1. All individuals are valued and accepted.

All members of the learning community are treated equally as learners who are capable of self-assessment and are open to critical feedback.

2. All individuals can learn.

We, the Ankeny Learning Community, acknowledge that we all can learn, but not always in the same way, at the same time, or at the same place. We recognize, accept, and strive to meet the diverse needs of the constantly changing Ankeny Community. We will focus on the needs of every learner by making accommodations and modifications as needed. All individuals belong to the learning community where everyone teaches and everyone learns by using and integrating significant learning processes. The significant learning processes that the Ankeny Learning Community believes in are defined as:

• Thinking: How we get better at problem solving, decision making, and thinking about our thinking
• Collaborating: How we get better at working together
• Communicating: How we get better at listening to and expressing ourselves to one another

3. Learners are provided with safe, nurturing environments in which they are encouraged to take risks.

The Ankeny Learning Community provides a full continuum of quality services in the most supportive environment. A supportive environment might include: appropriate class size, adequate time, sufficient support staff, supplies, and space. We recognize that a supportive environment may vary according to the learner’s needs at a given time.

4. A partnership among parents, students, educators, and the community fosters open communication and collaboration that promotes learning.

Collaboration is the foundation of a partnership, and open communication facilitates this collaboration. All members are aware of, are committed to, and place their trust in the process of decision making. The decision-making processes should be examined and made visible to anyone who might be impacted by the decisions in an environment that encourages trust, openness, and collaboration. This partnership requires that all partners, as members of the Ankeny Learning Community, make commitments to each other. These commitments are:

• a commitment to team work, interdependence, collaboration, and a sense of community,
• a commitment to personal mastery: continually striving for artistry and craftsmanship by the individuals within the group,
• a commitment to continually clarifying the shared vision and striving for integrity and congruence between the visions and the operating set of beliefs and values that guide the work of the community,
• a commitment to examining mental models, and an open willingness to challenge assumptions and to shift, alter, and expand our paradigms, and
• a commitment to system thinking: a recognition of the relationship and interdependence of parts to the whole.

5. Instruction relates to real life situations, promotes life-long learning, incorporates a variety of teaching strategies and assessments, and meets individual learning styles and needs.

The Ankeny Learning Community members encourage developmentally appropriate curriculum and strategies to support life-long learning for all. All members search for congruence and alignment of practices across the parts of the community; for example, assessment practices based on performance for students would imply assessment practices based on performance for teachers, administrators, classified staff, and the Board of Education.

6. Parents, students, educators, and the community hold high expectations and challenge others to reach their highest level of individual success.

The District and building mission statements will challenge the Ankeny Learning Community members to grow and achieve the shared vision.

7. Developing and nurturing each person’s healthy lifestyle and positive self-concept increases the likelihood of success.

A healthy lifestyle and a positive self-concept can be nurtured through support systems, stress management programs, counseling, and the celebration of achievement.

8. Technology provides significant tools for learners to develop thinking skills, organize and process information, communicate ideas, reinforce prior learning, learn new information, and solve problems more efficiently, effectively, and creatively.

Students will use technology to:

• develop the skills to access and apply technology in the learning process,
• retrieve, process, and utilize information using a variety of current and future technology,
• think critically and work both cooperatively and independently to solve problems, and
• apply knowledge to solve authentic problems.