With an intent to connect all families in the Leander ISD community, the LISD board of trustees unanimously approved a district mission statement May 13.

The new mission statement intends to "bring clarity and focus to the mission of Leander ISD," according to the district. The approved statement is:

“We will cultivate each individual student by:

• knowing and appreciating them;
• creating a safe and supportive environment to nurture their personal growth; and
• partnering with each family.”

This district did not have an existing mission statement, though there is a vision statement of "The #1LISD community cultivates each student individually to produce the most sought-after creators of our future world."

Board Members Anna Smith and Aaron Johnson were part of the group who drafted the statement. The mission statement was intended to work with other guiding documents. Johnson said “each student” was used to link the mission statement and vision statement. Smith said the statement plays with core beliefs and the graduate profile.

“I’m really proud of the work we did,” Smith said.

Both board members said the mission statement wanted to include the whole LISD community including those without students in the district. Johnson said the district wants to partner with these families because they could be mentors, have future students or have past students.

“Partnering with each family in the district is important to us,” Johnson said.

Johnson said given the multiyear initiatives the mission statement will spur, it will likely stay in place for three or five years. He said the statement will translate to district goals, priorities and initiatives.

"We felt like this three-pronged mission statement gives us some pretty solid anchors to build off of so they can fairly easily, fairly naturally and organically extend district goals and other actions from the mission statement,” Johnson said. “We felt like it was a pretty strong, pretty robust framework."