Monitoring the Vision

Where is the integrity of the vision, mission, and implementation plans if not regularly monitored, evaluated, and revised? Most vision activities stop at the faculty/department meetings where brainstorming and wordsmithing are quite common and are not revisited until the start of the next school year. One of the gaps of identifying the vision is to follow through with an evaluation plan.

Unfortunately, data is a four-letter word in our culture of education. Traditionally data was always used to reference whether acts were good/bad or effective/ineffective. This is when data is used to judge decisions or outcomes, however data can be used to inform. There is a large gap between what data says and what data means. When using evaluation data for the vision, all that needs to be addressed is how closely aligned are the beliefs to the actions. Since one of the responsibilities of the leader is to assist in the change process, “the leader must assist individuals in understanding and adjusting to the environment of the organization” (Green, 2005, pg.32). Depending on the maturity level of the staff the leader should provide or facilitate processes that support the monitoring of the vision.

Monitoring the development of a school-wide vision can be a challenge. Measuring where we begin and where we end is common practice and comfortably fits our paradigm of pre and post testing. However, in order to determine whether growth is, in fact, continuous, frequent monitoring of the small steps along the way is essential. For example, if the vision statement refers to the school as a learning environment for teachers and students, then what systems and procedures are in place that fosters this outcome? Does the leader provide the opportunity to collaborate? Is the vision kept in mind when the master schedule is developed or is providing time to collaborate an afterthought? It is essential to constantly ask, ‘How are we doing?”

Source: Randee Deich, HRD Program Facilitator