Create a Healthy Culture
Schools should strive toward a culture where district administrators and school board members model, develop, and support broad-based, skillful participation in the work of leadership. They should engage in practices that complement and build on one another in order for the organization to support student achievement at its core. Leadership, and the skill and energy to empower others to lead, is a culture-changing challenge that is possible; when successful, the school board will witness leadership by those closest to the students. A school board has to believe it can happen and then work collaboratively to make it happen. Once a culture of collaboration is created, a culture of performance can happen. The school board should be a problem-solving organization that looks internally at what the data is telling them. They must reflect on the importance of making decisions as near to the child as possible.
They need to implement practices that will stress to teachers the importance of collaboration. They need to create a culture of collaboration where professionals are engaged in learning communities for the coordination of instruction that allows faculty to know children as individuals, and take account of the family and emotional events that can affect learning. If they are going to engage in this type of performance, they will need to look to their own practices by collecting the data that supports their governance.
Moving into a culture of performance requires the creation of an environment that works together to attain maximum growth through a sound organizational framework. The best practice of collaboration requires strong relationship building; it is essential that school boards engage in a healthy, professional relationship with the superintendent and its partnerships with the community members and local agencies. A culture where conditions and structures are aligned for success, the superintendent is able to function as a CEO and instructional leader. This brings about support for the development of a long-range plan and goals for raising student achievement. In a culture of collaboration, all school boards can become partners in setting a strategic direction, but they must allow the experts to do their jobs.
