Are You Moving the Needle?

You’re halfway through the school year—time to review, recalibrate, and renew your culture initiatives with Kickboard. Today, we share a free, practical tool to use with your school leadership team for a mid-year check of school culture. This guide will help you think through what effects you’ve had on school culture so far, plan necessary adjustments, and ensure you’re on track to reach your goals by the end of the year.

This 5-step guide serves as a protocol to follow in a mid-year culture team meeting. During the meeting, your team will:

1. Consider your original culture goal
2. Inspect long-term impact data
3. Evaluate your Kickboard usage and outcomes
4. Evaluate your culture leadership practices
5. Commit to a plan

We have also provided you with a printer-friendly guide you can download and use for note-taking during the meeting.

 

STEP ONE:  CONSIDER YOUR ORIGINAL CULTURE GOAL

Remind yourselves why you started this journey. Was it to reduce office referrals or suspensions? Alter attendance? Increase the positivity of your learning environment? Keep that goal top-of-mind throughout this activity. Post it loud and clear in the front of the room to help you remember the end game!

 

STEP TWO: INSPECT LONG-TERM IMPACT DATA

Pull data both within and external to Kickboard. What evidence of success can you site that would indicate that the climate and culture at your school is improving compared to last school year?

Examples:

• Reduction in suspensions
• Reduction in discipline referrals
• Reduction in send-outs
• Increase in attendance
• Reduction in a certain negative behavior
• Increase in positivity ratio

If you don’t have last year’s data available, you can analyze the current school year to date to determine if it’s trending positively. Here are analysis examples from two Kickboard schools:

Decline in referrals and suspensions throughout the fall semester.

 

Steady increase in positivity throughout the fall.

 

STEP THREE:  EVALUATE YOUR KICKBOARD USAGE AND OUTCOMES

Now consider how you’ve used the  Kickboard software and evaluate how it is moving you toward achieving your goal. Use this table to capture your team’s thoughts:

 

 

STEP FOUR: EVALUATE LEADERSHIP PRACTICES

In this step, reflect on how you actively used Kickboard culture data in your day-to-day school-wide systems and practices.

 

STEP FIVE: COMMIT TO A PLAN

Of the changes you’ve identified above, what are your top priorities? Commit to 2-3 changes and create an action timeline for them.

You’re sure to meet your culture goals if you reflect, recalibrate, and renew your culture plan now. Click here for a printer-friendly version of this guide to use in your next culture meeting!