The Importance of Improving School Climate through Policy and Teacher Education
"The School Climate Challenge: Narrowing the Gap Between School Climate Research and School Climate Policy, Practice Guidelines and Teacher Education Policy," Center for Social and Emotional Education.
This paper reviews research demonstrating the importance of actively creating a positive school climate for improving student learning and makes recommendations for policy-makers, school administrators and teacher educators on how to improve school climate.
This paper describes a positive school climate as the “norms, values and expectations that support people feeling socially, emotionally and physically safe” and stresses that students, families and school staff need to work together to develop and sustain a positive environment. The paper references the importance placed on school climate by human rights standards outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child which states that schools must respect the inherent dignity of the child, create a climate of tolerance, and bar disciplinary practices that harm or humiliate.
The paper documents research which shows that positive school climate improves students’ achievement and motivation to learn, reduces disciplinary problems and increases teacher satisfaction and retention. Recommendations stress the importance of evaluating school climate by recognizing student, parent and teacher voices and by examining all “major dimensions of school life" including safety, relationships, teaching and learning and the external environment. The paper stresses the importance of recognizing the different context and dynamics of individuals schools and the need to craft reform efforts around those dynamics. Finally, it stresses the importance of teacher education and training in creating classroom and school climate.