Collaborative Culture

Collaboration Research School leaders must build a collaborative culture in their schools. According to standard seven of the Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (2015), a school leader is supposed to create a professional culture with all staff members that contribute to the values, mission, and vision of the school. This includes creating an environment in which staff members can interact responsibly, promote accountability among all staff members, support professional learning opportunities, and develop caring, nurturing, and long-lasting relationships amongst all staff. These things coincide and exist for the improvement of student growth and achievement. In a collaborative culture, staff, students, families, and the community

The teams may only last a few months, while others will take place over the course of various years, depending on the timeline for completing all necessary achievements for that specific team. There are amazing benefits to teaming up with others who share common goals and visions. Some of those benefits include having higher expectations for all learners, sustaining a collaborative culture that communicates and carries on phenomenal change initiatives, and creating the most rigorous and high-quality learning experiences for students in and outside the classrooms. There are barriers and problematic issues that can keep a collaborative culture from being as successful. Time is essential and usually ends up being one reason schools are not creating teams or meeting as teams. However, leadership must ensure that teachers have an ample amount of time to meet, discuss, and collaborate with others about instructional decisions that better meet the needs of all students. Schools must separate themselves from the practice of isolation amongst teachers and staff. Research shows that teachers thrive more and plan more enriching lessons with a team rather than by

School leaders must understand that they cannot do everything alone. Allowing others to have power in their areas of strength will provide a winning situation for all parties. This allows colleagues to hone in on tasks they may be passionate about such as reading comprehension, while administrators are able to oversee teams; however, they do not have to be the entire team themselves. They can rely on their staff to accomplish goals that are aligned with the mission and vision of the school. Creating a collaborative culture also creates buy-in from all stakeholders. People do not care about things as much if they do not feel as though they have an active voice in the decisions that are being made, especially if those decisions directly affect them. It is important to establish a family type culture where all stakeholders feel connected to one another and they take responsibility for student achievement and upholding their school’s mission and vision. A school’s culture should not be function as though it is a robot, only going through the motions just to fulfill certain obligations on paper. It should also not reflect a little house of horror where staff members do not see the importance of being there. Also, in this type of environment, they are stressed and view it as a form of