School Vision Presentation

EDL 642
Spring 2017
Beth Ann Wylie

Vision Statement:

The Fuente Nueva Charter School main campus is located within the Arcata School District
on a site that is visually pleasing and reflects our mission, our values, and our school culture.
We incorporate clean energy and sustainable practices to live lightly on the earth. Our
facilities are adequate size to fulfill our mission. English and Spanish are represented
throughout the campus equally, in both written and verbal forms. The campus serves as
gathering space where parents and community members can share in the richness of our
school culture. The students of Fuente Nueva enjoy coming to school and spending the day
in classrooms that maximize opportunities for learning. Students are holistically supported to
meet or exceed grade level benchmark goals. The program offers a solid presentation of the
core content areas with a rich diversity in extracurricular offerings. The school is well staffed
to meet our mission and goals, with teachers, aides, and support specialists that share in the
Fuente Nueva mission. Collaborations between staff and other resource people provide
both structure and opportunity for continuous improvement and growth.

Mission Statement:
The Fuente Nueva Charter School mission is to empower kindergarten through fifth grade
students to become engaged world citizens through a challenging and creative Spanish
immersion program that emphasizes academic excellence, the arts, community involvement
and social responsibility.

We value
- A supportive and stimulating academic environment that nurtures the whole child;
- Multilingual communication abilities and appreciation;
- Empathy, compassion, and respect for cultural and ecological diversity;
- A lifelong love of learning;
- Collaboration and team work among community members.
Assignment:
With the Implementation of Californias Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), the schools
mission and vision are clearly represented in the schools Local Control Accountability Plan
(LCAP). This plan is updated on an annual basis and is a narrative of the schools budget for
the following three years. Fuente Nueva had adopted a strategic plan one year prior to the
implementation of the LCFF and LCAP. As a team we have always incorporated the mission
and values into the LCAP. But the vision statement was a part of the strategic plan, and it
has not been referred to since the first writing of the LCAP. This assignment inspired me to go
back and check-in with our vision statement and with pleasure I can see we have become
the school we envisioned.

To examine the vision statement, I color coded each sentence to one of the four LCAP
goals. The vision statement was largely represented in the three of our goals. Curriculum
vision/academic program and facilities were the goals that were clearly represented in the
vision. The fourth goal targets arts and enrichment actions and services. I can infer a a value
of the arts and culture in our vision statement, but it is an explicit part of our mission and
values statements. All of this can be seen in the attached power point slides that will be used
at an upcoming stakeholders meeting for our LCAP development.

At the stakeholder meeting parents became familiar with the four LCAP goals and develop
and understanding of how they represent our vision, mission and values statements. The
outcomes of the meeting are to identify what areas of our vision, mission and values
statements are underrepresented in our LCAP. The parents will then be asked to identify
either current practices or future actions we could take to incorporate that value into the
LCAP. We will also share what actions and services are already identified in the LCAP.
Parents will hear an outline including outcomes of the goals or progress towards the goals.
Next steps will be for the LCAP leadership team to take this input and incorporate it into the
LCAP. The first draft of the LCAP will be presented at the April regularly scheduled board
meeting.

To demonstrate how our data aligns with our goals, I shared reports from the California
Dashboard, the new state accountability system. On here you can see that our students
made significant increases in student achievement between 2015 and 2016, the first and
second year of state-wide accountability test entitled the California Assessment of Student
Performance and Progress (CAASPP). The Dashboard rates schools using both state and
local indicators and break data up into student subgroups. The scores are displayed in such
a way that educators and parents can consider possible inequities in education. In addition
to looking at the CAASPP testing results, we will examine data from the parent and student
surveys, local student data scores, and data collected as dictated by the LCAP.

Our vision and mission can be summarized as our desire to develop students for global
citizenship. With evidence of success in our data, we can surely demonstrate that we are
providing skills and resources to our students to navigate the complex world that we live in
today. As a bilingual program, where students develop a high level of proficiency in two
languages, one could easily argue that this is a rigorous program with high expectations. The
schools commitment to student well-being is easily seen in the character education and
other enrichment programs. A safe, nurturing classroom culture is appreciated by both
parents and students. Again, these are skills for the 21st century.

These results can be seen in the data and we can let the data speaks for itself. For example,
our students are achieving at grade level or above in English language arts and are
approaching benchmark in math. Most of the state is well below benchmark in math, and
by comparison, Fuente Nueva is closer. Our parent and student surveys show that both
groups have a high overall rating of Fuente Nueva. Local data demonstrates we are
achieving the goals we define in our LCAP to provide a program that promotes student
achievement and well-being. All of this demonstrates that we are meeting our goals and
therefore fulfilling our vision, mission and values.

Fuente Nueva was founded on a solid vision created by the first teachers, parents and
students. Through the twelve years that it has operated the vision, mission and values have
not waivered. This strong clear picture of who we wanted to be has guided leadership
decisions and teachers curricular focus. The result of this can be seen in the daily life at
Fuente Nueva. As the school leader it has always been easy to look at the decisions we
have before us, consider our vision, mission and values and then proceed accordingly.
Attachments:
1. Invitation to Community Stakeholder Meeting
2. Slides from Community Stakeholder Meeting

Photo of one of the goals feedback stations at our meeting held on 3/21/17.