Culture Wins

When Mrs. Willis tells me that something belongs on a t-shirt, I generally give it some thought. So let me set up the stage for you. As many of you know, I work with a group of principals from throughout the state that facilitates conversations and serve as mentors to other principals. We hold small group meetings about once a month and quarterly, we all get together (virtually) to discuss some larger issues and talk through some professional development. Think of it as one large PLC for principals. This week we had one of those large virtual meetings and I was leading a breakout room that was brainstorming root causes of why so many 9th graders were missing school unrelated to quarantines. When we finally got around to what we could start to do about it, I realized that I might not be as relatable to the rest of the group. 

We all had similar ideas about after-school programs where students could make up missed days and get tutorial help. It's not a particularly revolutionary idea, but more of a way to rectify some prior decisions that resulted in a loss of credits. At our school, we were quickly able to have counselors meet with every student that lost credit due to attendance and we had a plan for what steps they would need to go through to earn that credit back. Most of those students have already engaged in the process of doing what they need to do. Again, literally, anyone could have done this. It's not that groundbreaking. But when we talked about it in our group, the other principals quickly jumped to say that none of their teachers were willing to work after school to help with it and none of their bus drivers were willing to drive second routes to get kids home from it. I interrupted, "But you know, we do pay ours to be there." They told me that their staff thought that it wasn't worth their time and stress to take the money. They had tried to pay them and still no one was willing to do it. I shut up. My inner voice quickly told me that the solutions that I had were only exposing problems that I was not familiar with. 

So what's the difference? Was our plan so well thought out and communicated to students and their families that it just couldn't fail? Were we paying our staff double or maybe triple what others were willing to pay? Nope. The difference is culture and it has everything to do with all of you and very little to do with planning an afterschool program. Something intrinsically motivates our staff to help out when extra dollars aren't going to do it alone. Some people call it relationships, some call it a feeling of family and others call it a sense of importance. But really it's a culture. We want to see them succeed and we want to see them learn. This isn't new to us and doing something extra to get them there isn't either. Literally, everyone in education is tired right now and we all manage it in different ways. The teachers at those other schools are not bad teachers. Not at all. But something is different. They aren't us. And I have no words to tell you how much I appreciate you for being exactly who you are. 

So what does Mr. Willis think I should put on the t-shirt? Culture Wins When Programs Fail. Who knows. I'll keep working on it.