Running head: VISION STATEMENT

A Vision Statement for Professional Administrative Practice

in

Special Education

Aaron Koch

California State University, Chico

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A Vision Statement for Professional Administrative Practice in Special Education

In my current role as a program specialist for the Glenn County Office of Education

(GCOE), I work with nine education specialists at six respective school sites. We are charged

with providing meaningful educational benefit for our students on individual education programs

(IEPs), as dictated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The core

principles of IDEA provide guiding tenets such as free and appropriate public education (FAPE),

least restrictive environment (LRE), parental participation, and procedural safeguards. As we

develop implementation standards for these tenets through our local education agency (LEA), we

must stop to consider our core values as educators. These core values provide the foundation for

upholding the federal legislation known as IDEA as well as shape the direction of our vision and

mission statements.

Core Values: A Rationale

Our EDAD 631 cohort was fortunate to have Bev Landers, a retired administrator and

current university supervisor, lecture on social emotional learning last week. Bev shared that we

have entered the most honorable profession and that there is nothing better than working with

teachers and children. Bev shared wonderful insights into leadership by dipping into her own

past as well as with the works of Robert Greenleaf and Nel Noddings. These philosophers of

education provided us with a framework for crafting our core values further: (a) viewing our role

as servant leaders and (b) considering the whole child. An example of Robert Greenleafs

philosophy on servant leadership can be seen in the following quote: The best leaders are clear.

They continually light the way, and in the process, let each person know that what they do makes

a difference. The best test as a leader is: Do those served grow as persons; do they become

healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become leaders?" Such a
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leadership test is a resounding core value for my work in the field. Certain components of this

quote can be dismantled and reassembled into my vision statement including the notion that the

end product is the fully independent, autonomous individual (i.e., student). Nel Noddings further

clarifies the philosophy of educating the whole child when she states,

We will not find the solution to problems of violence, alienation, ignorance, and
unhappiness in increasing our security, imposing more tests, punishing schools for their
failure to produce 100 percent proficiency, or demanding that teachers be knowledgeable
in the subjects they teach. Instead, we must allow teachers and students to interact as
whole persons, and we must develop policies that treat the school as a whole
community.
Bev echoed this sentiment when she said, It isnt just the childs brain that gets sent to

schoolits the whole child, the heart, and the body. Bev concluded her lecture with a

comprehensive list of great ideas for shaping school culture in caring, safe, positive waysall

for free! These included: half-day substitute offerings for teachers on their birthday, no

fundraiser fees, post-it notes with positive reflections, fun staff meetings in costume,

community celebrations, community traditions, and guardian students, to name only a few. Bev

was not the only source for inspiration of core values that our cohort was privileged to learn

from. Dr. Bryan Caples, the superintendent for Palermo Unified School District, also shared

noteworthy content from the likes of Jim Collins in his book Good to Great and Level 5

Leadership.

My Vision Statement

According to our class discussion with Dr. Bryan Caples, a vision statement: (1) includes

the where were going (i.e., futurecasting), is (2) clear and visible, (3) audacious, (4)

descriptive, and (5) five years out on the horizon. Dr. Caples provided us with a whole host of

inspirational content on YouTube, of which one video claimed that a good vision statement

features a forecasting gerund (the -ing) to denote the action that is conducted. Upon reflection
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of the best gerund for my practice as a school administrator for special education programs in

GCOE, I was reminded of the word shepherd. One of my mentors, Kathy Brown, a retired

program specialist and current university supervisor, claims that our role as program specialists

is to shepherd the IEP process along. Merriam-Webster defines the transitive verb of shepherd

as to guide or guard.

In terms of guiding, there is so much that we do to facilitate a legal, ethical, and effective

IEP. There are many shareholders to coordinate, many services to consider, much assessment to

administer and interpret, and much work that must go into providing direct instruction and

support for each and every student on an IEP. As a program specialist, I spend much of my time

looking at the nuts and bolts of the students program with the education specialist, ensuring that

the IEP is fully-compliant with the law, involves parents, and provides meaningful education

benefit for the student to the maximum extent possible.

In terms of guarding, there is so much that we do in special education to guard for our

students welfare. So much of what we do in special education revolves around advocacy. It

revolves around politics and public relations. It revolves around relationships with all

stakeholders including general education faculty and staff, parents, support providers, and

community members. Oftentimes our role is to take an unpopular stance and be a voice of

advocacy for our student, even if it means taking some heat. We must guard the educational

rights of our students. We must fight for them to have the most access to the general education

curriculum that is appropriate. We must surround them with supports in their educational setting

so that they can thrive and grow to become autonomous, healthy, happy individuals in society.

That said, my vision is to support and empower my staff to run programs that are founded in

IDEA (i.e., parent-involvement, LRE, and FAPE), consider the whole child, are service-oriented,
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have a big, hairy, audacious goal, and guide and guard our students. Therefore, my vision

statement is as follows: Shepherding my people to create safe, caring, and effective programs.

My Mission Statement
According to class discussion, the mission statement is the how of enabling the vision

statement. That said, there needs to be further discussion as to how the shepherding of people

will occur. In Stephen Coveys famous Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, the author notes

that one should begin with the end in mind. The concept of reverse engineering is nothing new

in social sciences, but often overlooked. That said, in an effort to consider the ending vision of

shepherding safe, caring, and effective programs, one must develop short-term benchmarks to

measure progress and plan development towards this end-goal. Such a plan will provide content

for the creation of a mission statement to support my vision.

Shepherding will be a lifelong pursuit of mine. I will serve as a consultant, friend,

therapist, teacher, lead learner, servant, and boss for all members of the team. I will work to

guard and guide my students and staff. Safe, Caring, and Effective programs will be developed

with particular attention to the core values we have discussed. All considered, the mission

statement will be as follows: Creating safe schools through vigilance and due diligence; caring

schools through whole child and compassionate philosophies and practice; effective schools

through professional capital, evidence-based practice, and all-hands-on-deck service.

A Metaphorical Graphic
Much of my philosophy toward social science is modeled upon agricultural science. I

believe as learners we are akin to natural organisms constantly growing, failing, starting over,

and rebooting again. There is a similar process in a natural organism like that of a tree seedling.

There are seeds, roots, and periods of growth as well as periods of struggle. The little acorn

becoming a mighty oak is a perfect metaphor for this process. If you look for acorn oak quote
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in a search engine such as Google, you will find manifold quotes on this process. Respected

figures such as Alan Watts, Maya Angelou, and other philosophers have all chimed in on this

metaphor. In my graphic, the acorn is featured in the very center of the tree, given a quotation

about the spiritual DNA of the acorn with a unique set of potentials showing how the oak is

already implied. The roots dig deep. The branches reach tall and proud. The hands of service,

hands of collaboration, and hands of many helpers hang as fruits from the tree. It takes a village

to raise this little acorn into a mighty oak through a process of development of courage.
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References

Collins, J. (2007). Level 5 leadership. The Jossey-Bass reader on educational leadership, 2, 27-

50.

Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 habits of highly effective people. Free Press: USA.

Glickman, C. D., Gordon, S. P., & Ross-Gordon, J.M. (2014). SuperVision and instructional

leadership: A developmental approach (9th ed.). New York: Pearson Education.