Culture

Participants in support-staff meeting brainstorm to create individualized behavior plan for student. Principal and school counselor describe goals of meeting and components of behavior plans, including providing student mentors and conducting informal check-ins. Support staff also includes nurse, head secretary, and security staff.

During the two featured home visits, pairs of staff members explain the commitment to excellence contract, nonnegotiable policies, and the zero tolerance for fighting policy. They then ask the parents about their child as a learner. At the end of the visit, the parents and students complete an exit ticket.

A group of adults at the school's parent academy rotate through the classrooms during a day that mirrors students' first day of school. The parents learn about uniforms, homework, school history, and sign the school contract.

Principal talks about how she and her staff set the rules for students wearing uniforms on the first day of school and gives her rationale for the policy. She also explains how she determined that the uniform policy needed tighter controls, as well as how she began enforcing the new uniform policy.

Eighth-grade teacher explains student orientation in which students are taught schoolwide policies and procedures before school starts. Assistant principal and 8th-grade student share steps on referral and discipline ladder system. Team conference shows student and two teachers discussing missing assignments. Student also describes lunchtime detention.

Principal talks about how school plan codified details around schoolwide practices and importance of consistency over strategies to eliminate vagueness around behavior policies. Discussion of hiring process and applicants' commitment to school mission. Eighth-grade teacher's view on how plan clarified opening routines, referral ladder, and tardies.

Sixth-grade teacher describes purpose and impact of behavior-focused, grade-level team meetings. Includes students talking with teachers and brainstorming on how to improve their behavior. Glimpse into how teachers address persistent inappropriate behavior.

A teacher and a principal conduct a norming activity with the school staff to ensure consistent responses to student behavior. After a scenario is read, staff members discuss and vote on how they would respond and arrive at a unified decision about how to consistently respond to the behavior.

Staff members role-play explaining the zero tolerance for fighting policy to a student and parent. The "parent" expresses concern and disagreement, and the staff members work to persuade the parent to agree with the policy. When the role-play concludes, other staff members ask questions and give feedback about the scenario.

Eighth-grade students attend group meeting on self-esteem and self-awareness issues led by outside facilitators. Social worker refers to history, purpose, and impact of intervention and how practice promotes student accountability. She also explains how students are referred to group by teachers or parents, based on students' behavior patterns.

Assistant principal conducts "teach-to" with 6th-grade boys on rules of behavior in auditorium. She and 7th-grade teacher discuss how modeling behavior makes expectations explicit to students. Also includes 6th-grader explaining how policies and procedures are communicated during orientation.

Principal and vice-principal describe primary issues around school climate and discuss structures implemented to communicate schoolwide expectations, monitor and address student behavior, and establish mutual respect between adults and students. Eighth-grade student shares his thoughts about how school addresses behavioral issues.

Faculty provides background on school's two gender-specific classes for students in need of social support or intervention. Principal and students explain purpose and benefits of the classes: "Ladies-in-Training" and "Men-in-Training."

Principals and students explain how school created incentive system to reward students for positive behavior and academic performance. Principal shares her view on how to build a "culture of pride" with positive feedback. Glimpse into principal cheering for students' successes.

Schedule detailing a charter school "culture camp," an intensive three-day introduction to expectations and behavioral rules for students held at the beginning of the school year. Teachers use modeling and other strategies to explicitly teach activities such as transitions, appropriate classroom behavior, and cultural routines such as the school chant.

Table of contents of a charter school culture manual is used to norm faculty on expectations for student behavior. Includes descriptions of overall goals, classroom messages and strategies, details of school behavior system, strategies for parent engagement, character education curriculum, and details of the school's beginning-of-year "culture camp."

Job description for a charter school dean of students that emphasizes the position's role in establishing and maintaining school culture. Responsibilities include positive student behavior, parent engagement, community relationships and partnerships, character education, and leading professional development on culture and behavioral issues.

Forty-five page handbook on school goals, policies, procedures, and expectations for students and parents. Topics include mission/vision, attendance, health, safety, promotion requirements, college-readiness strategies, code of conduct, school culture, field trips, admissions, homework, and communication. Must be signed by parents and students.

Forms used to monitor daily student behavior and aggregate behavioral data. Skills are differentiated by grade level, beginning with core behavioral and academic skills listed at the bottom of the first document for younger students, and are supplemented for older students by more complex skills, as listed on the second document for eighth-grade students.

Document details comprehensive system of behavioral standards used to teach, measure, and plan instruction around social and emotional skills. Explicit skill-based standards include specific indicators of behaviors associated with each standard and link behavioral skills to student learning goals in three broad domains—character, academics, and...

Forty-three page handbook consists of two main parts: School Culture and School Expectations. First part describes school's culture, core values, academic goals, and student expectations. Second part describes rewards and consequences for student behavior regarding school policies. Includes rationales for policies. Student and parent must sign.

Two-day student orientation agenda covering rules, procedures, and consequences. Includes detailed checklist for teachers to review explicit expectations in areas such as using planners, school rules, homework policy, weekly grade reports, make-up work, absent/tardy policies, dress code, and discipline policies. Students take quiz on these topics.

Four lesson plans and related materials for teaching new middle school students rituals, routines, and expectations during a summer orientation. Co-developed by student leaders, lessons cover organization, dress code, lockers, and knowledge of key procedures and people at the school. Emphasis is on teaching new students the rationale for specific norms.

Guide used to align "Prep Skills" behavioral standards with schoolwide learning goals and identify specific teaching strategies to support those goals. It provides teachers with consistent language to identify and discuss student behavior, as well as examples of teacher actions that support skills and goals.

Survey tool given to students to evaluate the learning environment in their classes. Student ratings are reviewed by teachers to help them assess their classroom-management skills through the lens of their students. The process provides impetus for further reflection and discussion of classroom-management techniques with peers and administrators.

High school attendance and behavior policies, including topics such as excused and unexcused absences, tardiness, dress code, and electronic devices. Also includes progression of consequences for students who accumulate unexcused absences (from lunch detention to parental contact).

Seventeen-page outline of systems, policies, and procedures for students and staff to support schoolwide consistency. Details expectations in implementing discipline system, classroom management, data-driven instruction, curriculum, professional development, daily procedures and routines, and school culture.

PowerPoint presentation used to introduce charter school students to the school's six schoolwide character-based habits, including academics, attitude, behavior and pride, a "no excuses" attitude, courtesy, and teamwork. The habits were developed to ensure consistent cultural expectations among students and staff.

High school remedial attendance plan for students that outlines hierarchy of consequences for continuous absences: parent call, in-school suspension, after-school detention, Saturday School, loss of off-campus privileges, and Student Attendance Review Board. Must be signed by parent, student, and advisor. Plan is monitored daily.

Forms for middle school students to apply for leadership roles in summer orientation for new students. Student leaders co-design and lead orientation learning activities to teach incoming students school norms and expectations. Application includes forms for students, their parents, and teachers. Emphasis is on traits needed to serve as role models.

A charter high school employs comprehensive, descriptive tools—including a teacher-evaluation rubric, teacher-observation guidelines, teacher portfolio samples, and a teacher self-appraisal—to judge evidence of quality teaching as part of an evaluation and promotion system.

A charter middle school develops a character education program that includes a comprehensive set of behavioral standards aligned with student learning objectives, clear descriptions of expected behavior, daily assessment and feedback by all teachers, and instructional planning based on analysis of aggregated behavioral data.

Videos highlight how staff members prepare for and conduct home visits to orient and welcome new students and their parents to school. The school conducts training each year to ensure that the message at every home visit is consistent and that all staff members are culturally competent when entering students' homes as guests.

A charter school's orientation programs build clarity around rules, policies, and consequences for infractions. Videos show a parent academy, a PD exercise for norming teachers' responses to student behavior, and a principal's rationale for enforcing school uniforms.

A middle school enlists students to design and deliver a summer orientation to teach new students school rules, expectations, and procedures. Using students to lead the training builds positive peer relationships and student ownership of school norms while also ensuring that orientation activities are engaging and meaningful.

To foster consistent behavioral expectations, a charter school develops a detailed manual and intensive professional development for teachers, implements a three-day "Culture Camp" for students, and adds a dean of students position focused exclusively on school culture.

A preterm session for incoming students at a charter middle school provides an introduction to expectations and procedures. Keys to the program's efficacy include integration with classroom settings and content, as well as ongoing lesson planning that helps reinforce systems for teachers.

A middle school principal emphasizes schoolwide rigor by distributing leadership opportunities and responsibilities across teachers, staff, and students. Keys to the principal's approach include ensuring that students regularly review established norms and have the opportunity to serve as leaders, along with dispersing leadership responsibilities to focus on...

A combination of incentives and interventions ensures students come to school. Here, Principal Tyrone Hobson describes how, as a newly appointed principal, he led the creation of these systems after his school was targeted for high absenteeism.

School leaders address low student attendance by quickly implementing a highly visible series of incentives and consequences, thereby messaging a new leadership approach to students and staff and making clear that concerns related to school culture would be dealt with decisively and consistently.

A small cadre of school staff runs a student-attendance monitoring system that identifies students with excessive absences on a daily basis and tracks how well the school is following up on those students. In this profile, the new principal who implemented this system explains how his approach was meant to ensure adults took responsibility for addressing low...

School leaders personally set the tone for and deliver messages about attendance and academic expectations to individual eighth-graders in administrator-led student conferences each summer and mid-year. In this profile, school leaders explain how they implemented this practice to more fully engage these students and keep them from falling off track in their...

A first-year principal creates an orderly and positive school climate in her first several weeks on the job by establishing new expectations for student and staff behavior. In this profile, the principal explains how she determined that the school's lack of clear procedures was resulting in a disorderly environment and how she employed modeling and...

Teachers at Dora Moore teach only one or two subjects, allowing them to develop expertise in particular content areas. Here, Principal Joan Wamsley describes how she boosted the effectiveness of this approach after becoming principal, through professional development and a plan for consistent student discipline.

An incoming principal sets the stage for more focused collaboration around instruction by tapping an existing committee to create schoolwide expectations around behavior. In this profile, Principal Dana Williams explains how she leveraged existing structures to implement a socioemotional curriculum that fostered common expectations.

At Gertz-Ressler, students who fail to turn in their homework are not given zeros but instead may be required to stay after school until they complete it. In this profile, school leaders explain how they implemented a "No-Zero" policy after realizing that the threat of getting zeros for assignments was not inducing students to complete their homework.

A high school creates tools and systems to help teachers reinforce schoolwide rules, improve classroom-management skills, and address student behavior issues.

To foster a strong sense of community, a principal at a combined middle and high school created a "house" system, clearly enforced behavioral expectations, and adopted the early college model to emphasize college readiness and engagement.

A charter school's tools to promote parent engagement and improve school culture include a database to track parent participation in events, parent surveys, and explicit cultural expectations for students and staff.

Administrators at an elementary school build a common language around negative behaviors to address student safety and focus daily classroom meetings on providing a venue for students to discuss concerns.

Explores ways to support teachers and students to address discipline and behavior issues in a way that is mutually respectful and positive. Highlights how interventions can support struggling students and help to build relationships between teachers and students.

Focuses on the practices the leadership team puts in place to define "The Bruce Randolph Way" and how they develop a plan to describe the systems, structure, and protocols of the school. Demonstrates how the school uses the "Challenge 2010" plan as a tool to define a school culture and support new teachers in successfully managing their classrooms.

Highlights how a principal leads a cultural turnaround of a failing middle school by implementing programs to develop a progressive discipline system and by establishing schoolwide rituals, routines, and slogans to forge a healthy school culture and climate.