Engaging All Families
Engaging All Families

Author: Steven M. Constantino

Publisher: R&L Education

Published: 2003-10-22

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 1461663547

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Families are a child's first and best teachers. A significant amount of research exists that strongly links the engagement of families in the educational lives of their children as a strong foundation to the successful achievement of all students. Educators cannot expect total engagement and high standards from students if both families and schools cannot form powerful alliances to guide those students to academic and lifelong success. Putting research into practice remains one of the most significant barriers to engaging families with schools. School leaders, already stretched thin, struggle to carve out the time and energy necessary to pour through research and create programs to promote family engagement within their school and community. As principal of a large, comprehensive, and diverse high school, Constantino solves this dilemma by providing a step-by-step process for practitioners to create family engagement programs at all levels. Engaging All Families provides a summary of research that acts as a foundation upon which the practitioner's tools are crafted. Readers are given the resources necessary to assess their present level of family engagement and the ideas, strategies, suggestions, programs, practices, policies, and procedures to implement a wide variety of customized family engagement programs. Numerous resources and references are also included. As a successful school administrator and nationally known expert in the field of family and community engagement, Steven Constantino builds the bridge from research to practice with Engaging All Families, and provides the information that allows all schools to become family friendly.

Transforming School Culture
Transforming School Culture

Author: Anthony Muhammad

Publisher: Solution Tree Press

Published: 2009-11-01

Total Pages: 151

ISBN-13: 1934009997

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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.

Shaping School Culture
Shaping School Culture

Author: Terrence E. Deal

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2016-08-29

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1119210194

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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.

Leveraging the Impact of Culture and Climate
Leveraging the Impact of Culture and Climate

Author: Steve Gruenert

Publisher:

Published: 2021-10-08

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 9781952812897

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Together, culture and climate can make or break your school improvement efforts. Authors Todd Whitaker and Steve Gruenert help educators understand how to leverage culture and climate to drive deep and lasting change. Learn how to assess current culture, address climate issues, combat challenges, and work toward a collaborative school community dedicated to achieving high levels of learning for all. Rely on this book's effective school improvement strategies for creating a collaborative culture in schools: Understand the commonalities and differences between school climate and school culture. Identify the characteristics of specific types of classroom cultures for self-assessment and improvement in creating a positive classroom climate. Learn how to assess the values and beliefs of educators at the classroom and school levels. Discover your school's capacity for culture change using a step-by-step process. Consider how the elements of climate and culture influence school effectiveness and school improvement efforts. Contents: Introduction: How Culture and Climate Can Improve Schools Chapter 1: How to Define School Culture Chapter 2: Differences Between Culture and Climate Chapter 3: Elements of Climate Chapter 4: Classroom Cultures Chapter 5: The Culture Scorecard Chapter 6: The Capacity to Change Chapter 7: How to Assess School Culture Chapter 8: The Necessity of Culture Change Chapter 9: A Closer Look at Values Chapter 10: Not the Perfect Culture, the Right Culture Epilogue References and Resources Index

Cultures Built to Last
Cultures Built to Last

Author: Richard DuFour

Publisher: Solution Tree Press

Published: 2013-05-20

Total Pages: 125

ISBN-13: 193676475X

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Take your professional learning community to the next level! Discover a systemwide approach for re-envisioning your PLC while sustaining growth and continuing momentum on your journey. You’ll move beyond isolated pockets of excellence while allowing every person in your school system—from teachers and administrators to students—the opportunity to be an instrument of lasting cultural change.

Promoting Positive Learning Experiences in Middle School Education
Promoting Positive Learning Experiences in Middle School Education

Author: Gaines, Cherie Barnett

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2021-01-15

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 1799870677

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Declining academic performance, along with a growing apathy of students toward the value of education, demonstrates that students in the United States public education system do not recognize the value of a positive experience in middle schools. A plethora of research and writing has been done on elementary schools and secondary schools, but middle school education, as a whole, has been left behind. For this reason, there is the need for current research on all aspects and topics that may contribute to middle school student success. Promoting Positive Learning Experiences in Middle School Education focuses on the ideal conditions for maximizing student success and engagement in middle school education. The chapters take a deeper look into the modern tools, technologies, methods, and theories driving current research on middle school students, their teachers, their classroom environment, and their learning. Highlighting topics such as curriculum reform, instructional strategies and practices, effective teaching, and technology in the modern classroom, this book is ideally intended for middle school teachers, middle school administrators, and school district administrators, along with practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students interested in middle school education and student success.

Mindfulness in a Busy World
Mindfulness in a Busy World

Author: Marie-Nathalie Beaudoin

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-02-24

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1538135140

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How can we increase the likelihood that people will be able to control their wandering mind, let go of upsetting thoughts and feelings, and apply the wisdom of mindfulness training to their day-to-day lives? Mindfulness in a Busy World offers a bridge between the ancient wisdom of Eastern mindfulness teachings and the busy Western lifestyle of the tech era where an increasing number of people experience stress, anxiety, impatience, and an inability to be present in meaningful interactions. While traditional practices offer incredible possibilities of well-being and development, many people struggle to access these states of mind and ripen the skills to sustain them. This book offers insights into ways of mobilizing the brain’s attention systems so that distracted minds—often habituated to the constant overstimulation of screens and media—can more readily cultivate focus, calm, and kindness. Our society invests years in instructing people how to read, write, count, and think critically, but often forgets to support the crucial foundation of these abilities: focusing the mind. Learning to tame the mind allows people of all ages to live a more fulfilling life, balancing being and doing, thinking and feeling, listening and talking, compassion for self and others, and being an individual while belonging to a community. Distinctive features of this book: Brain-based strategies that render a focused mind within reach of everyday people Unique set of 18 breathing methods and over 27 other types of exercises which can quickly reset an agitated body or distracted mind Activities that make visible the remarkable powers of the mind to create and dissipate experiences of emotional or physical discomfort Specific strategies to facilitate inner peace and emotional regulation Simple but fascinating challenges—only achievable through mindfulness—that will leave people in awe of what their minds can do Intriguing collection of pain tolerance tests making it exciting to engage in the practices Mindfulness exercises that move beyond individual well-being and extend to a felt sense of belonging to a diverse community Inventive ways of bringing forth kindness, compassion, and gratitude Engaging metaphors and fascinating facts that ignite people’s curiosity about little known aspects of their physiology and help them connect to their bodies Words of wisdom, meaningful stories, inspiring quotes, and thought-provoking questions that help participants apply mindfulness practices to real life situations

Committing to the Culture
Committing to the Culture

Author: Steve Gruenert

Publisher: ASCD

Published: 2019-06-24

Total Pages: 131

ISBN-13: 1416627871

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In their follow-up to School Culture Recharged and the best-selling School Culture Rewired, Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker go deep into the roots of culture change and explore how school leaders can positively shift their cultures in a sustainable way. Drawing from the authors' extensive experience and research, Committing to the Culture - Unpacks questions around the nature of culture, including the importance of vision and climate and how the tension between the past and the future can keep a culture stagnant. - Explains how toxic cultures come about, why they can be so resistant to lasting change, and how not to change those cultures. - Describes how to build a positive culture based on trust, collaboration, and commitment rather than fear, competition, and compliance. - Offers advice to help leaders ensure that positive change endures, withstanding fads, toxic mindsets, and other threats. The authors provide real-world scenarios to illustrate how their ideas and approaches work in practice. Leaders will gain profound insight into how to create meaningful change, with the goal not just to "transform" their school but also to get all members of the school community to commit to culture change—and make sure that change sticks.

Working With Difficult & Resistant Staff
Working With Difficult & Resistant Staff

Author: John F. Eller

Publisher: Solution Tree Press

Published: 2011-09-20

Total Pages: 94

ISBN-13: 1936765128

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To move forward in the school improvement process, school leaders must address the behaviors of difficult and resistant staff members while sending the message that a few people cannot halt change. This book will help school leaders understand how to prevent and address negative behaviors to ensure positive school change.