Britt Sjostrom

7/24/16
I teach 4th grade at an elementary school in Lakeside. My current
school gets a rating of 3 using the Likert Scale. Out of the 7
characteristics mentioned in the writing prompt (promote literacy,
deliver grade-level curriculum/content, organize instruction
innovatively, protect and extend instructional time,
expand teachers roles and responsibilities, address students social
and emotional needs, involve parents in their childrens education), my
school exhibits strength in three of them.
To begin, I will describe my schools strengths which include
promoting literacy, delivering grade-level curriculum/content, and
expanding teachers roles and responsibilities. My school has also has
put a lot of effort forth with addressing students social and emotional
needs by getting a school counselor this year, however this is still an
area that needs some improvement. With a school library and many
literacy and reading programs, our school does a great job of
promoting literacy. We also have a lot of great, up to date curriculums
that we just got this last year and that we are still exploring.
My school also has good district support. As Garcia points out,
financial and administrative support is fundamental to change and to
the maintenance of effective schools. (Garcia 2002) The Lakeside
Union School District is very small and because of this, it is not unusual
to see the superintendent visiting classrooms and speaking with staff.
Our school is also very fortunate in that our district has received grants
and all of our students have their own iPads. This has a tremendous
effect on student engagement and achievement. Another positive
aspect of our school is that our district also provides us with frequent
staff development. Staff development is essential to change and
consists of a schoolwide program closely related to the instructional
program. This activity is crucial in schools serving language minority
students. (Garcia 2002) The staff development our teaching staff did
last year was new to the staff, and proved to be highly effective. We
got to observe our colleagues teaching techniques and have
meaningful discussions. It really aided in the school culture because it
allowed space for talking and building relationships and trust among
staff. Although our staff development often aided in helping our school
culture, maintaining a positive school culture was actually a huge
challenge for our school.
This year was a bit tough for our school as we got a new principal
this year. This principal came into a tough crowd the teachers were
fed up with the way they had been treated in years past, and the new
boss had to catch some slack for it. Our principal was encouraged by
the district to have a talk with our staff about our current school
culture, which they deemed as toxic according to a book about

school culture. She brought up this discussion about our toxic school
culture to the staff so that we could discuss was to get through this
and turn things around. This discussion did not go over well, as many
teachers were very offended and took it personally. I bring this up
because it leads to two things that Garcia states as being essential to
effective schools school climate and teacher expectations. (Garcia
2002) Unfortunately, our school has a lot of frustrated and fed-up
teachers that feel as though they have not been listened to for a long
time. Our school has changed a lot of the past 5 years because of
changes in the district that have caused a lot of students with behavior
problems to be transferred to our school. We have gotten more and
more students with behavior problems, yet not much support with
dealing with their emotional and behavior needs. Because of this, you
can see and hear just from one staff meeting the loss of hope in many
teachers voices. You can tell many of them have started to believe
that not all students can achieve and their expectations have gone
down for many students. They often complain about problems that
cannot be solved to matter what saying, my students will not be able
to do that.
In order to make our school more effective, we would need to put
a strong focus on the following aspects: school culture, teacher
expectations, and organizing instruction innovatively. I would start
with our school culture. I have learned this year just how important
school culture is. We could do things like have a staff retreat where
issues could be discussed and trust could be restored. We could
problem solve together the issues that we are having and bring our
action plans to the district (as our district has actually suggested our
school do). We are all in the same profession, going through the same
struggles, and we have GOT to stick together! As teachers we often
forget this and we feel pitted against each other, but we are on the
same team. School culture is intimately connected with teacher
expectations. When good school culture and trust is present, teacher
expectations are positive. And when teacher expectations are positive,
school culture is also greatly affected. As Garcia states, effective
schools are ones in which teachers maintain high achievement
expectations for all students. (Garcia 2002) When a teacher doesnt
believe a student can achieve something students can sense it.
Students are very perceptive even if they dont always make it
obvious. Our attitudes as teachers in the classroom as well as with
other teachers, greatly affect our students. We need to show them a
good example of how to work with one another and create systems of
trust. A good culture among staff that encourages innovative teaching
strategies and working together and appreciating one another creates
a safe, effective learning environment for students and creates a better
school culture overall.