- Intense focus on school culture
- Students are comfortable talking with adults about academic and personal issues
- Verbal and written reflection shared among staff members
- Rituals (e.g. new student orientation; International Night; alumni reunions; etc.)
- Pick Me Ups (formal time to start each day as a community)
- A focus on professional development/life-long learning for staff members
- Inter-grade & across-grade student groupings
- Democratic governance
- Student leadership
- Respect and caring
- Diversity recognized and celebrated
- Clear policies and expectations for behavior
- Emphasis on reflection
- High attendance rate
- High graduation rate
- High college acceptance rate
- Low dropout rate
- Fun!
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Essentials for Culture
Just found this interesting as I'm reading for a grant:
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As I was reading through this list I realized that these are things that we are striving for already. I'd like to do some reading on the "pick me ups". The "circle time" in Texas was something like a common communal-type thing where students would lead the whole school and they could talk about different topics. It was also a time when students could apologize for a major offense they had committed. The students had the power to either accept or deny the apology. Talk about student empowerment! I hope we can develop something like this at North Marion in the future.
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