The authors' purpose for this article is to describe a K-12 public school district's journey to internalize and actualize its mission, strategic planning and vision as one coherent engagement using Lean principles and tools. Lean jointly comprises an organizational philosophy and management toolkit prominent in private, government, and nonprofit sectors. Lean is of interest to schools because it enhances organizational ability to implement continuous improvement organically by realigning paradigms and examining processes. The school district presented in this case study encountered a leadership change, difficult budget reduction decisions, and challenges for improvement. Through the use of Lean principles and tools, the district achieved progress by gauging efforts to align with mission for authenticity, developing plans founded in root cause analysis to promote accountability, and formulating vision by identifying benchmarks for the future. (Contains 2 figures and 3 tables.)