[S2E14] Why School Culture Breaks Down

You know, in many conversations that I have as I visit schools all around the country and, and talk with school leaders, owners, operators, directors, assistant directors, what we're gonna talk about today is what happens when school culture begins to break down, right? Like, when you have, uh, you know, an overwhelming amount of observational data that shows things are just not right.

Not when there's one difficult employee, not when you have one challenging parent, you know, not when one classroom is struggling.

I'm talking about something bigger.

I, I'm talking about the moment when you walk into a school and you can feel that something isn't right.

You may not even be able to name it, but you just know instinctually something isn't right.

Teachers aren't following procedures consistently.

Expectations, well, they seem negotiable.

Communication has become reactive.

People are complaining about one another.

Leaders are spending their days putting out fires.

Classrooms aren't as organized as they should be.

Staff members are doing things differently from one room to another.

People are starting to say things like, "That's just how things are here." Perhaps, from my perspective, maybe most concerning of all, is accountability has become inconsistent, and we've all been in a situation in some way, shape, or form, whether through observation or through personal experience, where one person gets corrected for something while another person gets away with the exact same behavior.

You're probably nodding your head right now because you know what I'm talking about.

Now, a director knows something needs to be addressed but avoids the conversation maybe because they're just exhausted, or they avoid confrontation.

A teacher knows a colleague isn't meeting expectations but doesn't believe anything will happen, and then gradually the standards begin to move.

Not because anyone sat down and decided to lower them, they just slowly became negotiable.

If you ever led a school through that kind of situation, you know how difficult it can be, and if you're currently in the middle of it, I want you to know something before we go any further.

A culture breakdown does not mean your school is broken beyond repair.

It means the culture needs to be reset, and resetting culture is one of the most important responsibilities a school leader can undertake, and I need to also let you know it takes time.

It doesn't happen with a meeting.

It doesn't happen with a memo.

It doesn't happen in a day.

So we're gonna talk about how to do it, how to reset your school's culture.

We're gonna talk a little bit about warning signs, talk about why culture breaks down, right? We have to understand the why to get to the root of what we're trying to fix.