
Explain why you either are or are not inspired by your organization’s Vision Statement
My organization’s vision statement inspires me because it sets high standards for excellent performance while presenting the benefits the employees’ work will bring to a whole generation of young students. The inspiration’s source is articulating the skills necessary for an individual to be a successful member of a competitive global society. The understanding that I might contribute to the community through the organization empowers and encourages me to challenge myself and perform to the best of my ability.
In addition, the vision statement of my school is concise, specific, and future oriented. It set a conceptual goal that is challenging and concrete. It aims at increase student achievement and prepare all students for success in life. Within the framework of our vision, we develop and cultivate a sense of shared educational values, goals, and ideas that inspire me as a classroom leader.
4.
Explain what you would change to improve the vision statement and present a rewrite of such in this space.
Since the vision does not identify the present state of the organization’s performance when bridging present and future, it might be beneficial to enhance this aspect by stating that the current achievements will be improved. The mission statement must address the present and the future situation to pursue excellence for the organization. Thus, the changed version of the vision statement might be as follows: a changed version of the vision statement might be as follows: “The vision of my organization is to inspire and prepare our students for a competitive global community. We will commit to the continuous improvement of performance to instill in them critical thinking skills, a desire for learning, and a respect for the core values of integrity, compassion, and perseverance.”
The vision statement of my school does not address student mental health which is a serious challenge confronting academia in this country. One study found a positive correlation between schools that promote mental health in their vision statement and high academic achievement.
