A clear mission and vision unifies a Pilot School community around the school’s purpose and direction. It provides the school with a guide in making decisions that affect day-to-day activities and long-term goals. “You must have a vision to be a Pilot School,” stated Nicole Bahnam, principal of Boston Community Leadership Academy. Ensuring that the mission is created and owned by all is the first and most critical role of a principal, and becomes the responsibility of the entire school community. Through autonomy, Pilot School staff have the opportunity to shape their school in order to meet their school’s mission. Setting a mission or vision is a process that begins with the inception of Pilot status, whether as a start-up or conversion, and continues on a regular basis with input from multiple constituents.
    Pilot School design teams first begin to develop a mission with staff input as they collectively decide what they envision for the Pilot School. Design teams may include staff, administrators, families, community members, and students. In one school thinking of converting to Pilot status, the design team formed a “vision” subcommittee, which brought a proposal to the whole design team, the whole faculty, and to grade-level teams for feedback. The vision subcommittee conducted student focus group interviews to gain input because, “At every Pilot School we went to, students could articulate the mission and vision of their schools.” Once in operation, governing boards replace design teams as the policy-decision-making body for Pilot Schools. It is governing boards that are ultimately responsible for setting and maintaining a school’s mission by gaining feedback from the school community and analyzing data for evidence of progress.

Pilot Schools were created to be high-performing and equitable schools. They aim to address the needs of all members of the school community. The Lee Academy’s mission statement shows that those needs can relate to both students and staff:
Our mission is to ensure the healthy, full development of the whole child by building academic skills, social/emotional competencies, and effective habits of being. We support the whole development of our children by bringing together a caring and engaged community of adults. We support staff by being a staff-centered school—a school committed to fostering and tending to the collegiality, professional growth, intellectual exploration, leadership development, and the emotional well-being of our staff. Further, we strive to develop authentic relationships with families, engaging them as co-teachers in their children’s learning environment. For a list of all Pilot School mission statements, see The Essential Guide to Pilot Schools: Overview, Center for Collaborative Education, September 2006, or visit The Essential Guide to Pilot Schools: Overview Online.

    The mission is the foundation on which Pilot School areas of autonomy are built. For some conversion schools, becoming a Pilot School means the opportunity to deepen their existing mission through autonomy. As principal of the conversion school Mason Pilot Elementary School, Janet Palmer-Owens frequently heard the question, “Why turn Pilot?” She responded simply, “To take our school to another level.” Similarly, Abby Brown, a teacher at the Gardner Elementary School, another conversion school, stated that Pilot status gives a school the freedom to ask, “What are we actually doing and what do we need to change?”
    Other conversion Pilot Schools significantly changed their mission with Pilot status. At Boston Community Leadership Academy, Pilot status initiated a shift from a work-study to a college-preparatory focus, which led to great changes in the school’s leadership roles, curriculum and instruction, and schedule. Now the school aims to have every student enroll and succeed in college. One student explained:

I like the idea of this school being a college prep school. We have a lot more discussions in the classroom, and the teachers are involving every student. So, it’s just growing every year, I think, into something good.

   Several Pilot Schools are affiliated with the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), a national school reform organization that emphasizes “personalized, equitable, and intellectually challenging schools.” The “Principles and Practices” of the Pilot Schools Network is reflective of the CES principles. (For more information about the Coalition of Essential Schools, including the Common Principles, visit: http://www.essentialschools.org/pub/ces_docs/about/about.html)

    At Boston Day and Evening Academy (BDEA), a CES school, the mission and vision focuses on providing students who are over-age for grade level and at high risk for dropping out with a successful competency-based education that prepares them for further education and/or careers. The school used its vision to develop a five-year strategic plan with a timeline and budget that describes the school’s long-term goals and action steps for: 1) curriculum, 2) student support, 3) institutional advancement, and 4) institutional growth. Visit Boston Day and Evening Academy’s mission, vision, and strategic plan Online. This is one example of how Pilot Schools translate their missions into concrete goals and action plans for improving student achievement.
    A mission not only affects the practices of the school, but also influences who chooses to attend. Students and families seek out Pilot Schools for their unique approaches to education. For example, the mission at Health Careers Academy (HCA) includes supporting students pursuing higher education and health care careers. A current HCA student explained:

If you want to be focused and go directly to college, go here. All the classes are focused on that. Like here, we get a second language from freshman year, we’re taking AP [Advanced Placement] classes if you pass certain tests…everything is just college based.

Like students and families, staff and administrators seek out Pilot Schools for their particular missions and practices. According to Bruce Pontbriand, a teacher and governing board member at TechBoston Academy, “People want to come here because of the mission. That’s why I want to work here.” Pilot School missions form the basis of election-to-work agreements, the school-based contracts for Pilot School staff. Connie Borab and Alison Hramiec, teachers at BDEA, noted that the opening section of an election-to-work agreement should include a mission statement, explanation of the school’s role as a Pilot School, purpose of the agreement, and priorities for the year. “After reading this section, [a staff member] should have a good sense as to whether his or her pedagogy or methodology would mesh with the mission of this particular school.” When a common understanding and agreement about the mission exists in a school community, a professional collaborative culture is able to develop.