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.

This 3rd edition of the award winning Adaptive Schools Sourcebook provides both a theoretical and practical guide for groups and teams to develop and focus their collaborative energies to improve teaching practices and enhance student-learning outcomes. In five sections: Becoming Adaptive, Collaboration Matters, Meetings are Teachers’ Work, Resources for Inquiry, and Conflict, Change and Community, the authors draw on decades of personal experiences in schools and research from multiple disciplines to present powerful tools and useful templates for structuring the work of productive professional communities in schools. Readers will learn ways to develop and sustain the fundamental elements for enhancing social capital in schools: distinguishing between dialogue and discussion, establishing seven norms of collaboration, automating language patterns for inquiry and problem solving, facilitating groups and data teams, engaging in productive conflict, and building community. The book offers links to video clips demonstrating key skills, inventories for assessing groups, instruments for assessing personal skills, and a collection of over 150 meeting strategies and facilitator moves for engaging group members in productive interactions.

Recent research into school effectiveness has corroborated the theory that the school leader plays a pivotal role making their school a successful institution, and is most often cited as the key factor in a school’s development. Reflecting the importance it is given in the today’s education landscape, this book explores the latest trends in school leadership from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Each chapter provides insight into an aspect of current research, with detailed case studies coming from as far afield as Hong Kong and Canada. In the context of the ever-increasing burden of responsibility placed on education management to safeguard and enhance the quality of education they provide, school leadership is now a core concern of policy makers. In addition, most countries are undertaking fundamental education reforms that will have a major influence on the nature of school leadership. Offering the most up-to-date research on this central issue, this book will both inform and shape the debate.

Culturally Responsive School Leadership focuses on how school leaders can effectively serve minoritized students—those who have been historically marginalized in school and society. The book demonstrates how leaders can engage students, parents, teachers, and communities in ways that positively impact learning by honoring indigenous heritages and local cultural practices. Muhammad Khalifa explores three basic premises. First, that a full-fledged and nuanced understanding of “cultural responsiveness” is essential to successful school leadership. Second, that cultural responsiveness will not flourish and succeed in schools without sustained efforts by school leaders to define and promote it. Finally, that culturally responsive school leadership comprises a number of crucial leadership behaviors, which include critical self-reflection; the development of culturally responsive teachers; the promotion of inclusive, anti-oppressive school environments; and engagement with students’ indigenous community contexts. Based on an ethnography of a school principal who exemplifies the practices and behaviors of culturally responsive school leadership, the book provides educators with pedagogy and strategies for immediate implementation.

The research is indisputable: Students are less disruptive and do better academically in schools that cultivate the internal motivation of students. In Activating the Desire to Learn, veteran educator Bob Sullo shows how to apply lessons from the research on motivation in the classroom. According to the author, we are all driven to fulfill five essential needs: to connect, to be competent, to make choices, to have fun, and to be safe. Studies show that when these needs are met in schools, good behavior and high achievement tend naturally to ensue. Written as a series of candid dialogues between the author and K–12 students, teachers, counselors, and administrators, Activating the Desire to Learn covers everything you need to know to change the dynamics of learning in your classroom or school: * A comprehensive overview of the research on internal motivation; * Case studies of strategies for activating internal motivation at the elementary, middle, and high school levels; * Suggestions on how to assess degrees of student motivation; and Motivating students is not the issue—the hunger to learn is ever-present. Yet schools continue to insist on the traditional reward-punishment model, to the detriment of student achievement. Clearly it’s time for change. This engaging and thought-provoking book will help you create a culture of achievement by building on the inherent drive to succeed that students bring to the classroom every day.