The Shaping School Culture Fieldbook

When the bestselling books Shaping School Culture and The Shaping School Culture Fieldbook were first published, Kent D. Peterson and Terrence E. Deal described the critical elements of school culture the purposes, traditions, norms, and values that guide and glue the community together. The authors showed how a positive culture makes school reform work and the companion Fieldbook included the tools needed to bring out the best in students, teachers, and the surrounding community In today's complex educational environment, new challenges have surfaced for school leaders who must grapple with issues of standards-based testing, school accountability, and student achievement. The second edition of The Shaping School Culture Fieldbook offers a companion to the newly revised edition of Shaping School Culture and includes an expanded version of Peterson and Deal's time-tested model to address the latest thinking on school culture and change. The Fieldbook offers a wealth of new ideas and approaches and includes new material on "toxic" environments with specific action plans. In addition, the book contains powerful new case examples for revitalizing school culture. The Shaping School Culture Fieldbook draws on the authors' extensive research and nationwide school contacts and includes hands-on strategies and exercises for helping school leaders: Uncover a school's hidden values, beliefs, and assumptions Think through and develop a school's mission and purpose Work out appropriate stories, metaphors, and symbols to represent a school Devise rituals and ceremonies for enriching the school experience Rethink leadership practices in light of educational and cultural needs Identify, transform, and heal a "toxic" educational culture This important resource will help school leaders understand, assess, and transform school culture for organizational success.

Just as culture is critical to understanding the dynamics behind any thriving community, organization, or business, the daily realities and deep structure of school life hold the key to educational success. Reforms that strive for educational excellence are likely to fail unless they are meaningfully linked to the school's unique culture. In Shaping School Culture, Terrence E. Deal and Kent D. Peterson show how leaders can harness the power of school culture to build a lively, cooperative spirit and a sense of school identity. The authors draw from over twenty years of research on school improvement as well as from their own extensive work with school leaders across the country to identify viable new strategies for effective school leadership. They describe the critical elements of culture--the purposes, traditions, norms, and values that guide and glue the community together--and show how a positive culture can make school reforms work. Deal and Peterson also explore the harmful characteristics of toxic cultures and suggest antidotes to negativity on the part of teachers, students, principals, or parents. Using real-life cases from their own research, Deal and Peterson provide concrete, detailed illustrations of exemplary practice in different school cultures. They reveal the key symbolic roles that leaders play in school change and identify the specific skills needed to change school culture successfully. Shaping School Culture provides an action blueprint for school leaders committed to transforming their schools for success.

The most trusted guide to school culture, updated with current challenges and new solutions Shaping School Culture is the classic guide to exceptional school leadership, featuring concrete guidance on influencing the subtle symbolic features of schools that provide meaning, belief, and faith. Written by renowned experts in the area of school culture, this book tackles the increasing challenges facing public schools and provides clear, candid suggestions for more effective symbolic leadership. This new third edition has been revised to reflect the reality of schools today, including the increased emphasis on high-stakes testing, federal reforms such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), state sponsored improvement programs, and other major issues that impact organizational culture and the role of school leaders. Each chapter features new examples and cases that illustrate persistent problems, spelling out key cultural implications and offering concrete examples of overcoming the challenges while maintaining a meaningful learning environment. The chapter on toxic schools continues to provide the field's most trusted advice on navigating this rocky terrain, and the discussion's focus on how to manage negativity remains especially integral to besieged school administrators across the U.S. Recent years have jolted the nation's school system with a number of new developments that spell problems for the cultural tapestry of schools. This book provides expert perspective and sage, doable advice for administrators tending to external pressures while sustainingor evolvinga more positive school culture. Navigate new challenges including Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and waning confidence and faith Turn around a toxic school culture with confidence and success Foster a culture of passion, purpose, and meaning Adopt a more active form of symbolic leadership to support students, faculty, staff, parents, and community Test scores as the primary metric, relentless reforms, waning public support, and timid initiatives wrapped in bureaucratic packaging: while among the most prominent issues administrators face are only the tip of the iceberg. Shaping School Culture charts a route through competing pressures to help educational leaders hew a positive learning environment for schools.

Grounded in recent research and successful practice, The New Principal's Fieldbook prepares new and aspiring principals for the unexpected twists and turns of school leadership. Capitalizing on their experiences and those of other educational leaders, authors Pam Robbins and Harvey Alvy offer practical information, research-based strategies, and provocative stories to help principals develop into visionary leaders skilled in promoting the success of students and teachers. Surprises, obstacles, and opportunities characterize the leadership path. Within the chapters, the authors use research and specific examples from recognized practitioners to create a road map for navigating the complex challenges of the principalship. Collectively, the book's themes mirror key content areas addressed by the ISLLC Standards for School Leaders as well as other topics essential for success: * Creating a shared vision that places student learning at the heart of the school * Transforming toxic cultures into positive cultures Dealing with challenging experiences unique to new principals * Promoting quality teaching and learning * Creating professional learning communities * Facilitating change within the school culture * Building productive partnerships with central office staff, parents, and the greater community * Designing management tasks as leadership tools * Working with unions, budgets, the law, and the media * Balancing personal and professional responsibilities * Leading ethically and with emotional intelligence Robbins and Alvy guide the reader through important concepts and practices, including instructional leadership, data-driven decision making, differentiated supervision, professional development, crisis intervention, and time management. At the end of each chapter, they invite readers to reflect on how to apply their new knowledge to real situations. Covering everything from everyday management tasks to the larger goal of student success, The New Principal's Fieldbook is an essential guide for new and aspiring principals. Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.

School improvement begins with self-examination and honest dialogue about socialization, bias, discrimination, and cultural insensitivity. The authors acknowledge both the structural and sociological issues that contribute to low-performing schools and offer multiple tools and strategies to assess and improve classroom management, increase literacy, establish academic vocabulary, and contribute to a healthier school culture.

Explores the importance of school culture and the symbolic roles of leaders in shaping cultural patterns and practices in school communities; and presents numerous examples that demonstrate how culture influences school functioning.

Communicating Effectively: Tools for Educational Leaders,second edition, provides a unique perspective for aspiring and practicing educational leaders to expand their problem-solving and conflict-resolution strategies. Starting with an exploration of listening problems and solutions, this book evolves into an examination of how people perceive reality, what motivates them, and what happens when their needs are not met. The concepts of Process Communication, developed by clinical psychologist Taibi Kahler through his background in transactional analysis, provide the basis for the techniques from which educational leaders might choose. Communicating Effectively suggests new ways to understand the people with whom we interact, first by listening and then by understanding what our perceptions, channels, and motivation. Likewise, Michael Gilbert presents examples of problems and positive suggestions to intervene when communication is not effective.

This Open Access book features a school development model (Arizona Initiative for Leadership Development and Research AZiLDR) that offers a roadmap for schools to navigate the complexities of continuous school development. Filled with processes that balance evidence-based values with democratic, culturally responsive values, this book offers strategies to mediate the tensions and to address school culture, context and values, leadership capacity, using data as a source of reflection, curricular and pedagogical activity, and strengths-based approaches to meeting the needs of culturally diverse students. You will find: - Active, reflective activities - Case studies illustrating each concept - The research base supporting each concept - Descriptions of processes from other contexts (South Carolina, Germany, Australia, Sweden) - Thoughts about next steps for contextually sensitive and multi-level school development - Suggestions for cross-national dialogue and research within the Zone of Uncertainty Use this ideal source to guide school leadership teams in creating productive schools that continually grow!