Strengthening School Culture and Climate

School climate is a key factor that determines whether young people will feel safe in school or not.  In the first few minutes of entering any school, you can develop a feel for the school.  What you see on the walls, posters, student work.  Are there rules posted that all begin with the word "Don't"?  How you are greeted (or not) by both adults and students in the hallway impacts your "feel" for the school.  Are they helpful and interested in who you are and how they can help? Do they make eye contact?  This "feel" you develop is and indicator of school climate.

A new student on his/her first day of classes walks into homeroom, looks across the aisle and says to another student, "What's this place like?" The other student proceeds to tell the new kid who the nice teachers are, who the mean teachers are, areas of the school to avoid, which cliques are in power, what events are fun to attend, and what the sports program is like. The student is describing the school culture to an outsider. The strongest influence on how young people treat each other is the culture of the school.

School climate is created by the attitudes, beliefs, values and norms that underlie the instructional practices, the level of academic achievement and the operation of the school.  It is driven by how well the adults, and how fairly the adults in a school create, implement and model these beliefs, values, and norms.  Schools with a strong, positive school climate have adults that model behaviors that strengthen the climate.  Learning student names and greeting them by name, responding to negative behaviors in a respectful manner, are example of modeling that can strengthen a school climate.  

The product of a good school climate is a strong school culture.  School culture is "the way we do that here". or the way "we don't do that here."  This includes "how we do relationships at this school." In a school with a strong culture, any staff or student will be able to explain and demonstrate "how we do that here."

Culture and climate are aspects of an interactive system. Changes in one, produce changes in the other.  School culture feeds back to climate, and climate back to culture. Climate is established by the actions of the adults and sets the tone or feel of the school.  Culture is how students and staff behave in the context of the climate created by the adults.

Culture and climate is something that we, as a shared district, are continually focusing upon and analyzing. Creating a safe and caring environment for our students is at the top of our list. It has an impact on how the students perform academically, and emotionally.

One example of how this is played out in many schools has to do with harassment. All schools have a policy forbidding bullying and harassment by students. If a student reports harassment to one adult at school they may get a wide variety of responses from the adult including being told to, "Ignore it", or "Tell them to stop", or worse, "Boys will be boys". Or, if they report to another adult they may get a swift, direct response including intervention with the perpetrator and protection for the victim from further abuse. Inconsistency or lack of staff response creates a climate of uncertainty and undermines trust between students and staff. This message is instilled in the school culture. Undermining trust affects the culture by creating a less dependable environment and less trust between students and staff.  This is an example that we hope is not played out in our schools in Alta and Aurelia.

Over the course of this school year, you will see or hear about activities in our schools that directly address bullying/harassment, as well as school climate and culture.  Inviting in the Highway Patrol recently to present to students of all grade levels (and parents) on bullying and cyber-bullying is one example.  Continued support of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, Hands and Words Program, Character Counts is critical in developing the norms of "how we treat each other in this school."  Additionally, using older middle school and high school students to mentor or serve as "big buddies" for elementary students creates a culture of sharing, giving and serving as a positive role model.

Teachers are in the beginning stages of being trained in PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports).  PBIS is a framework or approach for assisting school personnel in addressing student behaviors and discipline in a more positive, pro-active manner. PBIS IS NOT a packaged curriculum, scripted intervention strategy. 

PBIS IS a prevention-oriented way for school personnel to manage classrooms, hallways, lunch rooms, playgrounds in a manner that is less stressful, more direct, and incorporates modeling of the positive behaviors as well as reasonable consequences for negative behaviors.

Preventing bullying and harassment, creating positive student-to-student and teacher-to -student interactions are a key to strengthening a school's culture and climate.  It is a cycle of continuous improvement which is always at the forefront of what we do as school system.