5 Summer Actions That Will Change Your School Culture by October

School culture doesn't wait for September. The decisions you're making right now, the conversations you're having, the things you're letting slide — that's your culture being built. August doesn't fix it. July builds it.

Last week Edward named what most schools won't say out loud. This week is about what you do with that. Five concrete action steps you can start this summer before you set foot back in your building: have the honest conversation you've been putting off, invest in your culture carriers before they burn out, collect the culture data your building actually needs, audit what you're celebrating publicly, and start measuring before the year begins.

Edward also shares how to get free access to his School Culture Compass program. Send an email to ed@edwarddeshazer.org and mention Homeroom Attendance.

Awareness without action is just a well-informed version of staying stuck. This one moves you forward.

www.homeroomattendance.com

Transcript

Awareness Is Not Action

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Naming the problem is not enough. Feeling it is not enough. At some point, the conversation has to turn from here's what's broken to here's what we're gonna do about it. School culture doesn't wait for September. And the decisions that you're making and the conversations you're having and the things you're paying attention to and the things you're letting slide. And if you want something different in October, you have to start building it in July. Period. Education needs people who are truly present, not just in the building.

Welcome To Homeroom Attendance

SPEAKER_00 0:28

I'm Ember DeShazer, and welcome to Homeroom Attendance. Your seat is safe. What's going on, Pod? Welcome back to Homeroom Attendance. I'm your host, Ember DeShazer, and today I'm asking, are you present or are you absent? Before we begin, if you are watching on YouTube, hit the little thumb button down there below. If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, I would love it if you gave me a star review. You don't have to write it out. Just leave a star review. It allows me to get in front of more educators like yourself. So appreciate it. But let's begin.

What We Named Last Week

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Uh last week, excuse me, on the episode, we named some things. We talked about the mental health of adults being invisible in the same building that built an entire support system or support system for kids. Uh we talked about toxic culture hiding behind good intentions. We talked about the gap between what educators say they believe in their students and their coworkers and themselves, and what their actually actual behavior shows. And we talked about the we're fine culture that keeps all of it in place. And if that episode got to you the way I intended it to, um, you probably felt one of two things. Either you feel a bit relieved that someone said out loud the thing that you've been carrying around your head for so long, or you maybe you felt a little uncomfortable because some of it landed a little too close to home about the building you're in, the leader you're the leaders you work for, the coworkers you have, or maybe something about ourselves. And both of those responses are valid. Both of them mean uh mean that you were present uh for that episode. But here's what I want us to take today.

The Shift From Feelings To Action

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Naming the problem is not enough. Feeling it is not enough. At some point, the conversation has to turn from here's what's broken to here's what we're gonna do about it. So that is what today is about. Today is about action, concrete, specific, doable action. Things that you can start this summer before you uh ever set foot back in your building. Because if there's one thing that I know being in education, 20 years being in leadership for 10, almost I think 11 years now, school culture doesn't wait for September. Culture is being built right now, and the decisions that you're making, and the conversations you're having, and the things you're paying attention to, and the things you're letting slide. And if you want something different in October, you have to start building it in July. Period. Culture is not something you fix in August, it's something that you build every day. You're not fixing it.

Action One Have The Hard Talk

SPEAKER_00 3:23

So I have five action items that I'm gonna give you today. Number one, have the honest conversation that you've been postponing. There's a conversation sitting in the back of your mind right now that you've been rescheduling since March. Maybe it's with a colleague who's been bringing the energy of the building down and everyone has been working around it instead of addressing it. Maybe it's the supervisor that something's just not been working. Or maybe it's with yourself about if the role that you are in is still the right one. The reason you haven't had the conversation is not because you don't know what to say, I'm assuming. It's because you've been waiting for a safer time, a better moment, a version that feels like the situation maybe is just a little less risky. It's the self-preservation that is innately built in every human. But here's what I want you to know this summer. Now is the time. The school year has a way of making difficult conversations feel impossible because everything is moving and there's kids in the building, and the urgency of the day takes over. But right now things are quieter, the pressure is a little bit lower, and you have the bandwidth to handle the discomfort that comes with honesty. So have the conversation. I'm not telling you to be aggressive, I'm not telling you to go in someone's office sideways, I'm not telling you to go in with a list of grievances you've been compiling since the last school year, but I'm telling you to go in with clarity and I'm telling you to go in with care and with a specific intention of moving something forward that has been feeling stuck. One honest conversation this summer can change the entire trajectory of next school year.

Action Two Invest In Culture Carriers

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Number two, identify your culture, identify your culture carriers and invest in them. Every building has people, whether it's teachers, support staff, front office, custodians, who it doesn't matter what the job title is, they hold the culture together even when leadership isn't watching. They are the ones who greet the kids by name, they are the ones who pull a struggling colleague aside and check on them without being asked. They're the ones whose energy, even when they walk in a room, shifts the temperature of the space that they are in. They are the people that you will never hear, that is not my job out of. Most organizations take these people for granted. We spend so much time uh, you know, pouring into the people that are falling short because we want to get them to catch up and we forget to pour into the people who are already ahead. When you add to the people who are dominating, you multiply. When you add to the people who are struggling, you add. Our goal is to get us adding. And then one day these people that you should have been adding to end up leaving. Or they quietly check out because they got tired of giving without receiving, and the building feels it for years without ever being able to name exactly why. So this summer, what I want you to do is identify three people in your building who are culture carriers, sneezers. They s whatever they spread is contagious, and do something intentional for them before the school year starts. Not not a gift card, um, not an email blast that goes to the entire staff. Do something personal, maybe it's a conversation, maybe it's a letter, maybe it's just a direct acknowledge via text to what their presence in the building actually means. People stay where they feel seen, and culture carriers who feel seen become culture builders. That's the return on the

Action Three And Four Measure Values

SPEAKER_00 7:03

investment. Number three, get honest about your data. And I'm not talking about test scores. This is where I want to spend a little time because this is one of the most overlooked, but one of the most important aspects. When educators talk about data, we almost always mean academic data, proficiency rates, standardized test scores, row stores, attendance numbers, suspensions, all those things, and I'm not dismissing that, those things are important. But there's another category of data that most schools are not collecting seriously, and that is the data that tells you what it actually feels like to be in your building: student experience data, culture data, staff perception data, parent perception data. But how do your teachers actually feel about the leadership in your building? Not what they say in a staff meeting when the principal's around, but what do they actually think? Do your students feel known by the adults around them, or do they feel like a case number moving through a system? Do your support staff feel like they are part of the culture, or are they just background noise on the larger symphony? If you cannot answer those questions with actual data, not your best guess, uh, you're making decisions about your culture in the dark. And we cannot lead from somewhere that we cannot see. You can have the best intentions in the world, you can care deeply, you can work incredibly hard and still be completely wrong about what is actually happening in your building if you are not measuring what matters. You would never walk into a parent meeting about a struggling student with no data. So we need, as school leaders and principals and superintendents and APs, we need to stop walking into decisions about our culture the same way. The next thing, we need to audit what audit what we are actually celebrating. Walk through your building physically, mentally, and ask yourself, what do we celebrate here? What gets recognized, what gets announced, what gets posted on the walls? Because what you celebrate is what you are telling people actually matters. In a lot of schools, what gets celebrated is almost entirely academic achievement and athletic performance, which means the kid who finally trusted an adult enough to ask for help the first time goes unnoticed. That teacher that finally decided to speak up in a meeting when they've been quiet for four years goes unnoticed. The teacher that stayed on the phone with a struggling parent for 40 minutes after their hour, contract hours ended, never gets acknowledged. The custodian who spent three days making the building look beautiful before kids come in and just make it look like it was never cleaned gets walked past without a single word. Your celebration culture is a mirror. It shows people exactly what you value. And if what you value is narrower than what it takes to actually build a great school, your celebration culture is sending a message that you may not attend. So this summer, decide what you are going to celebrate differently this year. I want you to write it down, make it specific, what gets recognized, how, by whom, in front of whom, because the things you celebrate publicly become the behaviors your culture produces. I'm gonna repeat that again. The things you celebrate publicly become the behaviors your culture produces. This is not a theory. That is how culture actually works. And the fifth item: start measuring your culture before the year

Action Five Use Culture Compass Data

SPEAKER_00 10:23

starts. I have a program called the Culture Compass, the School Culture Compass. And it's a program that is designed to help school leaders and their teams do exactly what we've been talking about on this episode and episodes previous, to get honest, specific, data back clarity on the state of your school culture. Not based on your assumptions, not based on vibes, not based on your feelings. Forget your feelings, based on what the people inside your building actually think, feel, and experience every single day they walk through your doors. Because what I've learned after two decades in education, that makes it sound so much longer when someone's like two decades makes it sound like I've been doing this since Benjamin Franklin was around. Most schools that have culture problems don't have a caring problem or a commitment problem. They have a clarity problem. They don't know where the gaps specifically are in their building. They can feel that something is off, but they can't name it precisely enough to fix it. And you cannot fix what you cannot name. The culture compass gives you a framework for naming it, for getting the right data in front of the right people so that when you walk in in August, you're not guessing. You know where your culture is strong and where there is room for growth, and then you know what to prioritize. So here's what I want to do for the people that are listening to this podcast. If you're listening on YouTube, listening on whatever podcast platform, if you are hearing about this right now on homeroom attendance and you want access to the program, I want you to send me an email. ED at edwarddesher.org. Tell me that you heard about on the podcast, and I'm going to send you free access. There's no catch. No catch at all. So if you are hearing right now and you're like, how do I get in? I'm not trying to sell this. If you go to the page right now and you you click on it, there is going to be a price on there. I am not trying to sell this. It is there. So if someone doesn't know me and they go there, they have to pay for it. But because you are invested here and listening here, if you send me an email, ed at edwarddesher.org, I will give you access to all of this for free. 60 resources, uh, I believe nine modules, everything that you need to help improve your culture and find out where things may be falling short or where things are doing really phenomenal. No catch, no funnel, no upsell. Uh you listen to home attendance and you showed up. So I want to give you something that can allow you to actually move your building forward. You cannot lead your culture forward if you don't know where it actually is. Data is not the enemy of culture, ignorance is. So, my goal is to give you something so you know where the data is and you can start moving your culture forward.

One Next Step Before October

SPEAKER_00 12:59

So, last week we named what's been ignored. This week we're doing something about it. Five things have the honest conversation, invest in your culture carriers or your culture sneezers, get serious about culture data, audit what you celebrate, and start measuring your culture before the year begins. You don't have to do all five this summer, but you have to do at least one because awareness without action is just a really well-informed version of staying stuck. And you don't need to stay stuck, your school doesn't need to stay stuck, your culture doesn't need to stay stuck, your staff doesn't need to stay stuck, your students don't need to stay stuck. Nobody in education needs to stay stuck. We need to make choices to get ourselves unstuck. You know what's broken, you know what it costs, and now you know what to do. The only question left as I end this episode is are you going to do something about it? Awareness without action is just a really informed version of staying stuck. So if this episode resonated, as I always ask, share with share it with someone. Leave a review. You don't have to type it out, just leave a star review. Uh thumbs up if you're listening on YouTube, subscribe if you're not. If you're not subscribed to the podcast, to YouTube, wherever you're listening, just subscribe. Um, but I appreciate you all. You have been tuned in to homeroom attendance. Class is dismissed.