School Culture: The Hidden Curriculum Walk into any truly excellent school and you can feel it almost immediately — a calm, orderly atmosphere that hums with an exciting, vibrant sense of purposefulness just under the surface. Students carry themselves with poise and confidence.

School Culture: The Hidden Curriculum Teachers talk about their work with intensity and professionalism. And despite the sense of serious business at hand, both teachers and students seem happy and confident rather than stressed. Everyone seems to know who they are and why they are there, and children and staff treat each other with the respect due to full partners in an important enterprise.- Craig D. Gerald

School Culture: The Hidden Curriculum According to Deal and Peterson, research suggests that a strong, positive culture serves several beneficial functions, including the following: Fostering effort and productivity. Improving collegial and collaborative activities that in turn promote better communication and problem solving. Supporting successful change and improvement efforts.

School Culture: The Hidden Curriculum Building commitment and helping students and teachers identify with the school. Amplifying energy and motivation of staff members and students. Focusing attention and daily behavior on what is important and valued.

School Culture Triage Survey Rankings 1= never 2= rarely 3= some 4= often 5= almost always or always

Scoring the School Culture Triage Survey The lowest triage score is 17 and the highest score is 85. After using the triage questions in several program evaluations, our data suggest the following: 17–40 Critical and immediate attention necessary. Conduct a full-scale assessment of your school’s culture and invest all available resources in repairing and healing the culture. 41–59 Modifications and improvements are necessary. Begin with a more intense assessment of your school’s culture to determine which area is in most need of improvement.

Scoring the School Culture Triage Survey 60–75 Monitor and maintain making positive adjustments. 76–85 Amazing! We have never had a score higher than 75!

Teachers and staff discuss instructional strategies and curriculum issues. Teachers and staff work together to develop the school schedule. Teachers and staff are involved in the decision- making process with regard to materials and resources

The student behavior code is a result of collaboration and consensus among staff. The planning and organizational time allotted to teachers and staff is used to plan as collective units/teams rather than as separate individuals. Teachers and staff tell stories of celebrations that support the school's values.

Teachers and staff visit/talk/meet outside of the school to enjoy each others' company. Our school reflects a true "sense" of community. Our school schedule reflects frequent communication opportunities for teachers and staff.

Our school supports and appreciates the sharing of new ideas by members of our school. There is a rich and robust tradition of rituals and celebrations including holidays, special events and recognition of goal attainment. When something is not working in our school, the faculty and staff predict and prevent rather than react and repair.

School members are interdependent and value each other. Members of our school community seek alternatives to problems/issues rather than repeating what we have always done. Members of our school community seek to define the problem/issue rather than blame others.

The school staff is empowered to make instructional decisions rather than waiting for supervisors to tell them what to do. People work here because they enjoy and choose to be here.

Strengths of our Culture

Areas of Focus

Outliers

Next Steps

School Culture: The Hidden Curriculum As educators come under greater pressure to achieve much better and more equitable student outcomes, they will need to leverage every tool available to them, including organizational culture.- Craig D. Gerald

School Culture: The Hidden Curriculum As Michael Fullan puts it, "Reculturing is a contact sport that involves hard, labor- intensive work." But it is a sport that must be played more aggressively if our schools are to achieve the kinds of results we now expect of them.