1. School Climate: What does it look like?
Dr. Summer Whitmore |

2. What is School Climate ?
The sum of the values, cultures, safety practices, and organizational structures within a school that cause it to function and react in particular ways.
School climate refers mostly to the school's effects on students, whereas school culture refers more to the way teachers and other staff members work together.

3. What is School Climate? Beliefs Values Traditions Behavioral Patterns
Safety Practices
Climate
Environment
The Way Things Are Done

4. must be: safe and productive
create a climate with a high expectancy of student success
be motivating and engaging for students

5. Toxic School Climate
View students as the problem rather than as their valued clients.
Believe they are doing the best they can and do not search out new ideas.
Frequently share stories and historical perspectives on the school that are often negative, discouraging, and demoralizing.
Complain, criticize, and distrust any new ideas, approaches, or suggestions for improvement raised by planning committees.
Rarely share ideas, materials, or solutions to classroom problems.
Have few ceremonies or school traditions that celebrate what is good and hopeful about their place of work.

6. Three Components of School Climate
Engagement: Includes relationships, respect for diversity, and school participation.
Safety: Includes emotional safety, physical safety, and reduction of substance use.
Environment: Includes the physical, academic, and disciplinary environments and wellness.

7. An Engaging Climate

8. An Engaging Climate
Engagement is defined as strong relationships between students, teachers, families, and schools, and strong connections between schools and the broader community.
Student connectedness or bonding

9. Student Engagement
Students demonstrate behavioral engagement through actions such as good attendance, following rules, completing assignments and coming to class prepared, and participating in class and in school activities.
Students are emotionally engaged when they like school, and are interested and identify with school. Students are cognitively engaged when they exert extra effort to do well in school, when they self-regulate, have high academic self-concept, and set goals for their academic success.

10. Engaging Climate: What does it look like?
Student participation in:
class,
completion of coursework,
and participation in extra-curricular activities
Leads to strong, proven links to attendance, test scores, and graduation

11. Faculty Engagement A climate of support, respect, cycle of feedback
Identification & commitment to common learning standards
Common lessons and assessments
Capacity of staff & increased teacher efficacy
Caring and positive relationships among staff and student
Higher quality of student learning

12. Faculty Engagement: What does it look like?
Focus on collaboration & communication
Talking about practice
Observing each other
Working on curriculum
Teaching each other

13. Family Engagement
Education is the shared responsibility of all stakeholders
Family involvement is a key factor in students’ improved learning
“Authentic partnerships” – significant engagement of families, schools, and communities
Partnerships need to be culturally relevant

14. Family Engagement: What does it look like?
Communicating—regular and meaningful two-way
Student learning—assisting student learning
Volunteering—supporting & assisting students & schools
School decision making & advocacy
Collaborating—using community resources

15. Family Engagement: What does it look like?
Share daily learning targets
Communicate positives each day
Involve families in the RTI process
Establish trusting relationships
Identify and encourage parent leaders

16. Family Engagement: Communication
Listening to the public & creating dialogue
Ensuring two-way communication
Building partnerships to promote the well-being of students
Providing multiple means for communicating with stakeholders, e.g., newsletters, home visits, electronic communications

17. Safe & Supportive Climate

18. Safe & Supportive Climate
Effects of a Supportive Climate
Safe & Supportive Climate
School safety is defined as schools and school-related activities where students are safe from violence, bullying, harassment, and substance use.
School climate improvement efforts promote emotional safety.

19. Safe & Supportive Climate
Effects of a Supportive Climate
Safe & Supportive Climate
When students experience a safe and supportive climate:
They have an increased sense of bonding to school and caring about their educational experience.
They are more likely to stay in school and achieve academically.
They are less likely to be involved in bullying and other antisocial behaviors.

20. Safe & Supportive Climate: What does it look like?
Effects of a Supportive Climate
Safe & Supportive Climate: What does it look like?
Help students understand effort-based ability
Provide time & opportunity for students to achieve
Attend to students’ interests, problems, accomplishments
Communicate caring & build rapport with students
Use culturally responsive pedagogy

21. Safe & Supportive Climate: What does it look like?
Effects of a Supportive Climate
Safe & Supportive Climate: What does it look like?
Reasonable expectations for behavior
Consistent & fair application of rules & regulations
Caring responsive relationships among adults & students
Warm, inviting classrooms—teachers as “warm demanders”—high standards with sufficient support
Communicate high expectations
Attends to students’ interests, problems, accomplishments

22. Safe & Supportive Climate: What does it look like?
Effects of a Supportive Climate
Safe & Supportive Climate: What does it look like?
Effective classroom management strategies include:
Teaching & reinforcing positive behaviors & skills
Appropriate physical layout
Specific, clear classroom routines & procedures
Explain, rehearse, reinforce classroom routines
Planned transitions between activities
Consistent standards across the school

23. School Climate: Environment

24. School Climate: Environment
A school environment is broadly characterized by its facilities, classrooms, school-based health supports, and disciplinary policies and practices.  It sets the stage for the external factors that affect students.

25. School Climate: Environment
Physical environment is related to both student achievement and student behavior.
Clean, safe, and secure facilities are essential to successful educational programs.
Physical environment is related to teachers’ levels of absenteeism, effort, effectiveness in the classroom, morale, and job satisfaction.

26. School Climate: Environment
Attain staff buy-in
Structure the student day
Teach preventative management strategies
Reinforce of pro-social behavior
Role-model of all desired behaviors
Integrate a Code of Conduct into daily instruction

27. Environment: Room Arrangement
Make sure all students can see and hear clearly (and teachers can see them clearly)
Arrangement is determined by learning activity (lecture, class discussion, small group work, etc.)
Allow room and easy access for proximity control
Think through class procedures and learning activities and arrange the room in the best possible way

28. Environment: What does it look like?
Morning line-up
Homeroom/announcements
Classroom instruction
Restroom breaks
Library/computer lab
Hallway movements (to and from other areas)
Assemblies
Cafeteria
Resource classes
Lunchroom
Lunch recess
Indoor recess
Office referrals
Detentions
Dismissal (walkers, bus room, etc.)

29. Environment: What does it look like?
Standing in line:
Practice makes perfect
Stand behind the next student
Bodies, heads, eyes, face forward
Keep in personal space
No talking

30. Environment: What does it look like?
Walking in the hallway:
No student talking, only teacher voice for directions
Keep to the right in halls and on stairs
Do not disrupt instruction in other classrooms
Keep hands off student work on walls
Consider it a challenge to be the best managed class in the school while moving in lines

31. How Will We Assess School Climate?
Climate surveys
Reduced conflicts
Decreases in absentee rate
Increases in informal positive socialization
A sense of community is evident 8

32.
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