School Culture With a Home Court Edge

School Solutions

As superintendent in Oceanside, Calif., Larry Perondi embarked on a program to improve the social and emotional health of his students and staff. He put in place a districtwide character education program called Quantum Learning’s 8 Keys of Excellence.

Over the first year of implementation, the positive changes in the district’s culture became apparent: Suspensions decreased by 50 percent, behavioral referrals decreased by 32 percent and expulsions fell by 18 percent. The Oceanside schools, with their nearly 20,000 students, saw another payoff from the program — quite literally in dollars.

State revenues to the district increased by more than $124,000 because average daily attendance increased as suspensions dropped. These positive outcomes mean Oceanside still uses the 8 Keys program today, some five years later.

The social and emotional aspects of a school’s culture seldom show up on data reports and cannot be neatly tallied on a survey, but these results speak volumes about the importance of a positive culture. It’s vital for school administrators to consistently nurture students’ social and emotional skills. One way is by giving all students a “home court advantage.”

We know in team sports that home court advantage is powerful. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, home teams achieve statistically higher scores and win more games than visiting teams. The familiar environment where they’re well supported is key.

Supporting Excellence

The same concept applies to education. When we build a home court advantage in our schools and classrooms, we can expect students to achieve more. But why? Home court advantage is a powerful psychological tool that creates feelings of safety, support and belonging, producing a positive atmosphere conducive to learning and achievement.

In school classrooms and at school events, everyone from administrators to teachers plays a major role in defining the school district culture. Teachers, of course, have the greatest opportunity to build the home court advantage for students. Administrators can support their teachers and other staff in creating a home court advantage with the following three pieces of advice:

• Build safety through rapport.

Rapport between teachers and students is built on mutual trust and emotional comfort. It develops over time when nurtured by teachers. Teachers can start building rapport by respecting students and greeting each one by name every day. Another key is to know their students’ world. A third is to strengthen student-student rapport, so a no-bullying policy is vital. When students feel respected and safe with their teacher and other students in their classroom, they learn and grow.

• Build support through acknowledgments.

Students feel supported when teachers acknowledge their efforts. When students take a risk by offering an opinion, answering a question or making an effort to learn, it’s important that teachers let them know their effort was noticed. Being positively acknowledged for a contribution makes students feel comfortable to risk participating, which again leads to learning and growth.

• Build belonging through traditions.

Traditions build a strong sense of belonging wherever they are observed, whether in families, classrooms or sports. In the classroom, traditions may include music (to start or close the day, to introduce specific sectors of learning or to celebrate learning), finger snaps (to acknowledge contributions) or claps (to signal state changes or energizers). Established early in the year, traditions provide structure, a sense of predictability and a winning team spirit, leading again to learning and growth.

The time, thought and planning you put into the purposeful setup and ongoing reinforcement of the social and emotional components of your district’s culture yield immeasurable dividends — a powerful, effective districtwide culture that supports academic and personal excellence. Ask yourself, “What am I doing to create a home court advantage in my district?”