Collective Commitments

Mission
Guiding students. Empowering futures.
The purpose of Beaver Dam Middle School is to ensure all students learn at high levels.

Vision
Leading the way in student growth and achievement.
Beaver Dam Middle School envisions a school in which staff uphold a positive culture of learning with a focus on high-leverage curriculum, guaranteed access and inclusivity, collaboration, and sustained partnerships with the adults in our student’s lives, and the community.

Collective Commitments
In order to ensure we live our mission and realize our vision, we will:

1. Commit to a culture for learning.
2. Commit to actions and words that model kindness, understanding, integrity and respect to our students, families, and colleagues. All words and actions will communicate our story in a positive manner.
3. Commit to making decisions within collaborative teams. Decisions made will always focus on what is in the best interest of student growth and achievement. We will support each other in taking educational risks and developing engaging instructional strategies that are grounded in best-practice.
4. Commit to focusing on our impact. We will use evidence to set attainable and aspirational goals that follow a cycle of continuous improvement.
5. Commit to being relentless in removing barriers and providing structures and supports that ensure equity (access and inclusivity) in our curricular and co-curricular programming.
6. Commit to implementing a guaranteed, relevant, viable and rigorous curriculum (academic and social-emotional) to meet the evolving needs of our students while prioritizing active engagement and reflective problem-solving.
7. Commit to adhering to our behavioral expectations, modeling that behavior, and consistently reinforcing our expectations. We believe that behavior is a form of communication and we will work to understand the root cause of the behavior, what the student needs, and how we can support them.
8. Commit to grading for learning in a standards referenced system. Skills, essential questions, and methods of assessment will be clearly communicated to students and parents and will be common across content and grade level.
9. Commit to involving parents and the community in the education of our students.
10. Commit to professional expectations. We will engage in professional growth that results in improved student learning.

"Collective Commitments" are beliefs and actions created by school staff and agreed to by school staff.  These commitments allow for an open and transparent agreement on what staff must do to live our mission and achieve our vision.