Mar 30 2008
Chapter 9 Oakes and Lipton: The School Culture
This is not a good week to talk about school culture. Maybe that’s why Rhina assigned it. I found out about a month that our assistant principal would be leaving to take a Principal’s position in Paulding County. Then, we found out last week that our Principal was being reassigned to a different school within Cobb County. This would make 6 principals in nine years. As I read Chapter 9, I felt a lot like the teacher they quote at the beginning of the chapter. I know that it takes continuity to create a positive school culture. I am beginning to question whether we will ever have a consistent administration at this school. As I read through this chapter, I identified with many ideas. One was the qualifications of the teachers. Now, our school has plenty of qualified teachers. I would say about 15% have or are pursuing their Ed.S. degrees. I would say about half of the teachers have their Masters degrees. However, I will say that the way that tutoring and summer school are funded work to the deficit of the students. Until the government says they will give us a certain number of teachers, I will always think that administration will employ the “cheaper” teachers. Each year when funding is distributed, it is distributed in a dollar amount. Then administration has to decide, do I want smaller groups for tutoring and summer school, or do I want more qualified teachers. I am one of the most expensive people to employ for these programs even though I have unique qualifications. I can understand why the administration approaches me last. There are a lot of people that they have to pay less. This is not beneficial to the kids. They should be able to have the most qualified teachers for these programs as well as small teacher to student ratios. But, I’m not sure how they could change that. A colleague and I presented a staff development last week at a Staff Meeting. It was a good presentation and I think the staff has had a shift in their thinking. The next day, one of the teachers approached me to ask if he felt like he had disrupted the meeting. He had gotten an email from the Intermediate Principal because he was being too disruptive. That was crazy to me! You have a lot of much bigger issues to address, yet, you go after the behavior of three teachers who had clearly participated in the staff development. We already have a “school within a school” administration. We are divided into two schools under one roof. We have a Primary (K-2) school and an Intermediate (3-5) school. One thing that the chapter didn’t address is that I think the culture of the Intermediate School impacts the culture of the Primary school. When the Intermediate Principal tries to micromanage things, it depresses the Primary Staff. We know that the hard work we do to try and prepare our students for the Intermediate school can quickly be undone since their climate is so poor. I wish they would just build a separate building for the Primary school. Then, I think we could overcome the negativity of the Intermediate’s climate. Well, we will see if this change is a good one or not…only time will tell.
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Hi Jacqueline,
When Katy and I saw the Cobb Bd announcement for your school we thought of you and Melanie. It is ridiculous. The school culture has so much to do with our psyche, our moods, the aura of the building and thus it affects the learning of our students. It seems like some schools in Cobb are thought of as ’stepping stone’ schools for principals, they stay there just long enough to get moved out. Some schools are like ‘training grounds’. What does that say about our students? I never understood the ’shuffle the principal’ policy in Cobb. What is the purpose of that? It seems to me if a principal knew she were going to be embedded in that school/community for a large number of years, the committment to the faculty, parents, students, even the physical building would be greater. I guess we live in a transient society, and it’s a large system, so one solution is to create small intimate clusters. I think that’s what you are trying to do. So I applaud your attempt.
I empathize with your situation because administration can make or break a school especially where morale is concerned. Our administrators are close to retirement and we are already talking about what could happen when they leave. I have always had consistent administration and the feeling of the staff towards them has always been positive. All were great places to work and that had EVERYTHING to do with the administration. I am sure it is no coincidence that high performing schools in our county get the same principal for many years. Which came first the chicken or the egg? I think people take schools to get their foot in the door , put in their time and then leave ASAP. As far as funding goes, I often wonder if all schools get the same $ for tutoring. Do we get the same amount as you even though we have few students who actually need the service. Many of ours are sped kids who are double dipping. Summer school is a whole different issue. It almost seems as if they are trying to phase it out. I actually am a fan of the idea of year round school to alleviate some of our difficulties with retention and consistency. Summer school with a different teacher can’t be all that helpful. It takes a couple weeks to learn what works for the child and most often the work and strategies are not consistent.