Case Study: White River School District’s Implementation of a Positive School Climate Framework
Jacobsen, Mike D. and Marcie R. Polin, “A District’s Role in Building a Safe and Civil School,” Principal Leadership, Vol. 7, No. 4, (Dec 2006).
The White River School District made specific policy changes in an attempt to foster a more conducive and positive learning environment. The program was called REACH, which stands for Responsibility, Excellence, Achievement, Caring, and Honor. These are the major traits that formed the basis for a positive school climate. Two major lessons were learned after three years of White River relying on this new framework. First, that it is important to collect data continuously to be able to be able to judge the progress the school has made. Secondly, training staff to foster a positive classroom and school wide atmosphere is of paramount importance. White River School District has seen marked improvement in the areas of staff collegiality, the feeling of safety in school, and the relationship between students and staff. The next step is to be able to move to “second-order” change, those which are innately done and not as a result of direction. It is clear from the article that the administrative leaders of the school district need to be the catalysts of change, and have the greatest ability to create a positive school environment.