Building a positive school culture does not happen on accident. It is not a coincidence that some schools run smoother than others. Today we are going to share how our school has worked to create a school system where we focus on learning, relationships, and student voice that helps us create a positive school culture on our campus.

Before we get started, I wanted to share a little information about my school and myself. I am the principal at Olive Peirce Middle School in Ramona, CA. OPMS has been working as a Professional Learning Community for over 20 years. This is not a hour of planning once a month, working as a PLC means that we run a school in a specific way. We have a rotating block schedule, so that we have more time to work with our students everyday (80 minute classes). Time serves us- we don't serve time. We have common prep times for all our content teams, which means that they can work and plan together and use the same lessons and assessments. This ensures that the same rigor or learning is occurring in every classrooms. We focus on learning and that is our main focus. Are the students learning in our school system, what data supports that learning is happening or not. What are we going to do when learning is not happening or if it is? We are constantly working on relationships. We want to know our students names, what their dreams and need might be as well as the needs and dreams of our staff members. We also believe in being research driven and keeping on the top of our game and we do that through working and learning together twice a month after school. We take our our personal growth very seriously and model that to our students as well. Lastly, I have been in education 20 years and the majority of that time , I have served as a leader. I love public education and I believe in it. So today, I am going to share part of my journey with you about what it takes to build a strong/ positive school culture.

Link to Video: ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egz2YkHdRaghttps

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egz2YkHdRag

Leadership 101: Do What You Way You Are Going To Do.

As a leader, all eyes are on you at all times. Do not promise to do things you don't want to do, can't do, or are unsure you can do.

Two rules to live by to help you follow through on your word:
1. Do not do leadership on the run
2. It is okay to say, no.

Your word is important. People will not trust you if they feel you lie or do not follow through on your promises. This is the first step to building trust with your team, teachers, students and community by doing what you say you are going to do or not going to do.

This is a definition of school culture published by Dr. Kent D. Peterson. Dr. Peterson is a professor in Wisconsin. What I like about this definition are the words "persona of a school". If you had to describe the persona of your school what would it be?
Let's take a minute to think about how the persona of schools across this nation might be described?

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaERHs8Q93E

Would your teachers describe their experience at your school site like the words in these songs..

Play a small section of the following songs..

Nine to five
Working, working, working day and night

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6P7aQtNpsA

The reality is that most educators spend more time at school than at home. So, it is essential to provide a positive school culture that supports our educators and recognizes them for their hard work and dedication to our schools and students.

Research has noted that 40 to 50% of new teachers leave the profession after 5 years. When interviewed these new teachers felt alone, unsupported and unsure how to succeed with their students. We know that teachers do not go into the profession of education to ruin the lives of students but some teachers just can not figure out how to manage their classes, lesson plan, or work with their teams. But, there is a way to counteract those issues in our schools and that is to provide a supportive school culture that is built on positive relationships and honors team work. This work begins with the leaders valuing what matters at the school site-- teams and working together.

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw29ecpDpoM

3 minute edited version of this video: My favorite part of this video is when Rita states, that, "Students don't learn from people they do not like". Relationships matter to everyone. Think about a time when you were working at a school and dreaded going to work? Think about a time when you just avoided talking to someone because you did not want to listen to their toxic words. What we say, what we do matters. It starts with us as the leaders. We have to be the role models of the expectations of how people are treated on our campus, students and staff alike.

One way to nurture a positive school culture is through celebrations/rituals/ceremonies that you promote as a leader.

We facilitate two collaborations per month after school and at each of those collaborations we honor our teams. We begin the year by having our administration team give our "Ultimate Team Award" to a team and then from that point on each team has the honor of giving that award to a team that they have worked with or appreciated their hard work in support of our students, school, and community. It is celebration of teamwork and also a collaboration ritual that highlights that teamwork matters as well as relationships. It is a simple way to begin each collaboration with a positive message of appreciation for hardworking teams.

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkuu0Lwb5EM


When you think about the relationships you have with your students, do these songs symbolize how people feel about the students?


Who let the dogs out?

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj3dIo8PDjs


Pink Floyd: We don't need no education

How about your students? Do they feel like the lyrics from this song? We don't need no educations... teacher leave me alone...

We have shared our rituals/celebrations to honor our teachers, but we have also implemented celebrations to honor our students:
Once a month we host a student of the month breakfast. This is organized by our librarian. Our Vertical Teams take turns honoring students that have shown progress, are role models on campus, and exemplify what it means to show respect and responsibility. We hold the breakfast during our ACE/homeroom time and invite their families to join us to celebrate their students. Each teacher says a few words about the student they are recognizing, they receive a certificate and they are honored in front of their family and friends. Parents love this morning and so do our students and staff.

Another way that we recognize/celebrate our students is through our ACE rewards program.
Every student that earns a "C" or higher, no "N's" and no "U's" on their progress reports and report cards is eligible for and ACE rewards sticker. This sticker is placed on the back of their student I.D card. This ACE rewards sticker is their ticket to early lunch rewards, special dances (during the school day) and also sports days. We know that the adolescent brain thrives on peer interactions and socialization and providing a positive way to make this happen for our students is a win -win situation.
We also have the 4.0 Nation stickers and if you are part of the 4.0 nation, you can go to the front of the line at lunch & all dances, and we also send out special 4.0 nation phone calls to the families.
These are two more ways to recognize our students for making good choices and working hard in school. Implementing the ACE rewards and 4.0 nation made it cool to do well in school versus having the attitude that the cool students were always failing. It changed our school culture immediately. No one wanted to miss an ACE dance or not get to go to lunch early. We went from having 60% of our students with a 3.0 GPA or higher to 85% of our students having a 3.0 or higher.

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M

When working to create a positive school culture it is important to highlight the good news of your school. What stories can you share with your staff that reflect student success as a result of the work that you have been working on as a team? What stories of accomplishment can you share? How can you use your students voices to highlight this work?

Celebrating work in professional learning through taking pictures of how that work was transferred into the classroom. This gives the teacher time to share his/her experience about how the work was implemented and also gives the other teachers an opportunity to learn from this teachers experiences.

I just take pictures of classroom practices that highlight the work that we focus on in our professional learning and ask teachers to share their work at our collaborations. This is a good way to celebrate the good work that is going on in our classrooms and celebrate our teachers that are trying new things and also implementing the learning from our collaboration times.

Sharing student work samples is another to highlight the work that we are doing in our collaboration time matters. It also is a great way to show case the thinking that we are doing as a staff in action. This work sample highlights our math teacher and how she added a reflection question to her test. This one simple addition to her test enabled her to understand this student at different level and connect with her about her fixed mindset and set some goals to change that. This work came from focusing on "Thinking Routines" in our professional learning time after school.

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anVweXDcxhA

Words matter--what we say and how we say it--how we refer to our students and the tone that we take.

Building a positive school culture means that we use words that signal respect with our students. We use academic language, call our students scholars, and work to use words that signal the growth mindset. Using this type of language with our students signals to our students that they are important to us and using academic language with them signals that we do consider them scholars and worthy of the best education.

Creating a clear focus for your staff and students about what you are working on as learners is important and often overlooked. If someone asked your teachers or students what the learning focus of your school is, what would your teachers or students say? What is your elevator speech?

Creating a shared language about learning for your teachers and students creates a strong voice about the work that you are working on as a team together. We do not work in secret-- everyone knows what we are trying to accomplish-- students and teachers alike.

This year, I am beginning every collaboration with a few minutes of student voice. What does that look like? Well, I take my iPad and ask students questions about the work that we are working on as a team. This is done randomly and also scripted depending on our focus for our collaboration.

Hearing what our students have to say, puts our work into a different perspective. We can listen to a few students and gauge if we are on track with our school culture, if student know our district learning focus, or know how to access our interventions on campus. Also, at the end of the year, we can review these videos and compare students answers from the beginning of the year to the end of the year to track if they changed their thinking or not?

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBEXSiFzOfU

Building a positive school culture is a big job but it can be done.

1. Do what you say you are going to do.
2. Focus on building relationships with your students and staff through celebrations of their work and accomplishments
3. Highlight work from the classroom and student work samples with pictures
4. Think about the words that you use with staff & students. Keep your language in the positive and with a growth mindset.
5. Embed student voice whenever you get a chance to reflect their progress as learners and your goals as a school
6. Never stop believing that you can create the best school on earth!