Background on BVSD's 2012-2013 Community Consensus Process for this Work
As June 30, 2012, saw the 2007-2012 BVSD long-term goals cycle come to an end, the seven members of the Boulder Valley Board of Education and Superintendent Bruce Messinger collaborated to launch a new BVSD long-term goal setting process that relies heavily on a professionally facilitated community consensus process to inform the school board and superintendent in this important work.
In order to best arrive at our district's next set of goals, the school board and Dr. Messinger agreed that first a representative group of community members should be invited into a professionally facilitated process to determine and prioritize community values regarding expectations for public education. Once those key values were identified, they would inform the drafting of a new vision statement for BVSD. From the vision statement would follow a mission statement that would give structure to the setting of specific, measurable long-term goals for the district.
The purpose of the November 2-3 community session was to inform and advise the school board and superintendent on what constitutes the key BVSD community values underpinning public education. As part of this process, those attending reviewed existing BVSD mission and vision statements arrived at in 2002 to see if they still adequately represented the beliefs of the community.
This two-day meeting and its follow-up meeting on November 27 significantly influenced the drafting of proposed long-range board goals later this fall. As now drafted, these value statements will play a critical role in the eventual proposed goals that will be made available for public discussion and comment -- both online and in community engagement forums -- sometime in late February. After receiving input from the community in February, Dr. Messinger will work with the school board and come to a consensus on the next set of BVSD long-term goals. The online engagement tool
BVSD Listens will also be employed to gather feedback during the goal development process.
If interested, please read the
Camera article about the Nov. 2 and 3 meetings.
Consensus on New Interim Vision Statement Arrived at in December 2012
On December 19, the Boulder Valley Board Of Education met in a work session with the BVSD superintendent, the president of the Boulder Valley Education Association, central office administrators, other educators including principals and teacher representatives, (34 participants) and members of the public. The purpose of the meeting was to reach an initial agreement on the Vision and Mission statements that had been developed during the public listening session held on November 2-3, 2012.
The document that was used is on
pages 41-51 of the final report for the public listening session. It is titled "A DESCRIPTION OF BVSD BY OTHERS 3-5 YEARS FROM NOW," and "THE VISION STATEMENTS WE AGREE WITH." These documents are selected because they comprehensively express the Vision and Mission of the public and the educators who attended.
The statements that were used to develop agreement are the bolded headings at the beginning of each set of values. (pages
41 and
49)
THE VALUES WE SUPPORT Interim Statement indicates the agreements that participants reached on the Vision statement. This document is referred to as an "interim" set of values because the public will have an opportunity to review it and make further suggestions. This was stated in the purpose of the public listening session and is repeated below:
"The information gathered in this workshop will significantly influence the later drafting of proposed board goals by the school board and superintendent this fall. Once drafted, those proposed goals will be made available for public discussion and comment - both online or in person - prior to the school board taking formal action to consider the proposed long-term goals this winter."