The mission of the Birmingham City School System is to guide all students to achieve excellence in a safe, secure, and nurturing environment.

The Birmingham City School System offers a standards-based aligned curriculum to its students. Standards-based reform is the driving force behind most federal, state, and local education policy.  Under the standards-based reform, students will have access to more challenging curriculum content that they will be expected to learn at a proficient to high level of performance. 

The focus of the Birmingham City School System is to raise academic standards for all students.  The standards guiding the selection of curriculum materials and classroom instruction are determined by the following:

• The content of the curriculum that specifies what students should know at each grade level.
• The content also specifies what the teachers must teach. 

Within the framework of these standards, Birmingham City School System offers a broad range of academic curriculum from early childhood to college preparatory. BCS also meets the diverse needs of its students through specialized programs for English as a second language, gifted students, family literacy and more.