SRD School Renews Its Mission

Encouragement and support are at the heart of the 's new mission and vision statements.

With help from teachers and school parents, SRD Principal Sherri Glaab re-wrote the school's statements to bring them up to date with the current atmosphere of the school and its community.

"We wanted it to be for the people, by the people," Glaab told the Monday after presenting the new statements.

The new mission statement is:

Samuel R. Donald School creates a challenging learning environment that encourages high expectations for success through an integrated curriculum. Our school embraces lifelong learning and problem solving in a safe and positive environment, allowing children to achieve their personal best. Students are taught skills, which will enable them to function effectively in, and contribute to, a technological society. We strive to have our parents, teachers, and community members actively involved in our students' learning. In a supportive environment, students are encouraged to achieve goals and exit with outcomes set forth by the Bloomingdale School District.

The new vision statement is:

Samuel R. Donald School will be a nurturing and challenging environment, promoting inclusiveness, character development and academic excellence through an integrated curriculum, supported by an engaged parent body. Our learners will benefit from state of the art technology, skilled educators and diverse community resources to prepare them for lifelong learning, problem solving and real-life situations.

Glaab said the mission and vision statements are different because the vision is more geared toward the future of the school, whereas the mission is something the students, faculty members and parents can work on on a daily basis.

In developing each, Glaab enlisted the help of several school parents and teachers during work sessions to come up with the proper wording that fit the school, she said. Cyndy Hopper, one school parent, said she was amazed, after watching the work sessions unfold, to learn how important the mission and vision statements were.

"We took all that meat and potatoes and developed it into something that was meaningful," she said.

She also said she really enjoyed the experience.

"It really made you think about what is meaningful to the kids," she said.

Glaab said she hopes the exercise trickles into other schools and that she thinks developing the new statements was a "worthwhile event."

"Ideas were coming from the adults, which is everything I wanted it to be," she said.

She also said she hopes that the new statements become "real" to the community as well as the students. After they return to school, Glaab will be reviewing the statements with the students to see how they feel about the messaging behind them. The statements will then be engraved on a plaque that will hang at the school.