About Our DPS: Bringing to Life Our Vision & Values

  • Why do we need a vision and Shared Core Values?

    Education is a team sport. From teachers to school leaders to bus drivers to paraprofessionals to facility managers to family liaisons to district leaders, it takes all of us working together to prepare our kids for college and career. No matter how much each of us individually strive and work for our kids’ success, it’s only as a values-based team that we will achieve it.

    Like any successful sports team, or business team or community team, we need to ensure we are working together with a shared set of values that puts us all on the same page – values that we use as a foundation for our decisions, a guide for our behaviors and a basis for our trust.

  • How did we select our Shared Core Values?

    On Aug. 2, 2012, a group of 1,000 team members from all across DPS — teachers, school leaders, bus drivers, paraprofessionals, social workers, facility managers, finance team members, family liaisons, district leaders — came together to celebrate our work, to share our personal connections to the mission that binds us, and to collectively choose our Shared Core Values that are the foundation for everything we do together in educating our kids.

    The inaugural Our DPS Day, we started first with each individual selecting core values that are of greatest importance to them. We then moved on to discussions and voting in groups of five people, then 10, then 20, then 40, then 80 -- and finally came back together as a full group of 1,000! In each round, every individual in the room had the exact same number of votes for the values and were given the opportunity to talk to colleagues about the values they believe in most deeply.

    In the end, the values with the highest number of votes were selected as our DPS Shared Core Values: Students First, Integrity, Equity, Collaboration, Accountability and Fun.

  • How do we continue to live our Shared Core Values?

    It’s important that our values are more than words -– they need to be actions that we all live every day. It’s up to all of us to continuing bringing them to life and help them “go viral” throughout all of DPS.

    • Our DPS Day: Like the first Our DPS Day in 2012, we continue to meet as a team annually to discuss how we can continue connecting as a team, using our Shared Core Values as a foundation, to strive toward our vision that Every Child Succeeds
    • Recognition: DPS Honors! is a robust recognition program that celebrates teammates who demonstrate and embody our values.
    • Values-based leadership opportunities: Learn how you can apply the values to your role and how we can all better connect as a team.
    • In our schools and departments: YOU are the best way to infuse our Shared Core Values in DPS. Continue to think about how you can best support a values-based culture on your team by leading by example and using the values as a compass for your decisions and your work. View the Shared Core Values behaviors (.pdf) for examples on how to live the values every day.