6 Steps to Becoming a Really Good School Right Now

The school year is upon many of us, and we’re all feverishly working to make our schools the best they can be for all kids. All educators want their schools to be really, really good, but wanting something to be good and taking the critical steps to make it happen are two totally different things. If you really want your school to be great, you have to really want to work hard to make your dreams become your reality.

6 Steps to Becoming a Really Good School.

Relationships

People make schools great when they focus on building strong relationships among and between leaders, teachers, students, and parents.  When these relationships are strong, open, honest, supportive, and ultimately focused on what's best for all kids, schools stand a great chance of becoming great. 

Expectations

In schools of excellence, expectations are high, tight and consistent for all kids but also for all educators, and what's really important is that these high expectations remain high, tight, and consistent all year long. 

Accountability

Expectations can only remain high when every person in the organization stays really committed to them by holding everyone accountable. Without accountability, high expectations wither away to mere hopes and dreams. 

Leadership

If you really want your school to be excellent, a culture of leadership exists where every employee from the principal to the custodian is a leader of some aspect of the school program, and they lead their area by inspiring and teaching everyone how to get better every day.

Learning

Your school will never become really good until every adult becomes a learner and a model of learning for everyone around them. We can’t expect a students to become learners if the adults who influence them aren’t learners first. 

Yearning

Really good schools never settle for the status quo, and they don’t lean on last year’s success. They yearn for even better results, a more supportive student environment, and a better and more effective way of doing things for the benefit of all students. 

Do You Really Want to be Really Good?

The fact of the matter is that we all want the same thing, but the really good schools turn their aspirations into actualities. They turn their why’s into why nots, and they do it as a unified team of educators. 

What ideas listed above will you take advantage of to make your school really good this year?