Lawrence Academy has a renewed mission

by Dan Scheibe P’23, head of school

Our mission states our reason for being, our day-to-day purpose, and what we hope to deliver to the students, families, and society we serve. The reveal here is not a brand-new mission: rather, it is an extension and refinement. If this were a home renovation, it would be a careful, functional addition with a high degree of finish — not a tear-down.

Our Mission

Lawrence Academy recognizes you for who you are, inspires you to take responsibility for who you want to become, supports you as you learn, and empowers you to take action for the greater good.

A school’s mission should be a big, real deal: active, full of meaning and direction. It should not be relegated to an 8x10 frame or the sidebar of a webpage. People are drawn to education — whether as students, parents, patrons, or professionals — because of the sense that something important happens in schools, something fundamental to human nature and human potential. A mission should describe these meaningful things as clearly and concisely as possible. Here is ours:

Our Vision

Our Practice

RISE expresses our commitment to ...

Recognize the distinctive qualities of each student and provide opportunities for growth;

Inspire intellectual curiosity, commitment to learning and knowledge, and student leadership; Support students through teaching practices focused on who they are, how they learn, and what they experience socially and emotionally;

Empower students to exercise their strengths, elevate others, and contribute to the world.

Lawrence Academy faculty, leadership, and trustees put a great deal of thought, work, and care into crafting this language, worth digging into here.

Mission: Observers and fans of our previous mission will recognize the initial two clauses as the “short” or “20-word” version of our “old” mission. We still invest deeply in the individual transaction that takes place between school and student. The “new” parts carry equal current value: “support” as a fundamental characteristic of the learning environment at LA and “the greater good” as our ultimate direction and directive.

Vision: In not-so-distant times, this language might have been regarded as a “DEI Statement” rather than a complementary vision to the school mission. We now understand the condition of “belonging” as a precondition for education of value. As described later, this sense is a critical part of both our founding and our future. The following point is equally important: diversity, equity, and inclusion are not a collection of ideologies; they are the practical ingredients of both learning and doing in an interconnected, interdependent, just world.

Practice: As we have applied our mission over the last decade, we have embraced “recognition” and “inspiration” as active ingredients in the educational process. As we look to the future, we know that “support” and “empowerment” are equally critical components in the active practice of mission. It was a happy accident that these qualities combined into the aspirational, hopeful acronym RISE. It’s a shorthand we use to remember, rehearse, and refresh our mission.

Mission, Vision, and Practice: Together, these three areas of activity represent the broadest ideals of education that drive us (vision), the particular way that Lawrence Academy applies those ideals (mission), and the day-to-day activities that drive student experience (practice). Together, they place a welcome burden on both school and teacher to manifest mission daily in individual student experience.

Lawrence Academy has an even deeper mission

As significant as it is to have new language to help us understand Lawrence Academy’s distinct value and culture, it is even more profound to consider the language on which our strength and community are built. From the vantage of present institutional clarity, it is both gratifying and fortifying to consider the clear foundations on which this school was built.

As I have communicated with increasing frequency in this space, the first words written to bring Lawrence Academy into being — put to paper, by hand, on March 14, 1792 — stand out for their currency and potency: “The happiness of community requires the dissemination of knowledge and learning among all the classes of citizens.” Anticipating the school’s motto (circa 1862), these words connected school purpose and value as well as any statement of mission or intention could.

Lawrence Academy is built out of a fundamental concern for all. It is built for human flourishing. It identifies education as the essential activity needed for growth and goodness in human affairs. It envisions a warm, welcoming, just community. Before we even understood the powerful roles of culture and belonging in all the complexity of the modern world, Lawrence Academy announced its intention to connect the act of education with the acts of citizenship.

A final note on our mission

I have been in education for more than 30 years, and I am approaching 20 years in one or another leadership position in schools. This is the first time I have been involved in crafting a mission, and the process has been one of the most satisfying and encouraging experiences I have had as an educator.

Maybe some of this has to do with the inherent satisfaction (particularly for the humanities inclined) of completing a written assignment. I suspect, however, that there is something about Lawrence Academy in particular that makes the exercise so rich and true.

When, after months of effort, the mission came before the faculty for a vote on May 11, 2023, there was a solemn understanding that the point of the mission was to effect powerful and present change in the lives of students. When, upon the unanimous approval of the faculty, it arrived to the board for a vote the next day, the board understood that it was doing “fiduciary work” of the highest order — putting words to the work of the Academy.

And then when, upon the unanimous approval of the board, I presented Lawrence Academy’s renewed mission to the students in assembly on May 15, 2023, it felt like the fulfillment of a promise made way back in 1792.

So we still RISE, student by student, to the benefit of all, to the happiness of community.

A short lexicon of key terms at LA

Happiness of Community (1792):

The words behind the idea that made LA

Omnibus Lucet (1862): Our Motto: The Light Shines for All

Greater Good (Award initiated 1993): Not just a prize, but the end goal of mission

Warm and Welcoming (past, present, future): How we want to meet the world

RISE (2022-2023 and onwards): Recognize, Inspire, Support, Empower