Leading with Purpose: Creating Meaningful Goals for Students, Teachers, and Parents

After years of creating school goals that were mostly focused on ELA and math—and admittedly, just to check the box—I realized something crucial: unless the goals are specific to a department, subject area, grade, teacher, or even individual students, they aren’t very meaningful. That year, we decided to become a goal-centered school, where every part of the team would create and own goals for student growth.

The Shift to Goal-Centered Leadership
We started by having each grade and subject area create goals tailored specifically to their students’ needs. This wasn’t just about ELA and math anymore—it included every subject. Even our activity department, which included PE, art, music, and library, jumped in. They crafted goals focused on increasing student participation in their respective areas, something we had never done before. It was inspiring to see how each department took ownership and developed clear pathways for student growth.

Empowering Students to Set Their Own Goals
Not only did our teachers and administration set goals, but we also introduced student-created growth goals. Each student received a personal folder with their own assessment data. They had individual meetings with their teachers to review the data and set attainable goals in specific subject areas. Some teachers took this a step further, asking students to create goals related to attendance and behavior as well.

This approach worked wonders. We found that when students truly understood their own data and had ownership of their progress, their achievement levels soared. Students were motivated and excited to check their progress, and this self-monitoring created a level of engagement we hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t just about hitting benchmarks anymore—it became about personal growth, both academically and behaviorally.

Focusing on Parental Involvement
In addition to student-focused goals, we decided to get serious about increasing parental involvement. We reviewed traffic on our school’s website and Facebook pages from the previous year and set a goal to increase engagement. We wanted more than just “likes”—we wanted meaningful interaction with parents. Additionally, we analyzed the number of positive parent contacts that our teachers had made and decided to set a goal to increase those connections as well.

PTO Engagement
Our goals didn’t stop there. We collaborated with our PTO to create a goal centered around increasing membership, not just among parents, but also with teachers and community members. The idea was to create a stronger sense of unity and collaboration, so we could work together toward school improvement.

The shift from generic, schoolwide goals to specific, measurable, and meaningful ones made a significant difference. When every part of the school is involved and has clear objectives, you create a culture of accountability, progress, and growth. Our school not only saw improvements in student achievement but also in community involvement and school culture. If you’re looking to make your school’s goals more impactful, start by making them specific and involving all stakeholders.