developing a strong school culture

Creating a school culture that fosters positive youth development

A Collaboration between MCCPSE and re(DESIGN)

2008-2009

"As the origin of the name implies, culture is akin to, yet somewhat different, from the cultivation of a plant. One can plan its course, trim it and shape it here and there but it also has autonomy of its own, and it tends to develop and grow over time. The harvest can never be precisely foretold. The soil and the climate have to be right as indeed the seeds.”

-- S. Ramachander

Features of A Strong School Culture (1)

– It grows from the mission

– It creates an “Asset-Rich” School environment: providing all members of the school community with access to (1) caring relationships; (2) high expectations; and (3) meaningful participation

– It has a well-conceived, and articulated vision and plan for fostering in all members of the school community with a sense of connectedness

Features of A Strong School Culture (2)

One Can Participate in

– Ceremony

– Ritual

– Rites

– Celebrations

– Routines

One can find

• Shared Stories• Role

models/Heroes• Symbols• Logos/Images• Oft-repeated

phrases

Common School Culture Problems

– The cultural features don’t promote the school’s mission;

– There isn’t agreement (or consistent support) amongst community members on the daily routines and rituals, causing cultural fractures;

– The features aren’t strong or engaging enough to foster connectedness and loyalty, so an active sub-culture (or counter-culture) develops;

– The features don’t support or legitimate the cultural values of various community members, AND don’t provide a way to discuss this;

– The culture is overly focused on student behavior and the consequences for students’ missteps;

Facilitating Student

Engagement

First Pillar:Rigorous Academics

Second Pillar: Positive Youth Development

Third PillarAn Affirming Community

Set & meet high expectations

•Students graduate with a college acceptance.

•Students write research papers, conduct experiments, publish blogs, and maintain a digital portfolio of their work.

•Working closely with an Advocate Advisor, students will create both a graduation plan AND a post-graduate plan.

•Students participate in Internships. •The community regularly creates opportunities for students to demonstrate and celebrate academic, social and emotional growth.

Contribute to the community

•Teachers and students determine, and then adopt, democratic principles for classroom management routines.

•Students tutor each other. •Students participate in the identification of curriculum themes

•Older, more experienced or particularly successful students mentor newer students, or students who are struggling.

•Students teach classes

•Students plan and run groups: anger management, substance abuse, sex ed., etc.

•Students participate in and even co-facilitate critical committees and events (hiring, conflict mediation, orientation, mentoring, etc.)

•Students staff a “Mouse Squad,” repairing and trouble-shooting HSEI’s technology products.

Use one’s own voice powerfully

Develop a sense of personal mastery

•Students use technology to create and publish products. Students adopt a set of personal learning goals, working with teachers to assess their progress towards their goals.

•Students and the teacher co-create a rubric to evaluate learning at the end of a unit.

•Students will work with their Advocate Advisor to assess progress towards meeting personal goals, and make mid-course corrections as is appropriate.•Students create personal rituals/routines that help them settle into work, maintain focus while working, or troubleshoot problems during work time.

•Students produce events, projects and activities on behalf of the full school community: dances, rallies, mentoring new students, etc.

•Students explore NYC, visiting museums, concerts, plays and community events.

•Students organize and complete a community service project.

Facilitating Student

Engagement

First Pillar:Rigorous Academics

Second Pillar: + Youth Development

Third PillarAn Affirming Community

Exercise choice wisely

•Students have the opportunity to identify and research their own questions during a unit of study.

•Using technology and mixed-media, teachers differentiate resources, products and processes to accommodate students’ needs and interests.

•Students work with their Advocate Advisor to make in and out-of-school decisions that will positively impact their tenure at HSEI.

•Students visit and evaluate a range of post-secondary academic programs and professional workplaces to inform their post-graduate planning.

•Students collaborate in creating and implementing the school’s policies and practices with regard to creating an inclusive and affirming community.

•Students use the skills of conflict mediation and problem-solving to strengthen and nurture HSEI’s community.

Know and be known by one another

•Teachers & students regularly confer (1:1 and in small groups) about student learning, quality of work, appropriate course modifications, etc.•Teachers and families regularly communicate (by phone and email, as well as through progress reports) about student progress: growth and areas for improvement

•Students develop strong relationships with adult and student members of their Advisory Group.

•Advocate Advisor’s operate as students’ “Primary Person,” building strong, positive relationships that support students in all aspects of their development.

•The community regularly celebrates and acknowledges students’ academic, social and emotional growth; and publically supports students in their efforts to achieve this.

•Teachers collaborate with parents and students on the creation of school-wide events, such as orientation, college information sessions, and celebrations.

Responding to “Counter-Cultural” Behavior

Question 1: Why is this behavior occurring? Typically different students will behave the same way for

different reasons. Examples:

1. Some students will curse because they want to get a reaction out of you. Some will curse because they ’ve never been in a situation where they had to monitor their speech and they don’t have this level of impulse control.

2. Some students are out of dress code one day because they are pushing boundaries. Some are homeless and couldn’t wash their uniform the night before.

3. Some students cut class because they are bored. Some cut class to have a cigarette because of a nicotine addiction.


Question 2: How do you want to respond to the behavior? Schools typically create a uniform response to all behavior, regardless of the catalyst: on the surface this makes life “simpler” for everyone, and makes it seem that there is a coherent set of cultural norms at work: we treat everyone the same way, and this is fair.

Question 3: What’s the problem with this approach? It expects students to both understand AND buy into the school’s cultural norms. It tends to ignore students’ need to LEARN and ACCEPT the norms.


Schools tend to overlook the powerful youth development opportunity available in this arena:

– we are willing to teach students how to read, complete labs, or figure out linear equations,

– we often believe that “students should ALREADY know how to act.”

– we “tell” them (repeatedly) what to do, rather than teach them.


Here’s what “Telling” students what to do looks like:

Sent out of classSent out of class Mtg. w/

the Student

Mtg. w/ the

Student

DetentionsDetentions

Calls HomeCalls Home

Family Confer-ences

Family Confer-ences

Send-HomesSend-Homes Suspen-

sionsSuspen-

sions

Counsel-Outs

Counsel-Outs

Expul-sionsExpul-sions

ContractsContracts

Sometimes it changes behavior, sometimes it doesn’t. It depends on (1) why the student is behaving counter-culturally; (2) how connected they are to the institution; AND (3) how much control they have over their behavior.

Found in the

building

Found in the

building


Question 4: What’s the alternative to one-size-fits-all?

A combination of:a. school-wide institutional norms for the most

serious behaviors: theft, violence, weapons, and drugs;

b. set of more individualized (or what I call “buckets” of) norms for behaviors students may not have learned to manage: anger/impulse management (if it’s not dangerous), attention, defiance of authority, stamina for the length and intensity of the school day, addiction, etc.


School-wide institutional norms for the most serious behaviors: theft, violence, weapons, and drugs:

• These responses tend to be limited to suspension, expulsion (and arrest).

• School’s need to have very clear guidelines for the policies and processes they will use to make sure that these are used fairly and appropriately.

• Special considerations are sometimes made for specific special education classifications.


A Mission-Driven Individualized set of norms for students who:

(1)Have unusual reasons for behaving counter-culturally;

(2)Are not initially/inherently “connected” to the institution;

(3)Don’t YET have enough control over their behavior.

Student Support 1- Academic Issues 2- Health Issues 3- System Issues

Definition of “problem”

Little/No academic progress made: unable to focus, unable to read or write well enough to participate, attendance impacting understanding, attendance impacting production of activities/projects, cognitive processing issue, lack of higher-order thinking skills, lack of critical background knowledge, lack of skills for managing time, and planning for the completion of work, lack of time, space, or discipline for homework completion

ADD/ADHD, sensory integration syndrome. PTSD from: abuse, neglect, abandonement. Issues with men or women in authority, issues with authority in general, weakened impulse control and anger management, depression, low-self esteem and sense of efficacy, chronic fatigue, poor nutrition, pregnancy, substance abuse, STD's

Executive functioning problems; unable/unwilling to "submit" to the HSEI-way; unable to habituate to the HSEI-way (forgets or gets confused about routines and procedures); cannot overcome boredom, frustration, impulse control, anger issues, and low-self-esteem, enough to consistently survive the "HSEI-way"

What it looks like:

Missed homework; Missed class-work, sloppy finished products, lack of finished products, poor test and quiz scores, disorganized notes and notebooks, repeated exclamations such as "I hate this class." "I can't do ___." "You never explain things so that I can understand them." "I'm bored." "Can you help me...I need help...I can't start until you help me."

Students who lash out, fall asleep, cut class, dismiss themselves when they become too frustrated or bored, or if they feel someone is trying to dominate them. Students construct another as a "bad guy"-- teachers, students or administrators--who is responsible for their issues. Students who miss school due to substance abuse, depression, fatigue from parenting or jobs. Students who can't adapt to certain kinds of teachers and teaching styles (male, authoritative, unstructured, etc.)

Students who intentionally don't follow the HSEI-way: dress-code, cell hone policy, lunch policy, etc. Students who forget to follow dress code, and other components of the HSEI-way. Students who aren't organized enough to follow the HSEI-way: don't do their laundry and have no clean clothes, don't have an alarm clock and oversleep consistently, etc. Students who lash out, fall asleep, cut class, dismiss themselves when they become too frustrated or bored, or if they feel someone is trying to dominate them.

Current Available Interventions

IEP, OH, Tutoring, in-class modifications/acomodations available in some classrooms and to some students: a workshop approach, with essential questions and projects; access to readling/skill level appropriate texts and materials, access to technology, preferential seating, work with the ELL TA, multiple entry-points into new material, multiple options for finished products.

LICSW, Nurse, referrals

LICSW behavior modification, class send-outs, de-escalation in the Student Support Center, demerits, feathers, contracts, shortened schedule, detention, suspension…ultimately, expulsion.

Potential Future Interventions

School-wide adoption of the above practices. Training teachers and students in literacy skills, metacognitive skills, and strategies for improved executive functioning. Borader array of entry-level courses as the year goes on (for repeat failures as well as new students): algebra 1, beginning bio, environmental science, etc.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy (small groups and 1:1); full school training by a group such as http://www.youthatrisk.org.uk/; student/advisor healthy decisionmaking plans and goals, a mentor, neuropsych testing, indvidualized interventions for behavior beyond the sts. control. Staff development on responding effectively to manifestations of student trauma. Full school training in peer mediation and conflict resolution.

Strategically chosen classes. Beginning, middle and end of the day check-in on things to remember (for the disorganized/forgetful), mood/temperament/goals( for the "resisters"), co-creation and/or facilitation of community-meeting or advisory, specifically related to a student's difficulties, a role in school committees or student leadership, a role in mentoring or mediation, a job, a mentor. Implementation of a Student Counsel/Student Court. Advisory Curriculum on personal responsibility and goal-setting. Immersion in a college prep. program/environment: college visits, on-line college courses, college course with peers, etc.

developing a strong school culture

Education