What are they saying about your school?
So…what are they saying about your school? By “they”, I am referring to all school stakeholders (faculty, staff, students, parents, coaches, board members, community leaders, etc…). I promise you, people inside and outside the building are having conversations about your school. Most of the time, these conversations revolve around culture related issues. Many times, the principal has no idea these conversations are happening. However, it’s our duty to constantly be evaluating the culture of our schools. The saying goes, "If you really want to know about the culture of your school, ask somebody.” The response you receive is usually pretty close to reality! In this post, we will discuss exactly what school culture is, and how to assess the culture in your building. Hopefully, by the end of this blog series you will have the tools/skills to shift your school’s culture. As we have made drastic strides to shift the culture at our school, we have started to see improvements in multiple areas within our school building. We’ve also noticed the conversations in the community are more and more positive!
So…what exactly is school culture?
If you google school culture, you will find many different definitions that involve the following phrases: everyone working together, traditions, beliefs and values, blah blah blah… All of that is technically correct, but not many educators can regurgitate the literal definition on the spot. I tell my faculty/staff that our school culture is simply “The Way We Do Things”. Everything we do reflects our culture, and EVERYONE in our building plays a role in ensuring our culture is positive and strong.
Is my school’s culture where it should be?
If you are not sure your school culture is where it should be, do a “temperature check”. When I was hired as the new principal of my current school (a little over two years ago), I knew the culture needed a major shift. My first step was to analyze the quality of culture at that point and time. Remember, if you want to know, ask! So, I immediately set up face to face meetings with select teachers from primary, elementary, and middle school grade levels. I also met with a related arts teacher, the school secretary, a custodian, a bus driver, and two parents. I ask each person the following questions:
· What do you like about this school? Why?
· What do you dislike? Why?
· What is working well at this school? How do you know?
· Is there anything we are doing that you feel is not beneficial? Explain?
· If you could change anything about this school, what would it be?
With the feedback I received, I was able to analyze the results and highlight commonalities from each conversation. These commonalities became my ten focus areas to improve my school’s culture. This was an eye opening experience, and a huge step toward shifting our school culture! In the next post, I will begin to focus on a few of those common stakeholder responses.
Upcoming Post: In the next post of this blog series, I will focus on the development and communication of our plan, as well as begin to share our ten focus areas.
