What Is School Culture and How Can You Improve It?

As an administrator, can you define your school culture? Whether you're overseeing one school or an entire district's worth of students, it can be hard to put it into words. However, it can boil down to simply describing what’s important to your school and district and how that is translating into positive student outcomes. It’s meaningful to try and define your school culture because once you define it, you can start to contribute to it in a strategic and positive way.

The definition of school culture

School culture can be defined as the shared values of a school system. This can take many forms, like valuing strong communication with teachers, students, family members, and stakeholders, or you reward hard workers within the school system.

Why is school culture important in schools?

Laying out a clear path to school and student success will help your strategic vision come to life and benefit students. You may understand the importance of school culture, but there are many tangible reasons why positive school culture can benefit your district:

• Better engagement: A positive school culture can encourage engagement in various ways, like strengthening the bond between student and teacher or helping students to stay engaged and focused in the classroom.
• Increased motivation: Values in your school culture, like recognition for the hardest workers, can give students the extra boost they need to follow through on their school commitments.
• More collaboration: When you encourage an open and honest environment, students and teachers will feel comfortable trying new things. This can facilitate collaboration across curriculum, like lesson plans that bring science to students who love ELA, for example. Plus, it can lead to better communication with parents and caregivers, which can help students reach their academic goals.

What is the difference between school culture and school climate?

School culture and school climate may sound the same, and they do have similarities, but they are two different ideas. 

School climate is the overall atmosphere or “feel” of the school, influenced by relationships among the school community, the physical environment, and policies. It's often described as the immediate perception someone has upon entering the school, whether it feels welcoming, safe, and supportive. This climate can change relatively quickly based on leadership, initiatives, or external events. 

On the other hand, school culture represents the deeper values, beliefs, traditions, and norms shared by the school community. It’s the underlying philosophy that drives behaviors and decision-making, built from deliberate actions that can take years to develop. Culture shapes how everyone in the school community—teachers, administrators, students, and family members—interacts and the expectations they hold for each other.

What are the characteristics of a positive culture in schools?

While each school’s unique culture will have different benchmarks for success, here are a few examples of ways a school can exemplify positive culture:

• Collaboration: Does your school communicate effectively and collaborate across teams and groups?
• Honesty: Are teachers and students empowered to give honest feedback?
• Trust: Is there trust that school initiatives will move forward? Do students trust that their teachers have their best interest in mind?
• Support: Do teachers and students have the leaders in place to support them?
• Innovation: Are new ideas welcomed and championed if they meet the school’s needs?

This is just a starting point! Make your own list and include characteristics that you strive for on your list, too. For example, if you are hoping to make your district more tech-forward, you might start by getting feedback from teachers on what is needed to foster honesty and collaboration.

How to improve school culture

To improve your school culture, you need to make a plan and make actionable progress. Ask yourself how you want your school to evolve in the next five years. For help getting started, download the “Know Your Five” resource to prompt thinking about critical issues facing your school and how you can address school culture. 

These are just a few areas where you can look at your school and gauge how effective your policies are at creating a positive school culture. Write down your thoughts—how you think you succeed and how you can improve for each. Below is a starting list to spark ideas for the endless factors that can go into building a school culture.

School culture: Examples of positive characteristics

Culture in schools is a unique system of values that apply to a specific community. Fostering positive school culture creates a sense of belonging and community that can help improve student outcomes. As a leader, it’s important to continue to evaluate and improve on the factors that can impact school culture so that students can thrive.

It can be helpful to see types of characteristics that encapsulate a school’s positive culture. Here are just a few examples:

1. Data-driven: All members of the community are empowered to access and interpret data to guide instructional decisions and school-wide initiatives. Data can come from many sources and informs planning, professional learning, and decision-making.
2. Tech-forward: You have tools and technology that meet your needs. Your staff and students feel supported with new technology that helps them to achieve their goals.
3. Communicative: Communication is at the top of your priority list. You are always looking for new, effective ways to communicate across stakeholders. Caregiver communication becomes key to your success, too.

School culture can take different forms depending on your goals and the people who belong to the school community. Yet however you focus your shared values, building a strong school culture can help to improve student outcomes.

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Are you an educational leader who wants to harness the power of data to drive strategic planning? Watch our webinar "Navigating Change in Districts and Schools: Data-Driven Strategic Planning" to lead with confidence.