Eanes ISD trustees adopted a new districtwide mission statement during a June 22 board meeting.

The approval was more than a year in the making, according to trustee Ellen Balthazar, who served on the committee tasked with developing the statement. The goal was to create a statement that better reflects EISD’s comprehensive education, which not only focuses on academic studies but promotes student's social and emotional learning.

As a longtime trustee, Balthazar said she was a member of the board that approved EISD’s previous mission statement more than 15 years ago, and one of the committee’s goals was to draft a more modern, aspirational statement.

“We wanted a mission statement that wasn’t quite so rooted in the educational language of the 1980s and 1990s,” Balthazar said.

The mission statement, titled “Unite. Empower. Inspire ... every person, every day,” reads as follows: “We unite our community through respectful relationships, creating a sense of belonging for all. We empower students, providing an exemplary education that develops curiosity, creativity and individual talents. We inspire each other to lead purposeful lives of empathy, gratitude, and compassion.”