Culture and Climate
Helping schools guarantee excellent, inclusive, and equitable learning for all.
School Culture and Climate services are designed to facilitate the essential knowledge, skills, practices, and policies that empower all schools to develop school climates and cultures that support high levels of academic achievement for every student.
Culture and Climate Services
- Culture is the collective beliefs, personality and practices (written and unwritten rules) that shape and influence every aspect of how an organization functions
- Climate is the "feel" or general atmosphere of an organization that is determined by the collective mood, attitude, and morale of its people.
Culture
Equity, School Culture and Cultural Competence
In order to achieve an equitable and inclusive education system, we must identify, address, and eliminate the biases and barriers that cripple our students' cognitive and social development.
Educational equity is becoming a crucial goal for all districts.
"Educational equity is when educational practices, policies, supports, curricula, school resources, and school cultures are such that all students have access to, participate and make progress in high quality learning experiences in order to reach academic success and positive outcomes regardless of race, SES, gender, dis/ability, religion, or other characteristics."
-Fraser, 1998: Great Lakes Equity Center, 2012.
Equity, School Culture, and Cultural Competence Support
Equity, School Culture and Cultural Competence support is provided on three levels: district, school, and classroom through coaching, facilitation, and professional learning offerings.
District
- SEED
- Restorative Practices
- Implicit Bias Training
School
- Courageous Conversations & Equity Literacy
- Staff Culture & Climate Survey
- Student Voice Panels
Classroom
- Culturally Responsive Teaching
- Building Relationships
- Classroom Management and Empathy
Climate
School Climate Improvement
Students learn best when they are in environments in which they feel safe, supported, challenged, and accepted. In addition, environments that have strong school climates foster the social, emotional, and academic well-being of all students. Research shows that when schools and districts effectively focus on improving school climate, students are more likely to engage in the curriculum, achieve academically, and develop positive relationships; students are less likely to exhibit problem behaviors; and teacher turnover is lower and teacher satisfaction is higher.
Services are offered to guide schools and districts in developing and coordinating intentional, purposeful, and relevant strategies to improve school climate. Services have been developed to accomplish the following:
- Engage teachers, students and parents in assessing and improving the school climate via the Comprehensive School Climate Survey (CSCI-developed by the National School Climate Center)
- Offer opportunities to teachers, staff and non-district stakeholders to collaborate in creating a vision of student and teacher success.
- Use relative school data to develop strategies to achieve teacher and student success, and own the process.
- Assist teachers, staff and non-district staff in creating a socially just teaching and learning environment.
A positive school climate reflects attention to fostering social and physical safety, providing support that enables students and staff to realize high behavioral and academic standards as well as encouraging and maintaining respectful, trusting, and caring relationships throughout the school community.
-U. S. Department of Education, Office of Safe and Healthy Students, 2016.
How Services are Offered
School Climate Improvement Services can accessed through professional development offerings in our catalogue offerings, or pushed into buildings. Building services are offered via assessment, coaching, and professional developments.
Why Culture and Climate Matter
An effective school culture/climate is essential to ensuring that all students reach their potential. Ineffective climates diminish a staff’s collective efficacy and student learning. Inequitable cultures don’t allow ALL students to reach their educational goals. Understanding the difference between culture and climate is critical.
