Standard 1.1 Purpose Statement

School Mission Statement

Because quality education enriches lives, we are committed to work together to ensure high levels of learning and growth for everyone at Payson High School.

This central value animates everything that we do at PHS. We refer to it often in staff training. Some highlights include the following:

Work Together . Payson High School has a particularly strong culture of collegiality and teamwork. This is true both within departments and between departments. Our faculty and staff engage in formal collaborative activities like our Monday afternoon meetings, which are usually held as departments or department subgroups, youth support team meetings, and district collaborations. They also engage in robust informal collaborative activities like talking shop over lunch. Many have found these informal, grassroots collaborations to be extremely beneficial, which is supported by the research literature.

High Levels of Learning and Growth .This phrase, or similar phrases, is a fairly standard inclusion in most school mission statements. Like other schools, we believe in going beyond the bare minimum. We aim for exceptional learning for all of our students.

For Everyone. At PHS we do not believe that learning and growth are only for our students. Rather, we believe that everyone in the PHS family deserves the opportunity and has the responsibility to continuously learn and grow, including the faculty and staff. Employees attend conferences and trainings, are encouraged to pursue self-driven professional development (and given time and resources to do so), and talk often about the mastery mindset in which we view our profession as a craft, a skillset, that can improve continually with dedicated practice and attention. No one ever achieves true mastery at the educator's craft, but we doggedly pursue it throughout our entire career. See Standard 1.3 for more.

This mission statement is given to all job candidates at PHS, and our interview questions are designed to explicitly highlight these ideas. We do this to establish and deliberately cultivate our school culture, and to screen applicants who may not align with this vision.

Athletics Mission Statement

Similar to our school wide mission statement above, our athletic department has a mission statement that both defines and guides what we do. It is as follows:

We use the power of athletics to develop the whole student-athlete into a champion at life, school, and sport.

At PHS, we view our extra-curricular programs as existing in service to the larger goals of the school, not ends in themselves. We believe in developing the whole person towards success, not limited to only athleticism or competitive skill. The order in which the final three items are arranged reflects our priorities.

Firstly, we aim for our extra-curricular programs to help students develop the skills required for success in life, including character traits such as integrity, work ethic, grit, and courage. Secondly, we design our programs in a way so as to develop their skill at school and help them succeed in the classroom. This includes traits such as intellectual curiosity, literacy, and academic skills. And finally, our coaches work hard to help them learn and develop the skills to succeed in their sports, including encouraging participation in multiple sports, teaching and learning sport-specific skills and conditioning, and fostering of a love of physical activity and fitness.

This mission statement is given to all coaching position candidates, and interview questions are designed to highlight these ideas. We do this to establish clear expectations from the beginning.