School Policy or School Culture?

It's relatively easy to change a school policy: a conversation and stroke of the pen will usually do it.

For an entire public school district, it might be an executive decision, or a board decision.

But changing a school's culture is more difficult and more complex. It requires leadership, teamwork, time, and lots of concerted effort.

Changing a school's culture is also more powerful than merely changing its policies.

A leader needs to do a lot of preliminary work behind the scenes before rolling out measures intended to alter school culture. A leader must have a careful discussion with the teaching faculty and other staff.

Policies can be tools toward changing a culture.

Culture will change only when the policy changes are kept consistently in place over a longer period of time.