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Cultural Extravaganza |
As small schools become more autonomous, they create new identities and establish unique
school cultures. We also believe that the school’s culture is inextricably linked to classroom
culture. This section of resources discusses the meaning of organizational culture and explores the
challenge of building school culture. You’ll find tools for assessing your existing culture,
developing group norms, and generating effective intergenerational dialogue. The resources
explore various approaches to the issue of organizational culture, including techniques from the
business world, the connection to physical spaces, and the use of traditions.
 
The concept of culture refers to a group’s shared beliefs, customs, and behavior. A school’s
culture includes the obvious elements of schedules, curriculum, demographics, and policies, as
well as the social interactions that occur within those structures and give a school its look and feel
as “friendly,” “elite,” “competitive,” “inclusive,” and so on.
Just as culture is critical to understanding the dynamics behind any thriving community,
organization, or business, the daily realities and deep structure of school life hold the key to
educational success. Reforms that strive for educational excellence are likely to fail unless they
are meaningfully linked to the school's unique culture. For small schools newly born from a large
high school, creating a unique school culture will be an important component of success.
According to small DPS:
If you want to get the benefit of small, then the kids have to affiliate with the unit
—the small school—in order to bring it off. Unless teachers can create their own
school climate—unless the kids can see some difference when they leave their
own part of the building—then they are not going to identify with it. And if they
don’t identify, you have lost the battle. Unless the kids bond with the teachers
(and the students as well) then they aren’t going to feel that they are really
involved with or a part of this process and won’t buy the schools values, and
therefore schools won’t work.
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