School climate is an essential issue in schools. Over the
last few years, many school leaders have let the importance of a positive
school climate fall to the way side due to the many other issues schools and
education are facing. As a principal and school leader, it is your
responsibility to help create positive attitude and a positive school culture.
Four ways to create a positive school culture are:
Attitude
- Be leader who likes to build bridges. Find the positive attributes in the teachers and students you work with and meet. Make lasting connections. Greet students as they enter the school or classroom and hang student work around the school where visitors can see it. Treating teachers and students like they are doing the right thing (until they prove you otherwise), can help people feel like you trust them
Confronting negative behavior is a positive way.
- When a school leader sees that a teacher’s attitude has become more negative, it is important they confront it. I would do this by sitting them down and point out that they don’t seem to be as happy or as enthusiastic as they use to be. It may be a personal matter that the teacher may not even realize has caused a change in their behavior.
Recognizing teachers when they have accomplished something
great, this could be done by recognizing them in staff meetings in front of
other teachers, pointing them out in newsletters/memos, etc.
- It can be extremely beneficial for positive teacher attitudes, if they are recognized for their accomplishments. If a teacher is showing a positive attitude, such as encouraging creativity, it is important that they be recognized for it. This will allow the school leader to inspire the teacher to continue with the positive attitude while also trying to get other teachers to adopt the behavior as their own.
Make sure the schools curriculum includes the diverse
student population
- The student population in schools is continuing to become more divers. The books in the library or assigned as reading, the curriculum taught in class, the books/stories read and told to students, etc. needs to depict the lives of all the students sitting the classrooms. Noting depicting the lives of students of varying races, ethnicity, religions, can be teaching these student that they do not matter. As educators, we need to be showing and teaching students from all backgrounds that they matter.
