What Comes Next?
The crisis has faded. Media have moved on to other news stories. School days have returned to a relatively normal routine. You’ve had time to catch your breath.
And now the real work begins.
Change is not easy, particularly long-term change involving a school’s climate or culture.
Roland S. Barth, educator and founder of the Principals’ Center at Harvard University, puts it this way: “All school cultures are incredibly resistant to change, which makes school improvement—from within or without—usually so futile. Unless teachers and administrators act to change the culture of a school, all innovations… will be destined to remain superficial window dressing, incapable of making much of a difference.”
This is where you, as an administrator, can make a real difference, by putting time, energy and resources toward improvement plans.
Educator Sonia Galaviz, an Idaho elementary schoolteacher, urges administrators to hold themselves and others to high standards. “The message is, ‘I’m willing to push myself, and you guys are coming with me,’ ” she said.
The push is worth it.
Increasingly, educational leaders at all levels acknowledge the role of climate in the successes and failings of schools. A steady stream of research—including studies by the National School Climate Center and the High School Survey of Student Engagement—indicates that a positive school climate reduces conflicts, harassment, bullying and violence, making schools safer and more inclusive. It also fosters social and civic development while gradually bolstering student academic performance as changes gain traction. A more positive school climate also can improve staff morale, boosting employee satisfaction and retention rates.
Enter this postcrisis phase with an open mind. The work to change the climate and culture of a school can turn long-held beliefs upside down.
When you closely examine patterns—in class assignments, in discipline referrals, in access to privileges and opportunities—you may discover that the school has been sending unintentional messages that result in stratification of the school community, with deep divisions between the “haves” and the “havenots.”
A good start for professional development is a Teaching Tolerance presentation, “Social Justice Equity Audits [1]."
Take a deep breath and keep the objective in mind—the desire to create a school where all are welcome and all can thrive.
Debriefing is an essential step in the postcrisis process. Bring together the incident response team to review lessons learned.
But don’t stop there.
“Always make sure there’s an opportunity for exchange with multiple perspectives,” advised Enid Pickett, a California elementary schoolteacher.
Expand the discussion to include students, parents and guardians, and community members. Thoughts and guidance from these constituents should be gathered, reviewed and prioritized as part of the effort for addressing shortcomings within the school community.
It’s best to carry out a facilitated meeting, with strong note taking. The objective is to develop a working list of specific improvements, which can become a road map for change. This list may indicate the need for policy changes, role assignments and skill building.
Here are some questions to get you started:
• What worked well?
• Where are there opportunities for improvement?
• What resources did we have, and how did we use them?
• What resources did we lack, and how might we introduce and use new resources in the future?
Steer answers away from simple finger-pointing or blaming.
Dr. James Comer, a child psychiatrist and educational researcher at Yale University, says that a school’s climate-improvement process works best with a “no-fault” framework. In this management style, when people or groups make miscalculations or mistakes in efforts to improve school climate, they are not blamed but receive reassurance, support, guidance and encouragement to try again. A no-fault framework develops trust, encourages initiative and promotes a culture that constructs success from setbacks.
“If you blame people you become defensive [and] fight more,” Comer said. “But if you focus on solving the problem then people start working together to focus on what’s really important and what’s good for the children.”
So steer clear of blame, but do not steer away from discomfort.
“I want us to be uncomfortable, to wake up in the middle of the night thinking about these things,” Pickett said. “I want us to be driving home and be bugged by this. I want us to challenge our own -isms, our own biases.”
You’ve debriefed, discussing the lessons learned. Now is the time to put those lessons to work.
Pull together a committee of effective, collaborative-minded people from among students, faculty, staff, parents and caregivers, and members of the larger community to create a school climate task force. Task force members should include not just traditional student leaders but representatives of multiple identity groups within the school.
A school climate coordinator can handle day-to-day planning and management of the task force, but committed leadership from the school’s top administrator is essential for success. The top administrator should promote the group strongly, reassure the school community that this is not just a feel-good exercise, and then back up the words with concrete actions.
Resources also must be provided, otherwise it will appear to be an empty effort. Support for these efforts is growing; increasingly, states are looking at school climate as a vital element in students’ ability to learn as well as teachers’ ability to teach.
“When schools improve school climate, they are safer,” said Dr. Jonathan Cohen, executive director of the National School Climate Center [2], a web-based resource founded in 1996 as the Center for Social and Emotional Education. “They have more positive outcomes, lower dropout rates and violence goes down.”
Of course, there are pitfalls. Here are some issues to anticipate:
Cynics and naysayers. Someone, likely more than one someone, will grumble and ask, “What’s another task force going to do?” Steer conversations to more constructive topics. Ask those who speak negatively about the effort to identify for you what they want to change in the school climate. Engage them in the effort in whatever way you can.
Finger-pointing and blaming. Shift negative or pessimistic comments toward a more constructive path, identifying opportunities for improvement and constructive changes in the school community.
Too much information. You risk getting bogged down by a lengthy list, with individuals championing pet projects. Create a process for prioritization that involves group input. Aim for a short list of high-priority changes.
One step at a time. Attempting to change a whole system can be paralyzing. Aim to identify individual changes that have the most potential impact. Take one step, then see what comes next.
Perception gaps. Teachers say the school is safe, but students say it isn’t. Or parents see bias-based bullying as a bigger problem than you do. These are areas where more discussion and more understanding are needed. Don’t dismiss the views you disagree with; take time to explore them, and be open to adjusting your outlook.
Work to navigate these pitfalls, but don’t allow them to derail the process. Give this effort time.
“School leaders don’t spend enough time in the action planning stage; they want to measure it and move right away to implementing,” said Dr. Jonathan Cohen of the National School Climate Center. “That’s understandable, but it gives short shrift to essential planning.”
This is a school, a place where students learn. There are history and art, math and science. There’s also an element of social emotional learning (SEL) that takes place at school. School is the most common place where young people interact with a broad spectrum of others, from different cultures and abilities, backgrounds and races.
This is where we can change the world.
Many educators are mission driven. They came to this profession with that world-changing notion in mind, knowing that the relationship between educator and student can be powerful and life-changing. There are people throughout your school who have hearts and a passion for this work. Some may have become jaded. Others may feel tired, overwhelmed by parts of the job that drain them of that original passion.
Now is the time for a plan steeped in hope—the hope that sensitivity and leadership training can genuinely improve school climate; the hope that we can develop compassion in students who will become culturally aware, community-building stewards of our future; the hope that we can make a difference.
Teaching Tolerance has had the opportunity to be present in the aftermath of several bias-related school crises. Certainly discussions dealt with aspects of the nine steps outlined in the crisis section of this guide. But the real power, the real hope, arrived in leadership and sensitivity training that involved students, staff and community members at these schools.
Social emotional learning (SEL) revolves around self-awareness and self-management, with an emphasis on social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision making. How do I manage my feelings? What sympathy and empathy do I have for others? How can I maintain positive relationships? And how can I deal with situations in a constructive and ethical manner?
Key to incidents of bias and hate that may occur at school, SEL promotes understanding of the self and others. Respecting differences. Managing strong emotions. Resisting negative peer pressure. Working cooperatively. Learning to manage and negotiate conflict nonviolently. Seeking and offering help.
SEL can be part of professional development. It can be used by teachers in classroom management, or by counselors in their work in schools. There can be special trainings. Parents and caregivers and the wider community can be involved.
The goal is to build capacity—in your school community and in the individuals who comprise that community. This will not only enrich your school, it also will make it less likely that a hate crime or bias incident will arise within the school. And if the incident comes from someone outside the school, you are all the more prepared to deal with it in a constructive, forward-looking manner.
What does a school community without this capacity look like?
“It’s a culture of fear,” said Enid Pickett, a California elementary schoolteacher. “People are afraid of engaging with each other. It closes people down.”
That’s why Sonia Galaviz, an Idaho elementary schoolteacher, calls on this kind of capacity building as a way of creating “a culture that exposes and deals with fears.”
“It’s time,” Galaviz said, “to see things in a different light.”
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Tools for Your Toolbox
Teaching Tolerance offers a presentation on Social Justice Equity Audits [1] (with guidelines for taking a school survey). The professional development presentation is designed to help educators move beyond simple accountability models to those that include an equity framework for school reform.
Tools for Your Toolbox that Encourage SEL
Links:
[1] http://www.tolerance.org/activity/social-justice-equity-audits
[2] http://www.schoolclimate.org/index.php
[3] http://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/documents/PBIS_factsheet_flier_web.pdf
[4] http://www.nonamecallingweek.org
[5] http://www.dayofsilence.org
[6] http://www.casel.org
[7] http://www.rootsofempathy.org
[8] http://strongkids.uoregon.edu/
[9] http://www.edutopia.org/social-emotional-learning