Building a “Challenging Environment” Into Your Mission Statement

Thanks to its partnership with publisher Eye on Education, Education World is pleased to present this tip from The School Mission Statement: Values, Goals, and Identities in American Education, by Steven E. Stemler and Damian J. Bebell. The article focuses on crafting a mission statement that includes creating and maintaining a "challenging environment" for all students.

In developing a school mission statement, the first step is to consider what themes are the most central to your own school’s purpose. One popular theme is the idea of the school as a “challenging environment.” Across all school types, schools tend to invoke the message or theme of “challenging environment” in their mission statement using three distinct approaches:

1. Expectations of Students
2. Instructional Elements
3. Environmental Elements

Expectations of Students
Many schools’ mission statements expressly address the importance of setting high standards for students and helping students to maximize their potential. In addition, school mission statements in this category often invoke the importance of providing a well-rounded education.

Common expressions and excerpts from school mission statements describing expectations of students follow:

• Promote high expectations for all
• Foster an atmosphere of high expectations
• Hold high expectations for all students during challenging instruction
• Challenge students to maximize their educational abilities
• Challenge students to maximize their growth emotionally, socially, and intellectually
• Provide a curriculum that integrates academic, physical, experiential, and artistic work
• Provide future generations with an education that will meet their needs in a constantly changing world
• Teach children to see the connections between school and the world; and
• Assist each student in the full development of his gifts and talents through a challenging college preparatory academic program, athletic endeavors, and a well-rounded program of extracurricular activities.

Instructional Elements
School mission statements here focus on instructional aspects such as standards-based instruction, differentiated instruction, innovative instructional strategies, and engaging educational activities.

The following are examples of the language that different school mission statements use in relation to the instructional elements:

• Provide a rigorous education
• Provide a challenging, integrated, standards-based curriculum
• Provide a developmentally appropriate curriculum and enriched extended-day activities
• Provide differentiated education
• Provide remedial assistance for students needing basic skill support
• Implement research-based instruction
• Integrate core curriculum standards
• Incorporate 21st-century teaching skills
• Use assessment to differentiate instruction
• Recognize individual differences and abilities
• Incorporate meaningful and challenging activities
• Foster a culture of innovation based on ethical behavior and the shared interests of humanity
• Encourage innovative teaching strategies that emphasize enjoyable and relevant educational experiences; and
• Educate children in a respectful, stimulating, and engaging environment.

Environmental Elements
The focus here is on the input side of the education — what is the school attempting to do to create a challenging environment?

• Provide an enriched environment
• Create challenging opportunities to educate students in an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect
• Create an environment that prepares students to be life-long learners
• Enable students to learn in a project-based environment; and
• Prepare students to be successful in college and beyond.

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