I’ve been job hunting for several months (thank you, layoffs). As I’m eyeing job postings and prepping for interviews, I’ve been interested in how organizations describe their culture.

Not one of them leads with “hot mess," "toxic swamp of despair" or “dumpster fire,” though many orgs are.

Over the years and especially during my time as a consultant, I’ve seen a lot. The CEO who announced “Aaaaaaand… youshouldknowlayoffsarecoming” in the middle of a wonderful holiday party at the Birchmere. (Yassss she did. I like to think it inspired the lyric “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”) I’ve seen management so loathe to make hard, emotional decisions that the org literally ran out of money. I’ve counseled staff members who’ve given up sharing their ideas because they’re never acknowledged or adopted.

Culture does eat strategy for breakfast. I love a good strategic plan and I’ve written several, but strategy is just a bunch of words on paper without good people to bring it to life.

Strategic plans usually include “mission,” “vision” and “values.” Organizational culture should be a tangible embodiment of those values.

Companies with healthy culture develop better strategies, because employees contribute their expertise to sharpen them.

Companies with healthy culture execute on strategy more effectively, because employees feel invested in the work and have the support they need to be successful.

Where’s the best place you’ve ever worked? How would you describe its culture?

For me, it’s been those places where I have been:

1. Recognized for my hard work
2. Comfortable admitting what I don’t know (yet), asking for help, and getting it
3. Invited into shared problem solving and decision making
4. Respected as a professional with valuable knowledge and experiences to share
5. Encouraged to keep learning and to try new things
6. Expected to be responsible for getting core things done well, and held accountable when they’re not
7. Seen as a whole person (with a life outside of work), known, and cared about by my colleagues
8. Part of a community of people who genuinely enjoy each other.

School divisions, schools, and classrooms have cultures, too, just like any other organization. As APS rolls up its sleeves to start on a new strategic plan, I believe that it’s our culture, more than any particular verbiage we craft, that will propel us to a great future.

Here are some examples I really admire from other schools and districts I’ve visited.

Time to collaborate at P.S. 172, Brooklyn, NY:

At P.S. 172 staff members have regular, protected time to collaborate and make decisions about the curriculum and their own professional learning. The NYC Department of Education granted the school a waiver so that it could schedule a 90-minute block of professional learning time at the start of each school day, one day per grade level. (School leaders developed a master schedule that places students in specials while their classroom teachers are engaged in these professional learning sessions.)

Grade-level teams work with instructional coaches to identify topics and formats for their own professional learning; Rachel, one of the school’s special education teachers, shared, “There is great respect here for the amount of time teachers need to spend together. We respect each other as colleagues and are able to ask for what we need.”

Teams use separate dedicated time to co-create the school’s curriculum and revise it annually to meet student needs. “It’s a shared document that everyone is responsible for,” said Rachel. “If something isn’t working, there’s not one person who feels their work is being criticized. It was made by all of us.”

Student decision making at Parker Charter Essential School, Devens, MA:

At Parker, students are surveyed as part of mid-year and end-of-year teacher evaluations, and a student-led Community Congress has a voice in changing school policies, providing feedback on the school’s annual budget allocations, and weighing in on other administrative issues. Additionally, the student-led Justice Committee plays a key role in resolving conflicts, providing mediation, and developing restorative plans after infractions.

The corollary to shared decision making is shared responsibility and accountability. Parker principal Todd Sumner told us, “There’s an expectation that adults in school share a commitment to the entire school. When we orient new staff, we share that it means you can’t walk by stuff… if I walk by I can’t say ‘They’re not my problem because they’re not my students.’ You need to step toward the issue, not away from it. Because this piece is consistent over time, the longer the students are here, the more they own it. The juniors and seniors really are the ones doing most of the tone-setting. They will be as quick as any adult to say, ‘This doesn’t look right.’”


Valuing teacher expertise at Harvest Collegiate High School, New York, NY:

At Harvest Collegiate, teachers can get release time to pursue career development opportunities and take graduate classes towards advanced degrees. Many teachers take on hybrid roles within the school, including professional learning community leaders, health and wellness leaders and curriculum developers.

At Harvest, all teacher desks are housed together in one big workroom so that teachers can troubleshoot issues and share ideas. This workroom is often where individual teachers create new courses and solicit feedback on those course ideas from their colleagues; teachers at the school develop courses that reflect their passions and expertise as well as interests voiced by their students.

Faculty member Steve Lazar noted, “We ask teachers, ‘What's the most successful unit you've ever taught?’ and then we say, ‘Great, make that a course. Turn that into a semester class.’ Because we're building on teachers’ strengths and past experiences, that leads to teachers doing things that work for students.”

Interdisciplinary inquiry and innovation at Vancouver iTech, Vancouver, WA:

Teachers across several subject areas teamed up to try out an interdisciplinary experience for high school students at Vancouver iTech. First, the students studied The Omnivore's Dilemma as a collaborative biology, health and physical education unit. They tracked their eating and sleeping habits and interviewed their parents on the factors that influence healthy behaviors.

In their media class, students then created short films about food for a festival they planned. The inspiration for each film was a nutritional improvement each student identified for themselves. Students filled a variety of roles at the festival according to their interests.

School principal Darby Meade observed, “Our school’s guiding principles are around innovation, inspiring students to create, and really imagining what it is that we can be. We don’t necessarily know what is going to be out there in ten or fifteen years… we believe in problem solving and teaching kids to fail. The amount of information is continuing to increase--if we just cover the curriculum, we’re getting further and further behind.”


Relevant professional learning at Fall Creek Middle School, Fall Creek, WI:

Sixth grade teacher Toby Jacobson and his colleague David Ross received encouragement from Brad LaPoint, their principal, to make project-based learning the focus of their professional learning through a district-wide system that uses teachers’ individual goal-setting to drive professional learning.
Other teachers identified professional learning goals related to growth mindset, reading strategies, special education connection with families, and more; the program culminates in a “Goal Day” street fair where teachers share what they’ve learned.
Jacobson reflected, “This culture really took off in the last three years. In the first couple years, there was more focus from the staff on just getting through the process. Now it’s more like people take it on themselves, asking ‘How am I going to get better this year?’”


“How am I going to get better this year?” and its partner “How are we going to get better this year?” are the right questions to be asking. In any org, the response should begin with culture—the one we have, and the one we want to create. If we don’t get that right, it’s quite likely our strategies will amount to little more than the crumbs left on a breakfast plate.


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A few months before she died unexpectedly at age 61, Texas educator Rita Pierson gave a TED Talk and recalled a colleague telling her, "They don't pay me to like the kids." Her response: "Kids don't learn from people they don't like." 

We’ve known for quite some time that positive teacher-student relationships boost students’ academic achievement. We’ve always assumed that this is because students feel safe to take risks with someone they trust and are motivated to do their best work.

Research published earlier this month, however, explores a different explanation for the higher test scores and GPAs in classrooms where relationships are strongest: Are these students learning more because they are being taught more effectively? That is: do positive teacher-student relationships actually change the way that teachers teach?

It turns out the answer is “Yes.” This is some of the first research that really examines the effect of positive teacher-student relationships on teachers themselves.

The study recently published in the journal Learning and Instruction focused on evaluation data gathered over two school years for Missouri educators teaching grades 4-10. The researchers conclude:

Positive teacher-student relationships lead primary and secondary teachers to move effectively implement three complex teaching practices examined in this study: cognitive engagement in the content, problem solving and critical thinking, and instructional monitoring… teachers are more likely to check in, monitor, scaffold, provide more constructive feedback to students, have greater confidence in their students’ abilities and use better scaffolding strategies for critical thinking.

The researchers were also able to test “the direction of effect,” meaning they were able to show that the positive teacher-student relationships predict and precede higher-quality instruction. This was true regardless of the teacher’s years of experience, the percentage of economically disadvantaged students at the school, and the school-level proficiency rate on state tests.

Why do I bring this up right now? Because we’re heading into a new school year, and we would do well to spend some time in the first weeks attending to relationships. I don’t mean the traditional “fill out this questionnaire, Back To School Night” kinds of interactions: I mean prioritizing and investing the time it takes for teachers to deeply know their students, and vice versa. This investment will pay dividends all year long. Last August, I wrote about what this could look like. At the time I was thinking about its effect on students, but this recent research now has me considering its effect on teachers, too.

When I was a teacher a million years ago, conventional wisdom held that teachers should be especially stern the first few weeks of school. Lay down the law. Demonstrate that you are in control. This was especially true if you were a 23-year-old teaching high school students just seven or eight years younger than you.
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There’s no question that teachers need classroom management skills. But they also need relationship skills, and the time to apply them, which I believe create the conditions for a well-functioning classroom.

Good relationships improve student learning. And it just may be that teachers have as much to gain as their students in the bargain.

On Wednesday, the Arlington Public Schools hosted its annual "Celebration of Excellence" to honor exemplary employees who have been nominated by their colleagues, students and members of the community.

As a School Board member, it was a treat to be at the ceremony and to recognize the eleven teachers, support employees and principal who were honored. 

One of the honorees, Iris Gibson, is a business education teacher at the Langston High School Continuation Program, and she gave a speech that really moved me. 

It's National Teacher Appreciation Week, and Iris's words remind me how life-changing, complex, and wonderful the work of teaching can be. 

She says it better than I ever could, and she's given me permission to share her words with you. ​