School Culture/Climate

Weaving Gratitude into the Fabric of Everyday Learning

Practicing gratitude is one tool that can help students deal with anxiety, depression, and loneliness iGen, a term used by generational researcher Jean M. Twenge (2017), is used to describe children born between 1995 and 2012. In her book, Twenge analyzed large data sets to understand the struggles and hopes of this rising generation. iGen

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Becoming a Restorative Practices School

How one school created a culture focused on improving student behavior Background For many years educators have used punishment, or fear of punishment, as the primary deterrent to student misconduct. We have tried zero tolerance, excessive use of in-school suspension (ISS) and out of school suspension (OSS), elimination of student privileges, and numerous other consequences

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It’s Time to Go “Google”

Creating a school culture that champions innovation, rewards teamwork, and values feedback As a building principal whose days are filled with countless observations, emails, and student interactions, it’s easy to forget that there really is a world outside of my wonderful middle school. Over the last several years, I have been fortunate to have spent

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Our SEL Journey

One school’s approach to rethinking advisory From our first days on campus, it was clear that the school had once been committed to an advisory program. There were dusty advisory binders in the corners of classrooms, and many teachers remained passionate about the aims and some features of the program, but it no longer had

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Student Leadership is Fundamental to Positive School Climate

Engaging students in shaping school climate improvement pays off There is growing research demonstrating that students perform better academically, socially, and emotionally when they are meaningfully engaged, contributing members of a school with a positive, caring, equitable school climate. As adults, we often think we are the architects of a school’s culture, but we underestimate

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