MCCSC to rewrite mission, values statements

As she stood at the front of the media center of Bloomington High School North, Beverly Smith, Monroe County Community School Corporation director of school and community services, led community members in re-evaluating the school district’s core values.

“I think the forum went really well,” she said. “I believe it was successful overall.”
On Monday, parents and faculty gathered to discuss the drafting of the MCCSC’s new vision, mission and core values statements.

The current mission statement says, in part, “We commit to working with our community to deliver an appropriate and safe learning environment with a curriculum dedicated to excellence that honors the unique and diverse needs of our students.”

Some parents critiqued what one parent described as “words you’d use when you’re talking about someone that wants to be the CEO of a company.”

Some found the language of the statement to be awkward, too business-minded and not clear enough concerning the well-being of their students. One mother was concerned with how some of the core values from the previous statement had been left out, one in particular being a passion for learning.

“I think if you provide an environment where children have a passion for learning, you will automatically get achievement and engagement,” the mother said.

She gave the example of science students and robots they built themselves. She said without the intellectually stimulating environment, the students would not have been able to make the robots that they did.

“If they didn’t have any creativity or independent thinking, then they might have built similar robots,” she said.

While some parents were concerned with their children’s current educational well-being, some parents, like father and IU Germanic studies Professor Ben Robinson, were worried about the children’s professional future. Robinson foreboded a future of working conditions similar to those seen in a sweatshop in China.

“Our children will be facing jobs without rights,” he said. “They’re going to be employees of companies based in China.”

Robinson said public education is in trouble, and the condition of public education determines the condition of democracy and what is perceived as the “American Dream.”

“If part of what our future involves is defending our quality of life, a big part of that is democracy, and a big part of democracy is public education,” he said.

In order to make this happen, Robinson said not only does the MCCSC need to come together as a community, but America as a whole must build a community and celebrate public education.

The MCCSC had another forum Feb. 8, during which similar issues were discussed, Smith said. Smith, who has worked for MCCSC since 2003, said it is not uncommon for school corporations to have a values statement, and this is just a renewing of the previous statement.

All of the issues brought up by parents and members of the community seemed to have one thing in common: the well-being of the student. One parent said she didn’t want the values statement’s focus to be on whether or not the student could be a winner, but instead focus on developing each child as a whole person.

“What I want to see is honoring the spirit of the child,” the parent said.