What makes a good school culture.

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Harvard Education: What Makes A Good School CultureExamined 37 Items

In this Sampson Blog series, I will talk about the latest Harvard Graduate School of Education article pertaining to developing your organizational culture of excellence.

Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) @hgse

Principals: What elements contribute to positive school culture?

Parsing its components can be challenging, but Ebony BridwellMitchell — an expert in # education leadership and management — shares insight with @UKnowHGSE.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/18/07/…

What Makes a Good School Culture? gse.harvard.edu 336 7:30 PM - Jul 28, 2018 219 people are talking about this

Analyzing 5 Critical components about your core values: 1). Assumptions: We still have adults who assume that a zip code determines the future destination of a student. Many teachers will read this and say "that's not me!" And many of you are correct, but we all know that one, two, three or more in the school building that make these assumptions. We permit these people to eat our positive culture like it's ice cream on a hot day. T he kids aren't innocent in this thought process. Some kids arrive with this negative assumption branded in their souls and thoughts by external factors. As a school, we have 6 to 7 hours per day/ 180-days per year, to drive these negative forces out.

2). Shared Values: Are we all on the same page! We can all agree that life is different for every adult and student. When teachers and students enter our school, do we have a shared value on the journey? Do we have clarity in the purpose? Is there an unspoken value-system that needs to be addressed? I can't make assumptions about the value-systems of every school and learning community, this is something that each school has to discover, evaluate, and act upon.

LibertyLD.com

3). Norms: We can easily fall into a pattern of behavior and go down a rabbit hole without realizing it. T his summer I rented a boat and the boating company gave me explicit directions, very clear and detailed, on how to follow the waterway signs. T hese signs help guide the "Norms" of boating in the channel, regardless of how many years of experience you have on the water. So, having written norms of engagement and behavior can serve as a great "channel marker" for schools. T he norms helps us inspect what we expect.

4). Patterns and Behaviors: T he breakdown of organizations comes in the human behaviors.

Have you ever sat in a team or school-wide meeting and everyone agrees on the path forward? And by the end of the school day, some people never follow through on what we all agreed on. T he simplest things like standing by your door during class changes and greeting your students when they enter the class. Or, implementing common procedures for taking student attendance. T hese small patterns can add to the systemic dysfunction of an organization. So, imagine when T he Ohio Department of Education rolls out a revamped

strategic plan for 145,000 educators to systemically contribute to the individual success of 1.7 million students. T he patterns and behaviors from each school and school district has to align with the outcomes of the local and state strategic plan, in order for this thing to work.

There's an Irish proverb:

It's time to do!

5). Tangible Evidence: Does your school have a culture that values the stories, experiences, and history of the organization. In most schools there was/is typically one person in charge of curating the school's historical experiences through pictures, documents, and videos. With the wide-spread use of smart phones, each member of the organization is empowered to become a curator of the institutionalized experiences. Great school districts such as Pickerington Local Schools, Delaware City School, Olentangy Local Schools and Bishop Hartley High School have a strategic commitment of empowering teachers in CapturingCurating-Sharing great stories about their students and the community's core-values. Now, everyone's tangible evidence is neatly captured in Snapchat, Instagram, Wakelet, T witter, Facebook, Seesaw, ClassDojo, and more.

See the graphic below

Elite organizations have a culture of empowering people to contribute evidence of their experiences.Â

A small collection of Tweets as examples of Great School Culture Pickerington Local Schools

Brian Seymour

@SeymourEducate

T he @PLSD # EdTech team on the Pass T he Scope Podcast talking about how we got to be named the 2018 IST E Distinguished District. # PLSDProud # IST E18

20 8:33 PM - Jun 26, 2018 See Brian Seymour's other Tweets

Jen Lennox-Chiudioni @MrsLCMusic

Proud of you, @Spencermusic1 for all or your hard work! A sellout crowd at @promowestlive tonight. You’ve made @PLSD very proud! # plsdproud

15 11:14 PM - Jul 28, 2018 See Jen Lennox-Chiudioni

's other Tweets

Stephanie Howell @mrshowell24

@TollGateMiddle Might be a little upfront work but I am getting closer to making our PRIDE Points work! :) Here is a little preview.# plsdproud

2 6:26 PM - Jul 27, 2018 See Stephanie Howell's other Tweets

Matt Dansby @Mr_Dansby

What an engaging experience for our @plsd middle school students. # PLSDproud

32 10:52 PM - Jul 25, 2018 · Pickerington, OH See Matt Dansby's other Tweets

Pickerington Schools @PLSD

Congrats to the Treasurer’s Office, which has recently received two awards for excellence in financial reporting for our fiscal year 2017 Popular Annual Financial Report (PAFR) and Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). # PLSDproud Read more at pickerington.k12.oh.us/news/8822/

32 9:11 PM - Jul 19, 2018 See Pickerington Schools's other Tweets

Bishop Hartley High School

Bishop Hartley High @BishopHartley

2 11:35 PM - Jun 22, 2018 See Bishop Hartley High's other Tweets

Bishop Hartley High @BishopHartley

4 5:06 PM - Jun 30, 2018 See Bishop Hartley High's other Tweets

Hartley Football @HartleyFootball

Hawks are the CHAMPIONS! Big 18-16 win over @Kenton_Football to win the title! Going to be a great year! # JustPlay

83 8:33 PM - Jul 21, 2018 21 people are talking about this

Hartley Athletics @hartleyhawks

Class of 1968 on tour at Bishop Hartley. Ready for Honors Physics in lecture hall. # Alumni

10 9:00 PM - Jul 28, 2018 See Hartley Athletics's other Tweets

Olentangy Local School District

Jonathan Juravich @JJuravich

T his year has been a beautiful whirlwind, personally and professionally. And now... it is such an honor to be selected to represent the incredible educators of the state of Ohio for the 2019 Awards for Teaching Excellence. # ohiototy twitter.com/neafoundation/‌ The NEA Foundation @NEAFoundation SO EXCITED to share that 46 educators have been named as recipients of the 2019 @CalCasInsurance Awards for Teaching Excellence! That's our biggest class yet. Meet them here: bit.ly/2uWCjyg #neafproud #neafgala

39 11:28 PM - Jul 24, 2018 See Jonathan Juravich's other Tweets

Jonathan Juravich @JJuravich

T his is 1 of my works that was accepted in the Riffe Gallery’s “Art Educators as Artists” Exhibition this fall/winter. T his piece is titled “T he Stuff Left Behind.” In the 9 months after I was named # ohiototy , 37 K-12 student lives were taken in school shootings. # NT OY18

58 10:00 PM - Jul 15, 2018 18 people are talking about this

Olentangy Schools @OlentangySD

Communication with our stakeholders is a key part of how we achieve our mission to facilitate maximum learning for every student. T hat's why we've created this Quality Profile video that provides valuable insights regarding our work to uphold our mission: youtu.be/YBrrG5R1npY

7 7:16 PM - May 25, 2018 See Olentangy Schools's other Tweets

SuperOLSD @SuperOlsd

Congratulations to all the SMS Citizens of the Month. Great to see students recognized for displaying great character. # livethemission

32 11:17 AM - May 9, 2018 See SuperOLSD's other Tweets

Joshua E Perry @RIP_JEP

Recap of the first annual @joshuaperryff youth football camp! It was a successful day instructing 200 campers, while collecting school supply donations and registering voters! T hanks to all of our sponsors as well!

132 8:02 PM - Jun 25, 2018 22 people are talking about this

Marching Pioneers @OrangeBandFans

Join us on Wednesday July 4th for the Orange Township Celebration! @OOHSprincipal @OOHSFootball @ishbahcox @orangefbcoach # IndependenceDay # unit60 # CantTameUs # Gr18tbychoice

28 12:08 PM - Jul 1, 2018 See Marching Pioneers's other Tweets

Olentangy Schools @OlentangySD

Teachers from across Olentangy are honing their skills, exchanging ideas and collaborating during T hink Tank, an annual two-day professional development conference organized entirely by district staff and being held this week at OLHS.

35 12:51 PM - May 31, 2018 See Olentangy Schools's other Tweets

Delaware City Schools

Paul Craft

@PaulCraft_Ohio

We are proud to sponsor today’s Strand showing of “Wonder”, with all donations benefitting People in Need!

70 2:10 PM - Jun 19, 2018 See Paul Craft's other Tweets

Heidi Kegley @HeidiSKegley

T hanks for supporting our kids!!!!@hartmajohn twitter.com/hartmajohn/sta…

14 10:20 PM - Jul 13, 2018 See Heidi Kegley's other Tweets

Melissa Crohen @CrohenM

O H... # csopwp # DCS_pacers @hayesband

2 11:42 PM - Jul 28, 2018 See Melissa Crohen's other Tweets

DelawareCity Schools @DCS_Pacers

Great night for the @hayesband food truck festival! Bring the family to the fairgrounds to enjoy awesome food, music, face painting and more!

22 11:20 AM - Jul 28, 2018 See DelawareCity Schools's other Tweets

Paolo DeMaria

@OHEducationSupt

I always enjoy reading chronicles of successful public schools especially in Ohio. T his recent Fordham Institute report @OhioGadfly features Near West Intergenerational School in Cleveland. bit.ly/2up64Y7 9 1:51 PM - Jul 20, 2018 See Paolo DeMaria's other Tweets Powered by