Visionary Leader: Mission and Vision of School as a Student

When I reflect on visionary leadership, I begin with my thoughts on a visionary leader first. A person who knows the importance of a vision and how it relates to the context and culture of a school. A person who is a good follower, someone who brings a solution, someone able to serve the people, an authentic leader who can recognize what the needs are. This is essay about mission and vision of school as a student. I will start with personal visions, then I will say some point about vision at school. 

Having been in education for 23 years, I have heard the terms visionary leadership, visionary leader, vision and mission, several thousand times. Our school district has reviewed and revised its vision and mission several hundred times. We have had discussions surrounding our purpose. We examined our mission. Somehow the mark has still been missed to have those conversations that help us to hone our focus and provide the clarity we need to safeguard priorities in line with student learning. We have failed to do this, it looks as if we have no road map for what we want to do or where we wish to go because our students are failing at an alarming rate.

I have witnessed how not having a clear vision and mission can affect the context and culture of a school especially when the students live in a community that has high poverty, low literacy rates and a challenging number of students failing reading. A few questions have become pertinent to our survival as it relates to visionary leadership. What kind of school do we want to have? What should we be doing as a school? What commitments have we made collectedly? What is our purpose? What do we stand for? How are we a PLC (Professional Learning Community) with a culture that is about student learning first, last, and always? We must be clearer about our vision.

As I further reflected about my current position, I thought about what could block my personal vision and the impact it may have on the students I encounter and the educators I work with. I then conducted a SWOT analysis to examine and break it down further. Now I want to discuss this within teaching as a mission essay.

Having thought about that, I was able to understand how our waning vision as a school could get blocked. I reflected on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Maslow stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others. Our most basic need is for physical survival, and this will be the first thing that motivates our behavior. Once that level is fulfilled the next level up is what motivates us, and so on. Maslow posited that human needs are arranged in a hierarchy: Maslow continued to refine his theory based on the concept of a hierarchy of needs over several decades.

For the students and educators, I work with. I believe that this is how our vision has started to wane. The very core of your leadership is that you must have a vision. A vision that you articulate clearly and convincingly on every occasion. You must be aware that it cannot be just a statement hanging on a wall, it must be lived every single day so that it can be powerful.

I see this associated competency implemented in my current position as a guidance counselor because I can become a visionary change agent. Since, I have an impact on student achievement and I consult with the staff a lot. I believe I can recommend or implement changes for organizational and institutional changes necessary to improve student achievement at my school. Since, I know the school. Also, I have been in the district for 23 years. I may suggest that we review, the SIP (School Improvement Plan) and look at the needs of our school. I believe that the SIP will create our mission, vision and core values. Afterwards, I can engage with other like-minded educators as well as district leaders to build a network of change agents whom I can turn to for guidance and support. Then I can build a team to engage with the community and share our vision, to turn parents into advocates. Engaging with the community will also make sure that the needs of our students are driving the changes we have in mind for our school.

I feel compelled to live up to the school’s vision and mission. But how does that work, if your school culture is not centered around the vision and mission. The moral is low, the academics are low, and the community support is low. We need to find direction and make sure that our vision and mission is well-developed and well-implemented. I understood my role will be beneficial in making sure the school will be positive and productive. I must find a way to bring what I feel is my strong leadership style to an underperforming school where the direction is fleeting. I’m going to prioritize my time and energy in ways that rally support to build values in our school.

I understood that visionary leadership will be important to the measurements of our school’s success and that it can transform vision into reality. But I’m not quite sure how yet. How can we support and lead core values, for students? How can we support families’ and communities’ efforts? How can we establish strong values in students and support teachers to believe in values, respect, high expectations, academic excellence? How can we teach accountability to students? These quastions should be answered in my vision as a student essay. There seems to be a little glimmer of value, respect, clarity and purpose on a collective front. Maybe this will be enough to convince the educators to believe things can be different? Many are negative about the new school year, yet I will remain positive. I know it isn’t going to be easy because our staff and students are very transient.

To conclude, a strong visionary leader needs who know the importance of all stakeholders knowing the collective mission, vision and core values. As previously stated, the students are struggling academically, and staff morale is low. The district was taken over five years ago by the state and it must rebuild, rebrand and remodel. Present day, new endeavors with a 1-8 building model are underway. I believe it will more critical than ever to have strong visionary leaders in the buildings with a strong vision and mission, that engage stakeholders in supporting a collective vision, and use data to drive decision-making.