School Climate and Culture Vis-à-Vis Student Learning by Bulach Cletus R.;Lunenburg Frederick C.;Potter Les; & Fred C. Lunenburg & Les Potter

Author:Bulach, Cletus R.;Lunenburg, Frederick C.;Potter, Les; & Fred C. Lunenburg & Les Potter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated

Chapter 3

Implementing a Plan to Improve the Climate and Culture of the School

The control culture and the system of redirects should be firmly established by this time. The groundwork should have been laid for improving the culture of the school, and servant leadership should be in place at the school and classroom level. The values and beliefs of the teachers and students governing human interactions should have been identified through the “expectations diagnosis.” Administrators and teachers should have received feedback on how their leadership is being accepted by subordinates.

According to Danielson (2002), a culture of respect and responsiveness for clients is very important if school improvement is to take place. The four-step process for identifying and reshaping the culture of a school demonstrated to faculty and students that the leaders are listening and care about them. Administrators and faculty are still very much in control, but control has been shifted to faculty and students. Remember the earlier statement in chapter 1: People want to be in a highly controlled environment, but still want to have some control. A lack of control causes resistance and poor motivation.

The final step the authors describe in chapter 2 is collecting data on the culture and climate of the school. This is necessary for developing a school-improvement plan (SIP) for the next school year. The principal needs to explain to the faculty that the mission of the school is to improve the quality of instruction and create a caring learning environment. How the faculty will be involved in using this data is crucial for creating a vision to accomplish this mission. In this chapter, the authors explain how the faculty can be involved; how to analyze and utilize the data; and how to compare data before and after the implementation of the SIP.

Stolp and Smith (1995) discussed the principal’s role in creating a vision for his or her school. They maintained that the principal should be a facilitator in the process and should not impose his or her own beliefs on the faculty. This opinion is shared by others who have also written extensively on creating a vision for a positive organizational culture (Cunningham & Gresso, 1993; Fullan, 2009; Senge, 1990).

According to Stolp and Smith (1995), the characteristics of such a culture are as follows: “The organization’s members must listen to one another, feel empowered to change the organization, have confidence in their ability to improve their performance, think critically and gather data about where the organization is at present, and hold strong convictions about the ideals that should guide their work in the future” (p. 69).

DECIDING HOW TO PROCEED

In the first part of Phase I, control is shifted to faculty and students, and conditions are created for improving levels of trust between the administration and teachers. This creates an environment for a positive organizational culture to develop. If levels of trust are to continue improving, teachers have to be involved in developing the improvement plan. According to King (2002), the role of principals has changed.

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