A Warm and Inviting
School Climate
By Jill Jenkins
Creating a positive school climate
is complex because it involves keeping teachers and staff happy, keeping
parents and guardians happy and keeping students both happy and
challenged. The administrators have to
juggle all of the groups and maintain fair and reasonable rules of procedure
all while appearing to be the as happy and inviting as a used-car
salesman. This is not an easy task.
Civility is the first order of business.
Teachers have to model civility to students and parents and
administrators need to treat everyone with civility. The only way students learn good manners and
civility is to be treated that way. Equity is the second key to keeping
everyone happy. Procedures and rules
need to be administrated consistently.
Finally recognizing quality performance in students, faculty and staff
is key to keeping everyone happy.
Most parents want their child to
have every opportunity and to be treated fairly. They want their child to be held accountable,
but not treated too severely. They want their child to perform well
academically, but to not be overwhelmed. These are the good parents who want to be
kept abreast of upcoming assignments, skills their child needs help with and get an
occasional pat on the back for being a good parent, but they aren’t the only
parents you will encounter as a teacher or a principal. When administrators enforce
rules consistently, parents and students usually accept the consequences, but
if there is even one breach in modus operandi, some parents will begin fishing for
that loop hole.
For example, one set of parents who did just
that kind fishing did not want their son sent to in-school suspension
regardless of the number of classes in which he was tardy. It didn’t matter to them what the school
policy was; tardiness didn’t matter. One vice principal beaten down by their
endless assaults relented and everyone suffered. When their son, Bob, was found by the school
police officer at the nearby 7-11 when he was assigned to be in my Language
Arts class, they were mortified to learn from the vice principal that the
school policy required that he serve one day suspension for his Ferris Buehler
one period holiday, and that he would not be allowed to make up any tests or
assignments he missed during that class period, they assured the vice principal that
it was the school officer’s fault that he was absent. Their son had called his mother from 7-11 and told her that
he was only there to pick up a snack before returning to my class to take his
test. Therefore, it was the school
officer’s fault that he missed the class.
He would have only been late, but instead he was sent to the vice
principal’s office, so it wasn’t his fault.
When the vice principal, would not accept her explanation, Bob’s mother
called me. It was just as I was leaving
school, and I stupidly picked up the telephone.
Bob’s mother began her harangue for about thirty minutes and whenever I
tried to intervene, she would ask me to stop interrupting her. Finally, I was desperate, because I had
already spent almost ten hours at school and I had to pick up my husband
(teachers have lives too), but she hadn’t let up. It occurred to me that her
technique for getting her son excused from in-school suspensions was to simply
become so difficult that it was easier to give in to her. This woman was a bully, but she had just met
the immovable force. Yes, I could have
saved time and just let her son take the test.
It probably would have no bearing on his grade since he rarely paid
attention or studied, but if Anne Sullivan had given in to Helen Keller and
take the easy road as her parents had, Anne would never had become the person
she became, so I decided to hold strong and I hoped the principal would back
me. I said, “I’m sorry that you don’t
agree with the policy, but I’m only a teacher.
My job is to enforce the policy.
If you want the policy changed, you will have to talk to the principal. Good bye.”
I hung up the phone and left.
The next morning the principal thanked me because the mother immediately
called her and told her I had hung up on her, but I said goodbye first. The principal had to stay an extra hour to pacify
this parent that had gone from a little heated to irate, even livid. The principal had not given into her, but she
had spent a considerable amount of time placating this parent. She said the trick was to let parents
vent. Another principal tells me that
the trick is to let the calls go to voice mail, listen to their angry tirade,
collect all the facts and call them back. Still another principal tells me the
trick is to let it go to voice mail, listen to their angry tirade, collect all
the facts and call them back when you know they aren’t going to be there and
leave a voice message. (If only I had known these tricks before I picked up
that phone.) Regardless of the method a
principal chooses to use to deal with difficult parents, please deal with them.
As a teacher when you deal with a difficult parent, collect all the facts and
give them to the administrators so they aren’t blindsided by an irritated parent
with a phone. Parents like this are especially difficult when they appear in
your room unannounced just as first period is beginning and your class is
looking hopelessly as they parade past the parent's tirade or when they appear at your door while you are teaching
and try to wave you into the hallway.
Administrators need to take a firm stand with parents that they are not
allowed to interrupt a teacher during class time.
Keeping the faculty and staff happy
is easy. First, feed them at meetings. Second, stick to an agenda, keep meetings
short and to the point; don’t waste their time.
Third, treat all of the faculty members the same. If a teacher isn’t doing his/her job, missing
meetings, or isn’t working as a team player, don’t hesitate to call him/her in
and tell him/her. If a teacher is doing
a great job, don’t hesitate to call him/her in and tell him/her. Fourth, keep
organized and communicate all upcoming events to teachers and staff. No one wants to be surprised with last minute a schedule
change. Everyone is the school is
planning lessons and activities, so it is important to give them enough time
that if they need to change their classroom schedule, they can. Fifth and most importantly, handle the
difficult parents and students. No matter
how skilled your teaching staff is there are going to be unreasonable parents
and destructive students. Make sure your
staff knows that “you’ve got their back.” This also means that when a principal
uses a short cut to relieve himself of a teacher he perceives as incompetent,
the rest of the faculty becomes very insecure, even when he may be justified. In most school, there is a long procedure for
relieving a school of an incompetent teacher.
Some principals will merely transfer those teachers from one school to
another when they become overstaffed. This means they are sharing their grief
with another school, not solving the problem. Regardless of how long and
cumbersome the process is, the principal should follow it. When a faculty learns that a principal is
placing notes in a teacher’s mail box suggesting they transfer to another
school that has an opening or when a principal reduces an experienced teacher’s
schedule to part-time while keeping less experienced teacher full time, he is
sending a message to his entire faculty that “you could be next.” Instead of sharpening teacher’s game, it
builds mistrust. All teachers need to be treated fairly even if the procedure is time-consuming. Procedures are designed
to protect teachers from unfair prejudice of an administrator while still
identifying incompetent teachers. By
following those procedures, the faculty feels that treating everyone fairly is
a priority of the principal. Sixth,
listen to your teachers. One principal create a board of directors who met with
him for lunch once a month. He was able
to keep abreast of the teachers’ frustrations and problems. This allowed him to
solve problems and it made the faculty feel like they had a voice.
Keeping the students happy is not
that difficult. First, most students get
bored in school because many classes are not interactive enough. Look at this research down by a veteran
teacher who shadowed two students for a day: “Granted and thoughts on education”
by Grant Wiggins. Encourage your
teachers through workshops to make their teaching more interactive. Second, most students like to hear when they
have done something well. In the 1990’s
I presented my principal with the idea of giving students cards when we caught
them doing something well. The program
is still in effect today, but it has improved.
When the students receives what we originally called PAWS pass, they
take to the office and receive a piece of candy and the put their card with
their name on it into a drawing. At the
end of the week, several tickets are selected for larger prizes. The teacher who gave out the most Paws Passes
gets a prize too (usually a $5.00 gift card to a local café.) Another way, to give students recognition is
to encourage them to participate in contests:
PTA Reflections, writing contests, arts contest, school contests like
Chalk the Walk and athletic teams. When a team or an individual wins announce
it. Hang the pictures of students in the
hall. For example to encourage reading,
I used to take my camera and wander Reading and Language Arts classes to snap
pictures of students reading during their Silent Sustained Reading time
(S.S.R.), or their Drop Everything and Read Time (D.EA.R.). We hung these in the hallway. Everyone likes to feel like a winner.
Keeping a positive school climate is
not easy and it is not accomplished in one step. It really takes buy-in from your faculty and
staff. Administrators need to go the
extra mile to recognize the teachers and students who make a difference. When everyone works together to make the school
a more pleasant place to work, everyone wins. Start by greeting your staff and
faculty as they arrive in the morning.
Persuade your staff to stand in the hall and greet their students as
they come into class. Remember encourage
them to think positively about their students. Start a campaign to say
something positive to each student as they enter a classroom. Send positive
postcards home to students. Treat everyone with respect and dignity. Positive attitudes of administrators and staff
can become contagious. Invite parents to
serve on committees, participate in activities, and in the classroom. The more they feel involved the more they
support the school. Support the teachers
for the few parents and students who don’t catch the bug. Spread good will.
