Mission and Vision

  • The Croton-Harmon School District is committed to...

    • Challenging all children with high expectations.
    • Including parents and the wider community as partners in this endeavor
    • Fostering a climate of mutual respect.
    • Having teachers play a strategic role in students' education.
    • Developing student skills that will enable them to meet responsibly the challenges that lie ahead of them
    • Croton-Harmon School District graduates will develop into effective communicators, researchers, and problem solvers, individuals who are independent learners and assume responsibility for their own learning and behavior.

    A Vision of a Quality School System

    The Croton Harmon School District is committed to ensuring that all students will develop the habits of mind and social skills to become lifelong learners, able to contribute to the well-being of society. In order to accomplish this, the Croton-Harmon School District desires to be a world class school system. To be world class, our district must measure itself against the highest possible standards of quality. These quality standards may be organized under three areas: learning standards, quality systems standards, and quality standards for curriculum, instruction, assessment, and technology.

    Learning standards are the things we expect students to know and be able to do. The New York State Education Department has identified standards in various academic disciplines, as well as the "habits of mind’ we value such as critical thinking and problem solving. Learning standards also exist at the national level, and in many academic areas there are international standards.

    The Tri-State Consortium, of which the Croton-Harmon School District is a member, identifies eight performance standards of a quality school system grouped into three categories: student performance, internal supports, and external supports. For more information, please visit

    www.tristateconsortium.org

    The third area of standards consists of the standards for quality curriculum, instruction, assessment, and technology. Based on best educational practices from across the world, we can assess ourselves and focus on continuous improvement. In curriculum, world class school systems focus on a backwards-design process where we start with identifying how we want students to demonstrate their learning. The goal is application of learning to new, real world situations. Similarly, there is much research on what constitutes world class instruction, assessment, and technology integration. In world class systems, technology is a tool for learning and not an end in itself.

    We will use the various standards and measures of world class schooling to continue to prepare our students for the world they face.