School Climate is Crucial

School Climate is how students, parents, staff, and faculty feel about their school and its daily workings. It is typically measured in surveys and interviews. School Climate shows itself in numbers of suspensions and detentions, attendance rate, students’ GPA, graduation rate (if a high school), and students’ conduct marks. With the leaving of “No Child Left Behind” comes “The Every Student Succeeds Act” in 2017-2018. School Climate comes to the forefront as schools and districts now have to figure out how to include it in their school accountability rubrics.
Finally, the whole child and not just the test taking part of the child will be important. We spend so much time and effort conveying to young people the WHATs they need to do and rarely if ever help them explore The WHY/Their WHY for wanting to do school! Great classroom teachers know this formula and have been doing it forever. I am not certain, however, that districts and schools have been pushing WHYs to help enhance their school(s) climate.

We feel at Working 2gether Inc. there are 4 areas that need to be addressed, worked on, made culture, and daily supported.

1. Schoolwide the same motivational/inspirational message needs to be put out there. We use assemblies that pack motivation/information/inspiration into 52 minutes. Videos, spoken information, humor, and student participation help the young people explore WHY they want to do well. Each student walks away knowing why they want to do better. along with the foundations of some HOWS.
2. CBITSProgram.org studies and my own personal data from 50 small group counseling students show that many struggling students (and many students that are doing OK and doing well) are dealing with PTSD symptoms. cbitsprogram.org has had up to 60% of students in some areas dealing with the stress of traumatic incidents in their life. The data from my 50 students correlates with this number. Each school needs to have some type of counseling program that shows young people how to deal with this real set of feelings they have night and day. We use a combination of the wonderful CBITS program, motivational/inspirational videos, and our conflict resolution curriculum. Detentions, Suspensions, Disciplinary Transfers do not address the causes of the behaviors you see.
3. Each school needs to have a schoowide conflict resolution system. Teaching students how to solve problems, conflicts, arguments doesn’t happen on its own. We teach students that want to help other students and/or are “power player” students how to solve their conflicts with problem solving techniques. These students in turn can be used to help peer mediate stuff that typically takes up 30 minutes of an adult’s time. More importantly, the curriculum is taught during advisory or an academic class of choosing. It becomes a common language for the entire school just like the motivational assembly language becomes a part of the school.

4. Lastly, we feel one of the groups (speaking of “power players”) that has a giant effect on schools is student-athletes. They are typically leaders, looked up to, and large in numbers. Working 2gether Inc. has assemblies and E-Books that (once again) motivate/inform/inspire. We take the love for sports and turn it towards academic success and social conduct improvement. It is the same format that the school wide assemblies use...videos, spoken information, humor, and audience participation. Getting the parents to this seminar is key and they will come when it is presented as “How To Earn College Athletic Scholarships”. Once again, we focus on the WHY do you want to be successful and turn that towards the WHAT you need to do (be academically successful and treat everyone with respect) in order to compete for athletic scholarships.
+ > ÷ working 2gether is greater than being divided is our logo and rallying theme. School Climate is Crucial. School’s can do better...it is truly difficult because it takes work and collective energy. I’ve seen it happen. I know it can at your school.
The student-athlete E-Book is interactive. The motivational videos along with the written information will push your child/student to do their best. The Parent Guide (also interactive) will motivate you to focus on the most important parts of your child being a successful student- athlete. I’ve helped hundreds of student-athletes get to where they wanted to get. You can follow this blog (working 2gether tuesdays is posted every tuesday hahhhh) at weareworking2gether.org and you can email me at [email protected] .