I strongly agree with Ted Sizer’s quote which speaks to personalizing schools. As an educational reformer, much of his work has been focused on shaping instructional environments that are engaging at all educational levels. Most would agree that high-performing schools have healthy cultures. Many strategies can be used to diagnose a school’s culture. Simple unobtrusive strategies may involve walking the hallways, attending PTA functions, and reviewing the master schedule. Of course, it is always best practice to use objective data to make informed decisions. However, I would like to entertain the “out of the box” things that we do to build strong relationships between educators and students.
Although some students are able to navigate successfully through “developmentally challenging” school years without a personal connection to an adult in their school, many others are not as successful. Therefore, a personalized school environment can provide an avenue that facilitates a smoother journey for all students. After attending a “Breaking Ranks in the Middle” conference that was hosted by NASSP, the National Association for Secondary School Principals, I was inspired to assess the “health” of my school’s culture. During my drive home, I began to wonder how many of my students were not connected with a teacher/counselor/administrator/support staff mentor. I wondered how many are, in so many words, invisible – whether successful or unsuccessful. In a middle school of approximately 500 students with a healthy school culture as previously documented by surveys and other indicators, I suspected that there would be very few “invisible” students.
Armed with new and not so new information, I set out to identify how well we personalized our school and how our efforts could be improved. One strategy we used to analyze the level of student connectedness to an adult involved placing the names of every student on poster-board paper. After having done that, every adult in the building was given a week to stop by the posters to place their initials beside the name of any and every student in which they had a genuine connection. This activity yielded great information from which many conclusions were drawn and acted upon. We were able to identify the core of adults that mentored many students above and beyond their ”caseload”. We were able to see a clear relationship between the level of student success and the level of connectedness to an adult.
How personalized is your school community? Please share your best practice for facilitating an environment where a student’s motivation is enhanced by ongoing, positive relationships with peers and teachers.
Scenic Roanoke is located in the southwestern portion of the state of Virginia. The "Star City", as it is often called, is one of the largest metropolitan areas and transportation hubs that is located between the Blue Ridge and Alleghaney Highlands.
(Not pictured above)