School Culture Begins with Staff: A Great Tool for School Leaders

In the summer of 2000, I was cruising down the tortuous Old Pacific Highway 101 with three of my ninth grade students. It was a road trip that I had organized when I was teaching in a charter school in Cleveland, Ohio. I, along with three of my students, drove from Cleveland to California. It took us two weeks and 7,500 miles back and forth where we saw many “see before you die” type of places, had great fun, and came back with unforgettable memories. My students who are now successful college graduates and professionals still talk about the trip.

When I, once, was bragging about our trip to a traditional public school teacher he responded that he “would not take [his students] across the street, yet I took [my students] to California” with such amazement.  Now, I think about his response that is reminds me of another response that I got from one of my teachers when I was a charter school principal years later. When requested to do home visits to her students, this teacher responded to me that she “did not feel safe going to the neighborhood that our students lived in.”

One can hear similar comments from teachers about students, their families, neighborhoods that they live in, and their lifestyles in teacher lounges, Friday afternoon hang outs, and other gatherings. Ironically, same teachers may return to their schools next day and work on building a positive culture, culture of excellence, and other cliché culture types. A precondition to a strong, positive school culture in a school is building one amongst staff first. “The nature of relationships [and culture] among the adults within a school,” says Roland Barth in his article in the March 2006 issue of Educational Leadership, “has a greater influence on the character and quality of that school and on student accomplishment than anything else.” Therefore, school leaders should focus on building the type of culture they want to build for their students first with their staff. Best platform to build such a culture with staff is teacher orientations before schools begin, usually in August, each year. Summer orientations for teachers are great opportunities for school leaders who are conscientious about building a positive culture amongst their staff.

Almost all schools organize teacher orientations before new school year starts. Their goal is to orient their teachers who have been away from the school for about two months, may be more in most cases, to get them back into the teaching mode from the laid back, relaxed vacation mode. However, one can find orientations at both ends of the spectrum as they vary profoundly in terms of their characteristics such as content, length, and structure.

First of all, I believe, that name of the teacher orientations shall change to “Institutes.” Names like “CMSA Teacher Institute” or “Horizon Summer Institute” are associated with learning more than “teacher training” or “teacher orientation.” The word “institute” has a connotation of learning and intellect. Training sounds like someone will come in and show teachers how things are done as if they did not know. Trainings as usually perceived as flow of information in single direction, not interactive, not requiring much higher order thinking.

Planning for the teacher institutes shall be done collectively with all members of the administrative team, principal, dean of academics, dean of students, project coordinator, and any other administrator that are at the school. Following questions should guide planning for teacher institutes:

What do we want to accomplish by this institute?

What will be the underlying theme of the institute?

What messages do we need to get across the staff?

What areas do our teachers need to improve?

School leaders should never put together an institute just for the sake of having one. Institutes are great opportunities to accomplish culture amongst staff hence they shall be purposeful and planned strategically towards such a goal. What a start-up school wants to accomplish in an institute would be different than an established school. A start-up school’s underlying theme may be “teamwork” as opposed to that of an established school. An established school may focus on “academic rigor” or “data-driven quality instruction” as their underlying theme. For example; as a principal if my goal is to use data more effectively this year, I would plan and dedicate most of the institute on data-driven instruction through various presentations and activities and even books on such topic to make sure that my vision for the upcoming school year is shared by all and we start the year on the same page. Institutes have such a profound potential to leverage in sharing and accomplishing your vision. Schedule of your institute shall speak your vision for the school year. Institutes shall never be a compilation of various topics and presentations that are not interconnected.

What is as important as planning and content of the institute is physical space in which the institute is held. As we mentioned before institute is associated with learning…so should be the physical location where the institute is held. It is way more effective if the institute is held outside school. It brings a professional twist to it and sends a positive message to your staff that this is a big deal to you as a school leader.

Neighboring universities and colleges are best resources for this. They may charge a fee for it however; board members of the school could be utilized to get a room for free. You can also approach university with such a request to use it for free in exchange to using their catering services rather then eating lunch off campus. If you have a board members affiliated with a university they usually can get you a room. Universities have very nice air-conditioned rooms with multi-media systems and nice seats sometimes with an auditorium setting.

Main thing that a school leader shall keep in mind during the institute is the physical and emotional well being of his audience, teachers. Therefore, physical environment in which the institute is held is as important as the content. Once you reserve a room at a university/college ask for their catering companies and get the lunches (box lunch) catered. Eating lunch without leaving facilities saves people so much time. It also gives your staff an opportunity to socialize over lunch. Besides nice lunches, it is as important to have beverages throughout the day, which again could be organized through the catering company. Leaving this to a professional company will alleviate the principal’s stress and worry over such small things that make a big difference. Preparing beverages and drinks sometimes takes a lot of time and can never be as professional as a catering company when done by the school staff. However, if this is not an option and school ends up providing beverages, I recommend getting Starbucks coffee not Dunkin Donuts and high quality snacks. Little more investment in such a small thing will send a very strong message to your staff that everything we do here is first class, which could be the type of culture that you want to build for your school.

There may be different opinions about how long the institute should be. I will not argue how long it should be. However, I can tell you how long it should not be. Teacher institutes shall not be 2-3 days and right before school starts. That is what most traditional failing public schools do. Charter schools are not here to do the same thing hence maintain status quo. We are here to do it better than this old, stagnant, and failing public system does. Therefore, based on our past experience, I suggest that teachers submit back to school two or three weeks before the school starts.

Once the underlying theme is determined collectively with the administrative and key staff member then you can focus on the content of the institute. One of the things that shall be avoided is that one person dominates the institute with presentations and activities. What naturally happens in such planning is that usually principal ends up with undertaking more than any other administrator in the planning team. Principals shall avoid this by delegating these items to other team members as appropriate as possible. There are certain items such as mission and vision of the school that shall be done by principal. However, topics such as history and people of the school, organizational chart, some of the team building activities, books discussions can easily be done by someone other than the principal. Principal shall not feel an obligation to present most of these topics. Such teamwork at the administrative level will be a model to rest of the staff in the institute.

In order to have a successful institute following components should be part of the institute:

• Mission and Vision of the school
• Goals for the upcoming school year
• Reading a book outside the institutes regular hours followed by a discussion session
• Team building activities
• Case studies/open discussions/brain storming sessions
• A field day/picnic/an outdoor activity
• History and people of the school
• Organizational structure of the school
• Reflections
• Recognitions
• Evaluation of the sessions by the staff
• Funny movies, clips, cartoon, and jokes
• Excitement

It is crucial that the principal exudes excitement and positive energy during the institute. “Let’s get this done and get it over with. We do this because every school does it” kind of attitude will defy the purpose of the institute more than anything else. I highly recommend that school leader puts every thing aside as much as possible and focuses only on the program.

How to develop a shared vision for your school requires a separate presentation if it is a start up school. In establishing a shared vision transparency may be the most important thing to have. Following should be done with all staff participation and high transparency in order to develop a vision that is shared by all members of your community.

	Present all data to staff -test scores -attendance -student retention -staff retention -discipline				-academically -organizational -discipline -culture -community -rigor -parent relations

Where we are?                                                                                                Where we want to be?

When this is done together not only your staff will develop ownership, but also they will come up with their “own” ideas that principal may or may not necessarily think of for various challenges at the school. Power of a process like this shall never be underestimated. Activities like this one send a strong message to the staff that this is “OUR” school; “WE” will solve “OUR” problems “TOGETHER.” You as a school leader treat your staff as professionals, value and count their ideas by sharing such data with your staff and asking them develop the vision with you. Remember “you can not influence anyone until they think they influence you.” If you want to influence you staff let yourself be influenced by them. Activity above may also determine what your goals should be for the upcoming school year. Main thing about the goals is that they should be SMART goals. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. If you set up a goal as “we will raise reading scores 15% this year you shall set up timelines to check where you are relative to you goal. It could be that we will raise the reading scores 5% by January and 15% by June and you shall test students to see if 5% increase has made by January.

“If you do not read you can not lead.”  This shall be our guide and as school leaders we need to model this not only at individual level but also at staff level. Reading a book outside the institute brings rigor to the program. This could be done mainly in two different ways:

1-    You can assign chapters of the book to different groups

2-    Staff can read it outside the institute and have a discussion session

Below is a short list of books that could be read at institutes with your staff:

1-    Why Do Black Kids Sit Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Tatum

2-    Courageous Conversations About Race by Glenn E. Singleton

3-     Start Teacher of Children in Poverty by Martin Haberman

4-    A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby Pane

5-    Teaching From the Heart by Sharon Draper

6-    Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire by Rafe Esquith

7-    17 Qualities of a Team Player by John Maxwell

Regardless of how established is your school you always have new staff members and need to strengthen your team. Therefore, team-building activities are crucial at the institutes. Based on your budget challenge or rope courses are ideal team-building activities. However, there are many activities that you can do without leaving the room in which the institute is held.

Case studies are great tools to get your message across to you’re your staff in a creative and engaging way. The reason that case studies are so successful may be dedicated to components of adult learning. One of the main components of adult learning is modeling and engagement. That is exactly what case studies accomplish. They engage everyone and make them think and reflect to it on their own ways.

Your goal shall be to bring your staff to where you want them to be tactfully and even appreciate the way they did it at the end. For instance if you have implementing data-driven instruction at your school you could do it in such a way that staff would end up saying that they need data-driven instruction. This would create way more ownership than it would when it is a top-down decision. You can either find case studies for your topics or you can easily write them as you wish.

If your institute is more than four days you shall include a field day around middle or towards the end of the institute. This could even be a picnic where staff spends some leisure time together, play games, and interact in an informal setting. Outdoor events are a nice break from an intensive program. As I mentioned before if your budget allows you to do a rope course or a challenge course is highly recommended. They are usually all day events with instructors and different themes.

One of the complaints that I have heard over and over from teachers that I got to interview has been that they did not know who did what and who to go to when they had a concern or need at their former workplaces. This could be nipped in the bud with a nice and comprehensive presentation to your staff. Such presentation shall include a chart and explain the following questions:

What are different positions in our school?

What are their responsibilities?

When do you go to these individuals?

Who reports to whom and for what?

It is important that your staff knows everything about how the school works and is on the same page. This will alleviate confusions and prevent future problems. This is a good example of communication, which is always a source of complaints in schools.

Reflections shall be done on a daily basis. At the end of the day staff shall get into a circle and reflect on what they have learned that particular day and pose any questions and comments that they have regarding the day. Reflections are nice way to close the day and usually are positive. You shall end your day with reflections. Below are some real comments that teachers have made in different institutions that I attended.

“I had lost my faith in public education until this institute. This week I reinstated that faith…”

“I have never seen anything like this. I do not think there are schools that do this kind of intense trainings”

“I feel like I have known these people for years. I feel so comfortable with everybody…”

“I have learnt so much even as an experienced teacher…”

“We could do this for another week. I have never learnt so much in one week…”

Principals shall collect data from their staff to improve the institute. The best of doing so is to have the staff evaluate each session as soon as the session is over. Refrain from doing evaluations at the end of the conference and ask your staff to evaluate a session from five days ago. There is a sample evaluation at the end of this document for you to use. Please feel free to modify it as you wish.

Due to the fact that some of the presentations during the institute is less interactive than others principals shall include some fun in the institute. You can find some funny videos off of the Internet and show couples of these everyday. They may be related to the topic but it is not always necessary.  Another important aspect of presentation is that they could be brightened up with related cartoons. You can find some cartoon through web site of New Yorker Magazine or some other web pages and use them in your presentations as appropriate. Such things bring laughter to presentations and brighten things up… especially if you are doing a presentation about employee handbook.

It is important that the principal who runs the institute exudes enthusiasm and passion about the institute. Your message shall be that learning is important for all of us and that is why we are educators, as we need to model it to our students. Learning that starts with the summer institute and will continue throughout the school year.

Spending two structured, well organized, and intentional two weeks before your school stars is invaluable for culture building with staff. Efforts to do so, however, need to continue throughout the school year. Principals need to take every opportunity such as professional development days, staff meetings to reinforce the values that they wanted to instill in teachers during summer institutes. In addition to professional development days and staff meetings, principals may organize staff retreats. Staff retreats could be mini institutes. They could be shorter versions of what is done at teacher institutes. Schools leaders should be strategic about building a culture with their staff. Effective schools leaders know that you cannot build a strong, positive culture with your students prior to building one with your staff.