Discover Your School’s Identity: Rate Your School’s Identity With Your School Leadership Team & Teachers
I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.
– Maya Angelou
INTRO
What role do you think identity plays in developing a healthy school climate and culture?
The below activity will help you develop a shared understanding of your school’s identity and explore specific values and beliefs necessary to implement a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) in your school.
OBJECTIVES
- Identify existing values and beliefs that are central, enduring, and distinctive to your school.
The below activity is designed for teachers and your leadership team.
STEP 1
Watch the video about a group of mothers who come together around common values and beliefs they have for their children.
STEP 2
Review the importance of shared identity as part of the Inflexion Approach on pages 10-21 of the annotated PDF presentation linked above.
Watch the video about Shared Identity.
STEP 3
Next, rate and provide evidence on how well your school shares an identity using the following definition and scale:
Our school community (students, staff, and families) shares values (principles that drive behavior) and beliefs (what we think to be true) that are articulated, ensure equity and inclusion, and prioritize student agency.
SCALE
1 Not at all
2 Somewhat
3 For the most part
4 Totally
A score of 1 (one) reflects that there is little being done intentionally schoolwide.
A 4 (four) would suggest that you have explicit structures and practices schoolwide to support this.
TIPS
- Have your team show their ratings all at once using their fingers (we use the game RO SHAM BO when we work with teams).
- Then have the team members with the highest and lowest ratings share their thoughts first to get the perspectives that are most different.
- Then through the discussion, reach a consensus on one rating as a group.
Responses