Our IST: A Mission, Vision, and Values for Our Future

OUR IST | OUR STORY Our school has a wonderful first chapter in its story. Born out of an intense desire to craft the environment of their shared dreams, a group of parents banded together and created something out of nothing. The school was founded to provide its students with an excellent education, a global perspective, a wholesome community, and a clear orientation towards leadership and service.

Our early years were a true labor of love that saw parents, students, and staff partnering together with an “all-hands-on-deck” approach. Our founding community of close-knit families grew into its identity as an IB World School, expanded into a middle school, and began to earn a reputation as an excellent school. As with the rest of the world, the COVID pandemic brought an urgent shift in practices and approach, and we rallied once again to provide a quality education despite the challenges. Swimming against the current, our school evolved substantially through the pandemic years, developing from a modest startup school to an expanding and increasingly complex JPK-8 institution.

Recognizing this growth, the changing needs, and the great potential at hand, we purchased a new, larger property and began to plan for the next chapter of our story.

And here we are at the start of this next chapter! We are but months away from arriving at our new home in Bee Cave—a 20-million-dollar project that provides us with top-caliber classrooms and a sparkling new performing arts and athletic center! We have multiple years of 8th Grade graduates. We are adding a high school program. We have over 200 students from 40 different nationalities, and we speak over 20 different languages in our homes. We have a truly exceptional student body, a stellar faculty, and a supportive, energetic community of families.

As we begin to write this next chapter together, the time is ripe to reflect on where we have come from and where we are going: what is the mission and vision for the next decade of our story, and what values drive how we live them out? Recognizing the gravity of this current moment and the importance of revisiting these essential questions, the school’s senior leadership and Board of Trustees began the process of revising the school’s Mission, Vision, and Values.

This conversation began in the summer and has continued earnestly during the first term of the year. Through deep conversations, workshops, engaging with consultants, and a board retreat, our goal was to articulate our DNA in a way that captured our founding identity and crystallized where we believe we should lead IST moving forward.

We are excited to announce that we have crafted a final version of these statements that achieves this goal. Our new Mission and Vision Statements and our new institutional Values represent a maturation of our founding purpose that positions us to blaze the next decade of trails that lie ahead of us. Now, the important work of aligning our culture and practices around them can begin in earnest, with the goal that they will inspire our collective identity as a school and influence our day-to-day life. We invite you to read them closely, reflect on their meaning and impact, and join us in living them out.

We cultivate a respectful, global community that instills students with integrity, confidence, and intellect in pursuit of improving themselves and serving the world around them.

To build an innovative and enduring institution that provides an exceptional education.

OUR

VALUES

RESPECT INTEGRITY CONFIDENCE INTELLECT SERVICE

A Future-Focused Value System Our core values guide all that we do; they align our entire school community to our mission-driven work, and serve as a guide for all interactions, decision-making, and engagement.

To that end, these values offer a framework for developing students of strong character with an orientation towards servant leadership for a world in need.

Launching the IST

Strategic Institutional Review

About the Strategic Institutional Review In the pursuit of our collective Vision, with our Mission and Values at the forefront, we must now work to align our school’s procedures, practices, and culture. This intentional work will begin in earnest.

During the 2023-24 School Year, The International School of Texas Administrative Team and Board of Trustees are undertaking a Strategic Institutional Review. This Review seeks to garner a greater understanding of our strengths and areas for improvement in five core areas of focus, while aligning all to our Mission and Vision.

Ultimately, much of this work will occur in smaller projects, from focus groups and administrative tasks to longer term research and visioning sessions. The Strategic Institutional Review seeks to contextually define our first decade as an institution; Subsequently, we will take that same qualitative and quantitative information as we plan for our next ten years and look to our future.

Core Areas of Focus COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT STUDENT LIFE ACADEMICS & INSTRUCTION DEVELOPMENT OPERATIONS & GOVERNANCE

What’s next?

Guided by the school’s senior leadership, this initiative seeks to develop both a quantitative and qualitative understanding of the International School of Texas organization and community with the aim to inform and guide both short- and long-term improvements and investments. During the process, we will solicit feedback and input through dialogue with the Stakeholder Advisory Group, composed of a selection of parents, students, and staff from within our community. This work will launch a strategic planning initiative during the 2024-25 school year.

Updates regarding the progress of the Strategic Institutional Review and the work of the Stakeholder Advisory Group will be featured in our regular school communications throughout the year.

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