Understanding school climate and culture can help your school leaders make informed decisions, strengthen relationships, and create a learning environment where students and staff feel safe, supported, and engaged. Bottom line? A positive school climate and culture lead to better educational outcomes and a more positive school experience for everyone involved.
What impact does a positive school climate and culture have?
Research shows that a positive school climate can impact schools in the following ways (and many, many more):
- Improve academic performance, including grades, test scores, and graduation rates
- Increase attendance
- Improve student engagement
- Increase retention of students and teachers
- Reduce bullying and other school safety concerns
- Promote student well-being and mental health
What is a positive culture in schools?
We know it’s important. But what does it look like?
A healthy school environment is one in which students, teachers, and families feel safe and valued. It’s an environment where students are challenged, and there are clear behavioral and academic expectations.
Your school culture is projected from the moment somebody pulls into the parking lot. Edutopia contributing author, Paul G Young, discusses the “purple cow experience” in terms of how to build school culture. In a world that is bombarded with negativity daily, a healthy and positive experience can be your school’s purple cow. He writes:
Minor interactions can have a big impact on staff, students, families, and anyone who calls or visits your school.
~ Paul G. Young
Starr Hill gives us five steps toward building a healthy school climate and culture:
- Don’t make assumptions.
- Give your educational community a voice — to ask, to get answers, to question. (no shushing!)
- Everybody has value in a community, bringing their own set of skills and gifts ~ students, staff, administration, teachers, and families.
- Uniqueness and differences strengthen communities.
- Allow students, teachers, and the community to pursue their passions ~ life outside of school!
To build this culture, though, you need the blueprint. School teachers experience burnout when new principals, superintendents, and the school board come in with sweeping changes that will “save education.” As an online survey company that has worked with hundreds of thousands of organizations around the world, we recommend you start by listening, asking, and then based on your community’s unique needs, challenges, and strengths, you can act.
What are the Advantages of CustomInsight’s School Climate and Culture Survey?
- Our online survey platform uses the latest research and was designed collaboratively between education and psychometric experts.
- Parents, students, and teachers can take the survey to help school and school district leaders better understand their school, school district, and community needs. All three components can be done in combination or separately.
- FocalEDU’s survey questions are validated and research-based, designed to evaluate the K-12 experience, including elementary, middle, and high school.
- The results are displayed in an interactive dashboard highlighting bright spots, growth areas, and demographic and stakeholder gaps. We leverage cutting-edge AI to support data analysis and action planning.
- Our clients will be supported by the education and psychometric testing experts who designed the survey.
- Focal EDU combines our school climate survey and our employee engagement survey, giving you a robust picture of several elements impacting your school environment. Our employee engagement survey has national benchmarks that allow you to see how your school and/or district is performing compared to thousands of organizations across various industries, as well as compared to other school districts.
We equip schools with actionable insights to improve learning and community engagement. We would love to work with you.
