See It, Support It, Share It: Improving School Culture and Climate

Last year sucked.

And so did I.

I ended the school year feeling disconnected. I felt like I had no relationship with the teaching and learning in our classrooms, and I failed as someone who teachers and kids can rely on to be helpful and supportive.

A colleague once said that Emerson’s quote, “The purpose of life is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived,” was a great description of my ethos as an administrator.

Well… let’s say that was probably not the case in 2021.

Covid-19 protocols, paperwork, and contact tracing had replaced time that would otherwise have been used for me to be in classrooms. 

Masks obscured most face to face non-verbal communication and the underlying emotional connections they engender, putting yet another barrier between us all. And the stress and anxiety of pandemic learning took a toll on all of us. It was really tough.

And I felt all of it.

So I decided that I need to improve. The first step in doing this involved identifying why I felt so miserable and disconnected in my work last year. 

After some reflection, I realized that I was failing to immerse myself in, and celebrate, our school culture within my role as an administrator and educator.

This became the focus of my summer break.

As we planned the start of our “new normal” in July and August, I set a goal for myself to become re-connected to students, teachers, and our culture. And to do that, I had to get into classrooms for a significant part of each day.

That was not only something I wanted to do, but a necessity, as a change in our teacher evaluation process made administrators responsible for all written teacher evaluations, both informal and formal.

Previously, our Department Chairs did the informal (one per teacher on cycle) evaluation and the administrators completed the formals (one per tenured teacher and at least two for non-tenured). For me, that meant 55 written observations with extensive feedback, with most needing to be scheduled before winter break. I was definitely going to be back in classrooms.

A LOT.

In most cases, two per day from September through December, as our schedule renders Mondays and most Wednesdays useless for me to see classes - and the 3rd period of each day is out as well, because of two hours of lunch duty Monday through Friday.

Half of your work day is a lot of interacting with teachers and students every day when you’re an administrator. 

That being said, an ancillary benefit of this amount of “forced family fun” is that it is also a great opportunity to immerse myself and reflect on our school culture and climate, as well as to work with and support those teachers.

Your school culture is made up of every single interaction, (or lack of interaction) that happens from the start to the end of the day. Your school climate is how people feel after experiencing your school culture.

Each member of your learning community takes away their own feelings of success, belonging (or lack thereof) and how they are (or are not) supported every day. Collectively, those feelings tell the story of how successful your school is over time. 

Ultimately, this will also reveal how your school is perceived by your community and beyond as well.

Getting out into classrooms every day has given me an opportunity to see some of the incredible work we do every day. The blessing is that I can provide that teacher with feedback almost immediately before I leave the room. Seeing and supporting teachers through recognizing and praising what’s great, while also providing ideas and resources is something that most people appreciate, and also what good principals and leaders do.

What is often overlooked and needs to happen more often is sharing what you’ve seen with others to amplify the good and great practices we see. 

Not only does it validate that teacher and show that the praise you gave was more than just an exercise for evaluation purposes, it’s a way of sharing beyond that classroom and even your school what good things are happening.

Sharing your observation highlights to colleagues inside and outside your building through conversations and social media help drive positive change in your culture and climate.

The stories that emerge from authentic classroom observations inform conversations and opportunities for us to learn from one other. 

These conversations can drive opportunities for teachers to observe and learn from one another, or become resources for collegial conversations that help develop or build common practices that will benefit all kids.

Sharing your stories is also one of the most powerful ways to change the internal and external narratives that are told about your school. The bottom line is this: You can tell your school’s story, or you can allow others outside your organization to do so.

If you want to improve your school culture, climate, and the perceptions around your school, you must first identify them, support them, and then share the stories that come out of that work.

When you see something great happening in your school, make sure to express your appreciation. 

Be specific about why this was worth taking the time to mention. Celebrate successes – little and big.

And then tell someone else. Someone who would never know about what you saw. Ideally, someone who would benefit from or learn from it.

Tell that teacher’s department chair, other administrators, fellow teachers, and maybe the rest of the world through social media.

Taking time to connect with the culture in and out of school buildings helps to bring us all closer.

I have been doing this all year verbally and in writing and texts, but I now recognize the need to expand beyond the school walls.

I will be doing that through my “Mr Chace Minutes” on Twitter each week and perhaps through reviving the “Oaker Pride Podcast”, where we tell the stories of what happens in school, take questions and connect with our community. The Superintendent of Schools and I even had a conversation about broadcasting a weekly show on our radio station centered around the great things that we see in our classes. 

By expressing appreciation and highlighting the good, we are sending a powerful message of hope and expecting success. By sharing our best moments, we create ripples of positive communication and appreciation that help to create, shape, and improve our culture and climate, which will affect how our schools are perceived inside and outside our walls.

Make the positive messages shared within your building and those that go out into the world so much more powerful than the negative ones and your culture, climate, teaching and learning will grow exponentially. They expand naturally with each of those stories and conversations.

Regardless of the challenges we faced this year, I believe that my goal of getting into classrooms and being more available to teachers and students has helped me become more connected, improved teaching and learning and strengthened our culture and climate.

We all have 1,440 minutes per day at our disposal. Why not take 5 or 10 of those every day to make your school a better place for everyone? See, support and share your culture if you want to improve it.