Thursday, April 26, 2012

Building a Culture without Cracks


Developing a school culture that puts student academic success at the center of all decisions is crucial to a school’s success.  In the middle grades, it is important to develop the whole student.  Great schools don’t allow any student to fall through the cracks. 

  1. A strong team or teams-Teams drive much of what we do in the middle school.  The purpose of the team must have student driven decisions. 

  1. Kid Centered-When students are at the center of decisions rather than curriculum, everything else falls into place.

  1. Never give up attitude-I believe that schools often tell parents and student why we can’t do something.  Instead of telling people what our limitations are as a school, why not explore all options that could help an individual student.

  1. Putting Programs in Place-With a never give up attitude, it would be easy to get frustrated if programs aren’t in place to support teachers that never give up.  As an example, if zeroes are not an option, then set up programs to support this belief.

  1. Developing a unified approach to student behavior-It is also important that the approach to student behavior fits the kid centered, never give up attitude.