School Culture and Leadership Principal

Before our new principal started two years ago, I considered transferring. Two of my colleagues had also left over the previous year. Morale was generally low, parents complained a lot, and I heard rumors in the community about our school. We were the brunt of jokes, but I felt powerless to do anything about it because I was not in a position of leadership or in any position to tell our principal that something needed to change in order to improve the culture of the school. Thankfully, the former principal moved out of state and the position was soon filled with a transformational leader that has radically turned around our school’s culture. The result has been improved student outcomes, improved teacher retention and job satisfaction, and a greater engagement with the community. Now, when the old jokes about our school resurface, people almost always react with, “Yeah but you should see it now!” The parents are of course more thrilled than anyone.
What is working well now can be boiled down to a few strategic initiatives. One of the first things that the new principle did was to create orientation sessions and activities that reflected the tenor of the school’s culture. The orientation activities create a “sense of belonging,” essentially transforming the school into core community (Habegger, 2008, p. 43). Orientation was not just a one-day affair, either. Parents had a full week, with extended hours in the evenings, to bring in their children and receive tours of the school from none other than former students who received class credit for their work. The effect was wonderful—the older students giving the tour received valuable leadership and public speaking experience, engendering a sense of self-confidence and also making them feel like their education was valuable on a deeply personal level. We noticed this especially when the older students were giving tours to their younger siblings or to their younger siblings’ friends and their families. Orientation options were also created throughout the year to welcome new student transfers, which minimized stress and helped the new students feel welcome and adapt to their new surroundings.
These orientation sessions reflect the ISLLC standards of performance, in which “the vision and mission of the school are effectively communicated to staff, parents, students, and community members, and also “the vision and mission are communicated through the use of symbols, ceremonies, stories, and similar activities,” (ISLLC Standards, n.d.). Likewise, the new principal had a knack for motivating students, including underachievers. The methods used to motivate students were based on evidence-based practice, in accordance with the ISLLC standards, and included things like simply offering students the opportunity to “buy in” to their education, participating in the construction of their own school culture (Prokopchuk, 2016, p. 74). One of the most notable leadership behaviors our now not-so-new principal has demonstrated is a knack for listening. The culture at the school is now fully supportive, because all the staff feels listened to, and so do the parents and the students. With an open-door office policy, the principal welcomes and actively solicits feedback. The school now has a Twitter feed, which is run jointly by one of the teachers and volunteer students.
All of these changes have had a net positive effect on our school culture. If I had to reflect on what was not working well, it would be hard to do that without hearkening back to the old days. What was not working then was a total lack of cultural cohesion—we had lost a sense of our school identity. Reflecting on the future of our school, the only thing I would want to change would be to acquire more funding to make some key structural improvements that need to be made. I would say that if there is anything our principal might be able to do better, it would be lobbying more aggressively with the school board to solicit funding—and if that were not possible, then to come up with more creative solutions for locating that funding within the community.







References

Habegger, S. (2008). The principal’s role in successful schools. Principal. https://www.naesp.org/sites/default/files/resources/1/Principal/2008/S-O_p42.pdf
“ISLLC Standards,” (n.d.). https://www2.fgcu.edu/coe/faculty/valesky/ISLLCStandards.htm
Prokopchuk, J. (2016). Unpacking the impact of school culture. SELU Research Review Journal, 1(2), 73–82.