Where's the Vision?

Where’s the Vision?

 Rabbi Jim Rogozen

In Ian Symmonds’s April 2022 blog post1 he observes that, unlike the ubiquitous Mission Statement, fewer than 20% of independent schools and colleges have a Vision Statement.

The reason partially lies in the inconsistent use of the terms Mission and Vision. For instance, some schools use the word “vision” when what they are describing is the “mission” or, in some cases, the learning environment. As Symmonds noted, such descriptions are neither “missions” nor “visions,” but fall into the categories of branding or messaging.

So let’s do a quick review:

A Mission Statement explains why you open the doors to your school each day; it’s your purpose, your intention. It’s what you do, who your audience is, and (as one consultant put it) the next hill you want to conquer. 

Some examples, starting with three non-school organizations:

·      To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.  (Tesla)

·      To give customers the most compelling shopping experience possible. (Nordstrom)

·     The Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan creates opportunities for people to connect, grow, and learn within an ever-changing Jewish landscape.

·      To build skills that set children up for success in kindergarten and beyond.

·      Our mission is to prepare our students for life.

A school Vision Statement goes beyond the Mission by describing (a) what life is like for the people connected to the school; (b) what the school does for a school community, the larger community, and the field at large; (c) what the future will look like, pointing to a time when you’ve accomplished your goals. It can also explain how your school is different from nearby schools.

Here are some interesting Vision Statements, starting with a few non-profits:

·      Shaping the future by preserving our heritage, discovering new knowledge, and sharing our resources with the world. (Smithsonian)

·      Our vision for the Cleveland Clinic is to be the best place for care anywhere and the best place to work in healthcare.

·      To generate and strengthen the “passionate center” of the Jewish community (synagogue)

·      We will advance education by setting an example as an effective, diverse and accountable school; by continuously investing in ways to become better at what we do; and by making available our discoveries, large and small, to colleagues in the cause of education. (a K-8 Jewish day school)

·      Our school embraces broader aspirations as well: to help shape a future of unbounded possibility for women; to stand among the country’s leading schools in educational innovation, and to be such a force for the common good beyond our campus that we are respected as a civic treasure. (a K-12 girl's independent school)

·      Our school will be recognized as a leading educational institution in (our area), bringing the joy of learning and living Jewishly to our families and their community. Our graduates will make life decisions energized by our traditions while living in the modern world.

You may disagree with these definitions, but they are the ones I used when I set about to see if Jewish Day Schools would score higher than the 20% in Symmonds’s blog post. I looked at the websites of 79 Jewish day schools in five communities, all of whom offer a full range of schools (Reform, Orthodox, Community, or Conservative) to parents.

What I found was that 17 out of 79 schools, or 21.5%, had Vision Statements. Or, to be precise, 9 schools had an official Vision Statement, and 8 had vision “language” embedded in other statements about the school.2

Symmonds believes that so few schools have a well-articulated Vision Statement because it requires hard work, as well as imagination and thinking beyond the organization.

Day Schools face relentless pressures: from parents, students, donors, and, well, life. Even before COVID, there were enrollment/retention challenges and financial concerns. Schools are constantly striving to create the best combination of resources and academic programming that will show excellence, thereby attracting and retaining more families.

Many decades ago the sociologist Naomi W. Cohen wrote about institutional inertia, arguing that failure to strategically adapt could lead an organization down a path to irrelevance. Schools evolve.  There are schools today that are very different from what they were like in their early years. That’s okay: it’s natural, it’s expected, and healthy. The question is: Do the Mission/Vision Statements still apply? 

In launching a review of a school’s Mission/Vision, the first question to be asked is: Are the administration, faculty, parents, religious practices, and academic programs aligned with the current Mission/Vision? Then (if not): What do we do about it? What can/should we change?  Additional questions to ask include: What does the school see in its future? Who/what do we want to be? What will the school contribute to the community and to the field? Why is important for the school to thrive?

The “here and now” of a Mission Statement often answers the question “What do I do today and tomorrow?” A Vision Statement answers the question “to what end?”

Something to think about as we launch a new school year.

 

Rabbi Jim Rogozen

 

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1https://iansymmonds.org/blog/2022/4/13/every-effective-strategy-starts-with-a-compelling-vision

 

2Details:

·     In 9 schools there were separate Vision Statements that were true Vision Statements.

·      In 7 schools, language that sounded like a Vision Statement (but wasn’t labeled as such) was found in descriptions of the school on their website under the headings About Us, What We Do, and Curriculum. I counted these as Vision Statements.

·      In 1 school the Mission Statement was really a Vision Statement. I counted that too.

·      In 4 schools the Vision Statements were really Mission Statements.

·      Many of the schools included the phrase “Our graduates will change the world” in their Mission Statements. While I understand the goal and the hope, I don’t think this qualifies as a Vision Statement because (a) it’s vague; (b) it’s not always attributable to the school’s actions alone, and (c) all humans, by their myriad individual actions each day, change the world.

 

 

 

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