Culture Culture Culture

(RE)DEFINING ANIMO VENICE PLANNING MEETING: 7-2-2009

Issue:

Animo Venice needs to establish a new culture based on – student achievement, community service, giving back to the school.

Agenda:

1) Warm Up: The Ideal Animo Venice Student

2) Chalk Talk

a. Current School Culture (Positives/Negatives) vs Ideal School Culture

b. Other schools

c. What can we do?

3) Action Plan: first day, first week, first month, first semester, whole year/ongoing.

4) Homework: rewrite the mission statement so that the students can verbalize/understand it and adopt it as their own. Current Mission State:

The mission of Ánimo Venice Charter High School is to prepare students for college, leadership, and life through innovative instruction, a rigorous curriculum, and the use of technology. At Ánimo Venice, we are committed to the education, and social and economic success of students who historically are unlikely to attend and excel at an institution of higher learning. We aim to achieve our mission by creating a student-centered environment that unifies the efforts of family, community, and school to foster life-long learning, cross-cultural competency, social responsibility, and academic excellence.

5) Plan next meeting

MINUTES

Participants: Richard, John, Stepan, Tom, Bob, Alyce, Paul, Carr

1) What does the ideal Animo Venice students look like? What does the ideal student think, feel, and do?

Each person was asked to brainstorm a few words that would describe his/her ideal AV student. As shown below, the list is long and varied. It’d be difficult for students to know exactly what we want them to become (the same problem with the ESLRs). Ideally, we should be able to distill this list to 3 essential words that students can easily memorize and internalize. The more focused and clear we are, the better. What words would you choose from or add to this list?

Always trying harder

Professional

Creative

Future/Forward Looking

Challenge/Questioning

Respect

Tenacity

Philanthropic/Thinks of others

Positive

Proud

Confident

Attitude

Integrity

Fun

Energetic

Safe/Comfortable

2) What do we think about the current school culture, positives and negatives? How did it get to its current state? What should it be?

Guiding questions:

a. Do you want the school culture to interlock with the academic mission of the school ( I have no idea if you all even talk about 90/90/90 anymore)

b. if the answer to that is yes then what are the priorities of the school? What things have been prioritized? Have other things super ceded grades?

c. What has been the consistency at the school as it pertains to policies set forth?

The bulk of the meeting was stuck at this question because it goes to the core of who we are, what we haven’t become, and what we’d like to be. It was evident that everyone has been mulling over these questions for a while, and that everyone is ready to do something about the situation. However, we weren’t able to nail down what the AV school culture should be, which is necessary before creating an action plan. In particular, we had a somewhat heated discussion about the 90/90/90 goal and its impact on the school and students. Most people agreed that it should still be the stated goal of the school, however some questioned whether it should be the focus/mission for the students. The difficulty of the discussion resulted from 1) trying to define an abstract concept like school culture; 2) the various definitions and interpretations that people have about different terms such as “school culture”; and 3) some ideological differences between the participants.

During the discussion, Carr offered a framework for building a school’s culture:

Vision à Culture à Priorities à Consistency

He felt that AV always had difficulty being consistent with its message and policies. Exceptions were made and policies were changed inconsistently, both of which are typical occurrences for a new school but in the end might have undermined the formation of a strong school culture for AV. For me personally, I’ve come to believe that the school vision for the students was never well developed in the first place or there was a mismatch between the vision we imagined and the student population we served. We put the school together in 3 months, from when we first started recruiting kids to when we opened the doors on the first day. I doubt any of us understood the student population well—the diversity of ethnicities, class, abilities, and where the kids come from. We talked about how to get kids into college, but we didn’t discuss how we would give the students a meaningful reason for getting into college. It was pretty much assumed that they wouldn’t like their home school and they wanted to go to college.

The group also felt that the students did have a sense of belonging and in general felt safe and comfortable at the school. However, in my opinion, the sense of belonging is between the students and some adults, but not to the school and its mission or purpose. Thus, the kids are most influenced by their peers and not the school.

From Kaitie and John’s emailed notes:

Positives:

· In general, we have a pretty decent school culture. We also have many events (sports, pep rallies, dances) and traditions/culminating events (dodgeball, science fair, film festival, arts festival) that help make our school feel more “real.”

· Safe and Civil (in principle)

Negatives:

· Some things we can’t control, i.e. teenagers hate many things including high school.

· It’s important that the adults stay positive-- If WE aren't positive, there is no way the kids can be.

· Making it too difficult for many kids to stay in sports (2 "F" rule, for example)

· culminating events that only happen at end of year

· no activities coordinator or monitor: who will organize or create a focus for all these somewhat random events that happen at our school?

· no cultural planning or vision for the school. College prep: what does that look like? Connect after school enrichment with college prep.

· no successful credit recovery program; how did APEX happen?

· Safe and Civil in practice; how to make it sustainable?

· lack of consistent input from students

· are we thinking of the whole student or just their academic potential?

· no clubs per se

3) How have other schools established their school cultures and what do they look like? How much of what they do can be translated to our setting?

From Dave and John’s emailed notes:

· KIPP and ICEF have their school cultures deeply interwoven into their academics and rules and regulations…they are interlocked…on the front end it reveals a very rigid environment but on the back end there is buy in and the kids do enjoy being there.

· any successful Green Dot school cultures? someone needs to look for models. Large schools have many more resources, fundraising avenues, students to run the show, etc

4) Action Plan/Calendar-- How do we use the move and all of the great things we plan to do next year (new electives, athletics, community/service learning, interventions, SSR, advisory, Safe & Civil, mentor programs, etc) to shift the school culture to the way we want it?

BEFORE SCHOOL YEAR

Activity/Event	Message/Theme?	Type?*	Align w/ school vision?
Hire activities coordinator
Define role of advisory
Plan service learning/community service program
Develop credit recovery program
Reconcile Safe & Civil with School Culture group
Create visual map of all events/projects and spread the love out so there is something fun and celebratory each month
Reform office hours: by appointment only; mentors/TAs
Implement new detention policy: lunch detentions

FIRST DAY

Activity/Event	Message/Theme?	Type?*	Align w/ school vision?

FIRST WEEK

Activity/Event	Message/Theme?	Type?*	Align w/ school vision?
New school assembly		Ceremony
Whole School Beach Run	Health	Ritual	Yes

FIRST MONTH

Activity/Event	Message/Theme?	Type? *	Align w/ school vision?
ASB elections		Ceremony
Club week		Ritual
Pep Rally: 3-point shooting contest, emphasize academic success/excellence, organized by ASB		Ceremony, Play
Students of the Month luncheon		Ceremony, Play

FIRST QUARTER

Activity/Event	Message/Theme?	Type? *	Align w/ school vision?
GPA reward fieldtrip to the beach		Play
Advisory GPA contests		Play
SSR Teacher Read-Off competition		Play
Reformed Back to School Night: fishbowl dialog between current and alumni parents; school culture/team building activities with parents		Ritual

FIRST SEMESTER

Activity/Event	Message/Theme?	Type? *	Align w/ school vision?
Hire Champions to bring rock wall/ropes courses and do team-building		Play

SECOND SEMESTER:

Activity/Event	Message/Theme?	Type? *	Align w/ school vision?
Annual event: camping, dodgeball tournament, bonfire		Rituals, Play

END OF YEAR

Activity/Event	Message/Theme?	Type? *	Align w/ school vision?
Annual event: bonfire

ONGOING

Activity/Event	Message/Theme?	Type? *	Align w/ school vision?
Service learning/community service program with parental involvement
Interdisciplinary projects with authentic assessments through Community Service Initiative
Identify and place students in credit recovery program
Student facilities maintenance crews
Student of the Month Luncheons (monthly)
College trips
PE Class: split by gender, get male role models involved in workshops; specific health/sex education for girls
Professional Focus (majors): arts, business/technology, health/ sports, and science/engineering. Create enrichment programs that follow these interests; create a pathway from the classroom to the enrichment program to college; Have students plan beyond college towards future professions and personal goals.
Lunch detentions
ASB responsible for promoting school culture: School-wide meetings, focus on promoting academic excellence
Student/peer disciplinary council

From Reframing Organizations (Bolman and Deal, 1997):

Symbols embody and express an organization’s culture—the interwoven pattern of beliefs, values, practices, and artifacts that define for members who they are and how they are to do things. Culture is both a product and a process. As a product, it embodies accumulated wisdom from those who came before us. As a process, it is continually renewed and re-created as newcomers learn the old ways and eventually become teachers themselves. (217)

Culture: What is it, and is its role in organizations? Both questions are hotly contested. Some people argue that organizations have cultures; others insist that organizations are cultures. Schein offers a more formal definition: “a pattern of shared basic assumptions that a group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.” Deal and Kennedy define culture more succinctly as “the way we do things around here.” (231)

How do these quotes apply to Animo Venice from the students’ perspective?

Symbolic perspectives question traditional views that building a team mainly means finding the right people and designing an appropriate structure. The essence of high performance is spirit. If we were to banish play, ritual, ceremony, and myth, we would destroy teamwork, not enhance it. There are many signs that late-twentieth-century organizations are at a critical juncture because of a crisis of meaning and faith. Managers wonder how to build team spirit when turnover is high, resources are tight, and people worry about losing their jobs. Such questions are important, but by themselves, they limit managerial imagination and divert attention from deeper issues of faith and purpose. Managers are inescapably accountable for budgets and bottom lines. They have to respond to individual needs, legal requirements, and economic pressures. But they can serve a deeper and more durable function when they recognize that team building at its heart is a spiritual undertaking. It is both a search for the spirit within and the creation of a community of believers united by shared faith and shared culture. Peak performance emerges as a team discovers its soul. (262)

Again, read the above quote from the students’ perspective, thinking of the student body as players in the team and the teachers/admin as the “captains.” What do we need to do before we can become a “high performance” team?

*Events can be classified according to certain organizational symbols: Ritual/Ceremony, Humor/Play, Stories/Fairy Tales, Myths. Events that fall into these types can influence the school culture. See below for definitions.

Ritual and ceremony lift spirits and reinforce values. Ritual and ceremony are expressive occasions. As parentheses in an ordinary workday, they enclose and define special forms of behavior. What occurs on the surface is not nearly so important as the deeper meanings that are communicated beneath visible behavior. (258) The distinction between ritual and ceremony is subtle. Ceremonies are grander, more elaborate, less frequent occasions. Rituals are simpler day-to-day patterns. Expressive events provide order and meaning and bind an organization or society together. When properly conducted and attuned to valued myths, rituals fire the imagination and deepen the faith. (229)

Humor and play reduce tension and encourage creativity. Groups often focus single-mindedly on the task at hand, shunning anything not directly work-related. Seriousness replaces godliness as a cardinal virtue. Effective teams balance seriousness with play and humor. Surgical teams, cockpit crews, and many other groups have learned that joking and playful banter are an essential source of invention and team spirit. Humor releases tension and helps resolve issues that arise from day-to-day routines as well as from sudden emergencies. (256)

Stories and fairy tales carry history and values and reinforce group identity. In high performing organizations and groups, stories keep traditions alive and provide examples to guide everyday behavior. (255) Stories are a key medium for communicating corporate myths. They establish and perpetuate tradition. They are recalled and embellished in formal meetings and informal coffee breaks. They convey the value and identity of the organization to insiders and outsiders, thereby building confidence and support. One school administrator responded to criticisms of a new reading program by recounting stories of several children whose ability to read had increased dramatically. The stories spread through the community, and test scores became almost irrelevant because the stories built so much confidence and support. (222)

Myths, operating at deep reaches of consciousness, provide the story behind the story. All organizations rely on myths or sagas of varying strength and intensity. One of the distinctive characteristics of elite institutions—such as Harvard, the US Marines, or McKinsey & Company—is the presence of strong myths and sagas, widely shared and regularly invoked. Myths support claims of distinctiveness, transforming a place of work into a revered institution and an all-encompassing way of life. A shared myth fosters internal cohesion and a sense of direction while helping maintain confidence and the support of external constituencies. (220-221)