Transforming School Culture: How to Overcome Staff Division

Drawing upon his study of 34 schools (11 elementary, 14 middle, and 9 high schools) from around the country, Dr. Anthony Muhammad describes the underlying tensions that impact culture among four different groups of educators in a school:

• The Believers are those who are committed to the learning of each student and who operate under the assumption that their efforts can make an enormous difference in that learning.


• The Fundamentalists are preservers of the status quo.


• The Tweeners are members of a staff who are typically new to a school and are attempting to learn its prevailing culture.


• The Survivors are those who have been so overwhelmed by the stress and demands of the profession that their primary goal becomes making it through the day, the week, and the year.

Busy administrators will appreciate this quick read packed with immediate, accessible strategies. This book provides the framework for understanding dynamic relationships within a school culture and ensuring a positive environment that supports the changes necessary to improve learning for all students. The author explores many aspects of human behavior, social conditions, and history to reveal best practices for building healthy school cultures.

Benefits

• Learn how leaders can overcome staff division to improve relationships and transform toxic cultures into healthy ones.


• Examine educators motivations for hanging on to paradigms that are contrary to those articulated by their school or district.


• Understand the underlying tensions that impact school culture among four different groups of educators: Believers, Fundamentalists, Tweeners, and Survivors.


• Attain specific strategies for working with each group of educators to transform school culture into a professional learning community.
• Create positive environments in which staff not only tolerate change but also seek and embrace the changes that maximize organizational effectiveness.

Contents
1 From Status Quo to True Reform
2 The Framework of Modern School Culture
3 The Believers
4 The Tweeners
5 The Survivors
6 The Fundamentalists
7 Drop Your Tools : A Lesson in Change and Our Best Chance at Eliminating Fundamentalism
8 Implications for Practice
Epilogue A Significant Impact
Appendix Study Design