SPC+Tool+&+Vision+Statement

The following document is the tool that the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) is having each Board committee use as a means of reporting on its work thus far.

This section describes the terms that are used in the tool:


 * Vision: **Your committee may have a “vision statement” which you will want to share with the Strategic Planning Committee. If you have not written such a vision statement, please prepare a short piece that represents your committee’s “long range picture” of how Westminster will look if we successfully implement your plan.


 * SWOT Analysis (optional): **SWOT analysis could be completed by your committee. SWOT provides additional context for strategic decision making. It will help the Strategic Planning forge its plan for the future by articulating how the organization operates right now. It can reveal trends, irregularities, limitations, and opportunities. Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat: A SWOT analysis guides us by identifying the positives and negatives inside Westminster (S-W) and outside of it, in the external environment (O-T). (see the template for your use)


 * Challenge and Opportunity Statement: **Please include a challenge and opportunity statement in your report to the Strategic Planning Committee. A challenge and opportunity statement summarizes key issues facing the school in the area your committee oversees. It provides a helpful backdrop to understand strategic choices. A good challenge and opportunity statement includes information about:

· Community needs (students, parents, faculty) · Current knowledge about Westminster Schools · Contributing factors and root causes · Need to establish or assess community readiness for change · Need to assess existing leadership or resources that will impact changes in your area.

Also, challenge and opportunity statements should be framed as either: • Lack of/too few of a positive condition (e.g. all WMS students should…) • Presence of/too much of a negative condition (e.g. Too many JHS school students are…)


 * “Our Approach” Rationale: **A narrative section in the Strategic Plan where your committee can spell out and justify its choices about targets and strategies. What target constituency? And why? Why this strategic priority? Why some strategies and not others?


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Goals & Objectives: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Goals are simply a clear statement of the thrust of your committee’s work, specifying the accomplishments to be achieved if the work is successful. The target objectives are even clearer statements of the specific activities required to achieve the goals, starting from the current status. Objectives basically address the difference between where we are (current status), and where we want to be (vision and goals), by spelling out what we do (target objectives and action plans) to get there. Objectives are specific, measurable results produced while implementing strategies. While identifying objectives, keep asking “Are you sure we can do this?”


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Supporting materials: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Please include any supporting materials that you believe the Strategic Planning Committee will need to fully understand your committee report.

**//Strategic Planning Committee Tool//**
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">The hallmark of learning is change. Specifically, learning is about changing from one state (less knowledge or understanding) to another (more knowledge or understanding) because of newly formulated or aquired knowledge, skills, and/or dispositions. In 2011, Westminster perches on the edge of profound growth and development because we possess a rich heritage of learning and changing to meet the needs of our students, faculty, and parents. Yet, Westminster's current challenges and opportunities reside in the necessity to evolve systemically to address the changes of a world marked by increasingly digital lifestyles, audacious problems that require identification and solving, and a awe-inspiring bank of epiphanies about how the human brain really functions. We have been a great school in the past and present, and we can grow as a great school of the future.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">**Committee**: Education Committee<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">﻿ ||  ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">**Committee Members**: Juliet Allan, Karen Anderson, Lisa Borders, Nelson Chu, Bill Clarkson, Bo Adams, Landy Godbold, Bart Griffith, Jill Gough, Jere Wells, Patty Johnson<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">, Sucheta Kamath, Katherine Kelly, Tod Martin, Whit McKnight, Joel Murphy, Thad Persons, Olga Rawls, Clay Rolader, Robert Ryshke, Jeff Small, Ted Sadtler, and Jen Marie Wenzel ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Vision statement**: //__﻿__// ﻿See the attachment below of the Vision Statement﻿ //__﻿__// . Due to formatting it did not fit into this space as we wanted it to.<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">﻿ ||
 * < <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">**Challenge and Opportunity statement**:

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As stated in our SAIS-SACS self-study, on page 67, “Many are curious how [Westminster] can maintain our traditional roots of excellence while contemplating necessary growth for the 21st century. Definitions of 21st century education abound, and we at Westminster debate the definitions passionately. One of the most intriguing and visually appealing definitions exists in a white paper from Apple, Inc. The diagram synthesizes much of what is written concerning teaching and learning in this century. Twenty-first century learning is education that centers on the confluence of three major considerations: 1) we know more about how the brain functions and how people learn; 2) we live digital lifestyles; and 3) we work in a global community that faces big issues to solve. Is education responding to these factors? Our vision for a Westminster education in the 21st century attends to research and practice concerning brain-based learning, use of technology for enhanced understanding and effectiveness, and creational thinking that integrates collaboration and community interdependence for the purposes of innovating productive change for our world." The SAIS-SACS subcommittee on 21st Century Learning and Student Life believed that this statement set the stage for “why now” as we continue to provide a topnotch and relevant education for all our students. They believed that with the rate of change we are experiencing across the globe in the first decade of the 21st century, now is the right time to seriously reflect on our curriculum and pedagogy, our assessment practices, our professional development, and our learning environments. We want to ensure that our program is relevant for the times and designed to meet the needs of the iGeneration. Given the huge success Westminster experienced with its recent strategic initiative that led to the campaign, **Teaching for Tomorrow**, the opportunity exists to deepen those strategic initiatives in order to further explore and implement enhancements for learners today, as well as tomorrow. The Education Committee believes that administrators and faculty are rightfully challenging the school to take this opportunity to look at itself through the lenses of 21st century teaching and learning. As the SAIS-SACS self study so clearly states: “Approaching the second decade of this century, Westminster remains committed to education that is relevant. Therefore, we are committed to exploring what education in the 21st century means.”

The NAIS Commission on Accreditation produced a report, //A 21st Century Imperative: A Guide to Becoming a School of the Future//, edited by Robert Witt and Jean Orvis in 2011. This report makes a case for NAIS member schools to reflect on their future through the lenses of seven essential capacities for the 21st Century. In addition, it profiles three NAIS programs that it believes play a critical role: NAIS Teachers of the Future; Schools of the Future; and Stories of Excellence. Finally, it profiles nine public and independent schools that it believes are in some way tranforming their practice while maintaining their traditions of excellence. This report comes at the perfect time in Westminster's work on exploring what education in the 21st Century means. We should use the NAIS Commission on Accreditation report, along with our Self-Study in 2010, as our guides in strategic planning in this area. (see the link for the full NAIS report: [|School of the Future]) ||
 * < <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">**Committee approach or rationale**: The Education Committee is composed of 22 faculty, administrators, parents, and Board members. There is good representation from each division and the different constituencies, other than students. Although the student voice was represented through the SAIS-SACS Self-Study community questionnaire and committee members who were extremely sensitive to students’ needs. The entire committee has met on five times as of February 22, 2011. A smaller subcommittee of four members met as an “agenda planning committee” prior to each full committee meeting. The committee made the decision to stay connected throughout its yearlong work by using a Wiki, (http://esl21.wikispaces.com), as a repository for all the research and information pertaining to its work. Our approach was to start out answering the questions that were given to us by the Strategic Planning Committee (see our Wiki at http://esl21.wikispaces.com/Essential+Questions). We then went into exploring what educators are saying about the 21st Century skills movement and trying to define this from the committee’s perspective. We heard reports from the SAIS-SACS subcommittee on 21st Century Learning and Student Life and we reviewed the community survey. Our most recent meetings were devoted to designing a process by which we would create our vision statement. We assigned a subcommittee of three members the task of drafting a vision statement using the SAIS-SACS report as a guide. The committee has had one meeting devoted to giving feedback to the subcommittee on the first draft. Our work continues. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">﻿ ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Goal#1** : //Evaluate the need for a new all-school committee on Teaching and Learning// ||
 * Objective 1a : ﻿ Audit of school's committee structure to determine how to create effective planning, commuication, and oversight of the school's 21st Century classroom initiatives. ||
 * Objective 1b: Using Web 2.0 tools create a vehicle for the school to distribute ideas, information, and classroom examples of 21st Century teaching and learning. ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Goal#2**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">: //Examine and explore: (1) studies that integrate; (2) problems that require critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration; (3) schedules and spaces that fit learning; (4) teachers in teams supporting learning and innovation; (5) assessments and feedback that promote learning and growth; and (6) content and relationships that connect us to the larger world and the world to us.// ||
 * Objective 2a : Train faculty in the use of project-based learning as a methodology to integrate disciplines and promote PBL in each division. ||
 * Objective 2b : Train faculty to support their efforts to use cooperative learning and creative and critical thinking strategies in their lesson plans. ||
 * Objective 2c : Convene a scheduling committee that will research new ways of appoaching our yearly, weekly, and daily schedule that will promote new ways of teaching and learning. ||
 * Objective 2d: Identify specific ways to support principals, the FAAR Task Force, and Dean of Faculty and their teams in the development of professional learning communities and critical friends circles. ||
 * Objective 2e: Continue to develop and support professional development programs that train faculty in building more balanced assessment practices that use formative and summative assessment strategies. ||
 * Objective 2f: Encourage curriculum development that integrates service learning opportunities, connects students to their local community, and establishes global connections or partnerships. ||
 * **Goal#3:** //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">To use technology and research to help people learn how to problem-find and problem-solve, communicate and collaborate, create and innovate, serve and lead, and reflect and revise. // ||
 * Objective 3a: Train faculty in the use of Web 2.0 tools and other technologies to create lesson plans that encourage students to be knowledge seekers and generators. ||
 * Objective 3b: Provide professional development and support for faculty to be generators of new knowledge in the classroom through the use of action research. ||
 * Objective 3c: Devise assessment strategies schoolwide that promote students becoming reflective learners who create and innovate. ||
 * < <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Goal#4**: //Employ a communications and community education plan in order to inform and “retrain” various constituencies about the ways that Westminster is changing while maintaining educational excellence.<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">﻿ // ||
 * Objective 4a : Develop a school wide professional development plan that aligns with the school's mission and the vision statements for 21st Century teaching and learning. ||
 * Objective 4b: Develop a communication tool available on the school's website that is a repository for 21st Century ideas and examples and that will communicate the school's commitment to educational excellence. ||

Education Committee's Vision Statement: Second Draft after feedback from the last Education Committee meeting on 2.15.2011. It did not drop into the tool easily due to formatting issues so it is attached as a separate file.

The following slide demonstrates graphically the factors affecting our vision for education. Optimum learning takes place at the intersection between our best pedagogical methodologies (how we teach), content that is relevant to the world today (what we teach), and the environment in which we interact with our students (where we teach). While this model in abstract is timeless, we see the changes the world has undergone in the past century as exerting pressure on each of these domains. Thus, we have have new technological tools at our disposal from the information revolution we've experienced; brain based research has given us better understanding of how people actually learn best; and we live in a more globally interconnected world than at any time in history. ==== ====