Toxic School Cultures

TOXIC SCHOOL CULTURES
Niza A. Sastrillas
BEED -3 GENERAL CONTENT
The dream of every educational leader is to have the desirable school culture where everything works well but
not all they have plan runs the way they have visualized it. Sometimes it goes the other way around.
School culture is the underlying set of norms, values, traditions, ceremonies, and unwritten rules of behavior,
action, and thinking. The school culture is built overtime as educators cope with problems, deal with changing
students and staff, and deal with successes and failures. Over time the group develops a set of values and
beliefs that are the glue that keeps it together. Oftentimes the culture is positive, nurturing, and professional-
and supportive of change and improvement. Sometimes, though, the culture has developed dysfunctional
values and beliefs, negative traditions and caustic ways of interacting. These are what deal and Peterson
(1998) called toxic cultures.
Toxic school cultures lack mission and vision, laziness and apathy, appreciate separateness and exclusivity, and
have negative peer relationships (Peterson, 2002). According to Gruenert and Whitaker (2015), these cultures
focus on failure and use these as an excuse to remain stagnant. Also, they added that toxic cultures encourage
individuals to see failures as an inevitable results of circumstances outside of their control rather than as
opportunities for improvement.
According to Peterson (2002), schools with negative or toxic culture:
1.) Lack a sense of purpose

2.) Have norms that reinforce inertia
3.) Blame students lack of progress
4.) Discourage collaboration
5.) Often have actively hostile relations among staffs
Moreover, in toxic staff:
1.) Views students as the problem rather than as their valued clients
2.) Are sometimes part of negative subcultures that are hostile and critical of change.
3.) Believe they are doing the best they can do not search out new ideas
4.) Frequently share stories and historical perspectives on the school that are often negative,,
discouraging, and demoralizing.
5.) Complain, criticize, and distrust any new ideas, approaches, or suggestions for improvement raised by
planning committees.
6.) Rarely share ideas, materials, or solutions to classroom problems.
7.) Have few ceremonies or school traditions that celebrate what is good and hopeful about their place
of work.
These schools are not fun places to work in and seldom try to improve what is going on. Toxic cultures inhibit
and limit improvement efforts in several ways.
 In these cultures, staff are afraid to offer suggestions or new ideas for fear of being attacked or
criticized.
 Planning sessions lead by the school improvement council or committee are often half-hearted due to
the negativity and sense of hopelessness fostered by hostile staff that refuse to see that improvement
is possible.
 New staff that bring hope and sense of possibility are quickly squelched and re-socialized into
negative ways of thinking.
 Programs that are planned are poorly implemented because the motivation and commitment to
change is weak or nonexistent.
 Plans fail for lack of will.
 No one wants to work in these kind of schools. But, it takes leaderships, time, and focus to rebuild
these festering institutions. Fortunately, most schools are not this negative, though many have some
of these cultural patterns that make change problematic.
How do schools deal with ‘’toxicity’’ in their culture? Deal and Peterson (1999) suggest several things
educators can do. These include:
 Confront negativity and hostility head on and work to redirect negative energies.
 Protect emergent sources of positive focus and constructive staff.
 Vigorously celebrate the positive and the improving sides of school.
 Ensure that improvement efforts and plans are successful by supporting with time, energy, and
resources.
 Reconnect staff to the mission of schools: to help all children learn and grow.
It is up to school leaders- principals, teachers, and often parents- to help overcome the debilitating influence of
negative cultures and to rebuild and reinforce positive students- focused cultures. Without positive ,
supportive, cultures, reforms will falter, staff morale, and commitment will wither, and student learning will
declined.
CREATING A POSITIVE SCHOOL CULTURE
An obvious goal for school leaders is for schools to develop and maintain string cultures. School with string
cultures. School with string cultures will have effective leadership with exceptional students performance
(Jones, 2009). To create a new culture of change, school principals and teachers must focus on an overall
organizational transformation that includes the following successful practices:
 Defining the role of the school principal, teacher, and school community through open
communication and academic growth activities that can best serve the needs of a particular school
community.
 Scheduling effective communication mechanisms, such as staff lunchroom visits, department forums,
staff meeting pop-ins, and all district personnel rallies.
 Sharing successes through employee union newsletters , internal correspondence, and community
relations that breed further successes for diverse students populations.
 Visualizing school wide and classroom goals that support goals of a school site and district to generate
key results and offering staff development training that supports these results.
Moreover, Deal (1985) identified eight attributes of effective schools with strong cultures:
1.) Shared values and consensus on how we get things done around here.
2.) The principal as a hero or heroine who embodies core values.
3.) Distinctive rituals that embody widely shared beliefs.
4.) Employees as situational heroes or heroine.
5.) Rituals of acculturation and cultural renewal.
6.) Significant rituals to celebrate and transform core values.
7.) Balance between innovation and tradition and between autonomy and control.
8.) Widespread participation in cultural rituals.

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TOXIC SCHOOL CULTURES

BEED -3 GENERAL CONTENT

According to Peterson (2002), schools with negative or toxic culture:

1.) Lack a sense of purpose

Moreover, in toxic staff:

CREATING A POSITIVE SCHOOL CULTURE

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