What Is a Culture of Care, and Why Is It Important for Urban Schools?

Mr. Lewis was reminded of a program he ran the previous summer—a camp at a local college for students with the most needs in the city. More than four hundred underserved children attended the camp per year. The camp staff really cared about working with students in underserved communities. They showed this through their daily actions—they knew the campers’ names and interests, and made an effort to also understand the campers’ community. The staff had an incredible energy and were proud of what they were able to accomplish together at the camp to benefit children—they definitely used the brilliance in the building, or, in this case, the camp.

Urban schools need this same energy—this culture of care—with staff members who not only care about students but also are willing to do whatever it takes to help students be successful and learn at high levels, which includes increasing their own (adult) learning and working together as a team. This chapter explores the importance of a culture of care and presents strategies for how to create this in your urban school.

All educators will tell you they care about students—for most, it’s why they are in the profession and chose to work in an urban community. However, stating you care is not good enough. You must reflect a culture of care with actions—not just spoken words. As PLC and response to intervention (RTI) experts Mike Mattos, Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker, and Thomas W. Many (2016) explain:

The culture of a school is found in the assumptions, beliefs, expectations, and habits that constitute the norm for the people within that school. The culture of a school can be based on teacher collaboration or isolation; it can be student centered or teacher centered, be based on high expectations or low expectations, involve a growth mindset or a fixed mindset, or embody collective self-efficacy or fatalism. The culture is typically unexamined and simply reflects “the way we do things around here.” (p. 19)

Creating a culture where every adult cares about the students in the building is incredibly important and requires a sense of urgency. According to the UCLA EASE Project (2021), a culture of care is a:

systemic feature of schools that ensures all students are educated in an environment that makes them feel respected, supported, and cared for . . . an environment where the administrators, educators, and other school professionals and staff respect and support one another. (p. 5)

The report goes on to say that “authentic caring is a way of doing what is right” (UCLA EASE Project, 2021, p. 12). Schools that focus on developing caring relationships between adults and students and students and their peers “have the best opportunity to change the educational experience of students of color” (UCLA EASE Project, 2021, p. 12). In addition, in a culture of care, every educator “is committed to challenging and changing policies, procedures, and processes that produce and maintain inequities in access to college” (UCLA EASE Project, 2021, p. 26).

Former Usable Knowledge staff writer Leah Shafer (2018) describes culture as being about connections. In a strong culture, there are many overlapping and cohesive interactions among all members of the organization. In a weak culture, sparse interactions make it difficult for people to learn the organization’s culture, so the culture’s character is barely noticeable and the commitment to it is scarce or sporadic.

Coauthors Robert D. Barr and Emily L. Gibson (2013) describe the importance of a culture of hope in urban schools in their book Building a Culture of Hope: Enriching Schools With Optimism and Opportunity, when they cite the words of a low-income parent in Denton, Texas:

How important is education? I will tell you how important it is. For my children, it is the only hope they got. I am telling you it is their only hope. I don’t know about your kids, but for my kids, education is a matter of life and death. (p. 7)

In Overcoming the Achievement Gap Trap, author Anthony Muhammad (2015) notes, “African American students are suspended and expelled from school at a rate more than three times as high as white students” (p. 14). Two other studies include the following. • One in three Black males and one in six Latino males born in the year 2001 will spend time in prison at some point in his life (The Sentencing Project, 2018). • A disproportionate number of Black and Hispanic youth live in poverty: in 2017, roughly 33 percent of Black youth and 26 percent of Latino youth lived in families with income below the federal poverty level (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2018).

Muhammad (2018) shares the following statistics that point to the need for Black students in urban schools to experience a caring culture so they don’t fall victim to the achievement gap trap:

» African American citizens are twice as likely to be poor as compared to white citizens. » African American median income is half of white median income. » White median net worth is thirteen times the net worth of the average African American household. (p. 5)

Muhammad (2018) adds that America’s Latino population also faces similar issues:

» White students are twice as likely to graduate from high school as Latino students. » Latino citizens are twice as likely to live in poverty than white students. (p. 6)

According to the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture (2022) at the University of Chicago, it is impossible to address the social, economic, and political conditions in urban areas without confronting inequality in the educational system. The Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture (2022) describes three factors that reinforce the school-to-prison pipeline: (1) income and race highly segregate students in public schools, with a persistent pattern of African American and Latino students being concentrated together in low-income public schools, (2) traumatic childhood experiences affect learning and behavioral outcomes, and (3) zero-tolerance policies. CNN senior editor Janie Boschma and The Atlantic senior editor Ronald Brownstein (2016) state:

In almost all major American cities, most African American and Hispanic students attend public schools where a majority of their classmates qualify as poor or low-income. . . . Researchers have found that the single most-powerful predictor of racial gaps in educational achievement is the extent to which students attend schools surrounded by other low-income students.

The shift to a culture of care—where adults connect with students in impactful ways—can make a significant difference for urban students. Implementing the PLC process shifts the culture from traditional to caring. Table 1.1 shows the shift that happens when a school moves from a traditional system to a culture of care.

TABLE 1.1: The Shift to a Culture of Care

From a traditional culture . . . To a culture of care

From a culture without a mission . . . To a culture that is mission driven

From a culture with a fixed mindset . . . To a culture with a growth mindset

From a culture where interactions with students and families stop at the school . . . To a culture that takes interactions with students beyond the school into their homes and the community to reach families

From a behavior system focused on punishment . . . To a behavior system focused on relationships

The research and planning behind the scenes to create such a culture are incredibly important. What do best practices indicate is most effective? What are teachers doing during their collaboration time that promotes care for students? What programs have they created? Do they go into “those neighborhoods”? Do teachers have collaborative conversations about race and equity? Do they live the mission of the school daily by believing all students can learn at high levels? Do teachers care enough to work at relationships? Do they care enough to adhere to the tight (or non-negotiable) practices of a PLC because doing so is in the best interest of students? Do teachers care enough to reflect on their mindset?

Each chapter of this book features a useful tool called a strategy implementation guide (SIG) for the chapter’s topic. This tool is based on the SIG PLC experts Thomas W. Many, Michael J. Maffoni, Susan K. Sparks, and Tesha Ferriby Thomas (2018, 2020, 2022) developed in their books, Amplify Your Impact: Coaching Collaborative Teams in PLCs at Work; How Schools Thrive: Building a Coaching Culture for Collaborative Teams in PLCs at Work; and Energize Your Teams: Powerful Tools for Coaching Collaborative Teams in PLCs at Work, which give leaders a way to evaluate where they are in the process, reflect, and take action to improve their teams. Use the SIG for professional development at the start of the year, during the year (to remind staff of their work), or at the end of the year (as a staff reflection tool). Teacher teams can use the SIG to measure their progress and reflect on their work. Many and colleagues (2018) say about the power of a SIG:

A well-constructed SIG increases clarity by providing a well-defined set of descriptions for teams to use when implementing each element of the PLC process. It provides teams with the criteria for assessing their current level of development, tracking their progress, and

identifying next steps they must take to reach a proficient level of performance on each element of the PLC process. Finally, the SIG establishes the standards of best PLC practice that anchor the process of providing feedback. (p. 51)

Figure 1.1 shows a SIG with the success criteria for creating a culture of care in a PLC. This SIG and all the other SIGs that appear throughout this book can be found in the appendix starting on page 135.

Culture of Care

Anchor Statement: Teams care enough about students to take action on every practice and policy that has an impact on student learning and equity. Staff must treat students and others with great respect.

Level of Implementation Success Criteria

Next-Level PLC All the items in PLC mastery, plus the following. • Teachers care enough to take action daily. • Teachers are actively involved in all collaborative discussions on race and equity and lead collaborative team discussions. • Teachers are brave race and equity “warriors” who stand up for others and commit to creating a school based on justice and racial equity. • Teachers help others identify barriers that prevent certain populations from full access to education and educate colleagues on ways to prevent these barriers. • Teachers are mission driven. • Teacher mindsets are positive, and they never blame students, but focus on creating a culture of care. • Teachers make a particular effort to challenge negative attitudes and help ensure others honor all students, particularly those underserved. • Teachers work with their teams to conduct home visits and be a visible presence in the neighborhood. • Teachers have a growth mindset about student abilities and understand the power of the culture of care.

Mastery of PLC • Teachers care enough to take action to improve student learning. • Teachers believe in the school’s culture of collaboration to have quality discussions on race and equity. • Teachers clearly understand their why for working in the community (that is, to help the school focus on its mission). • Teachers not only live the school’s mission but also lead others in the work. • Teachers understand the power of individual mindsets for creating a culture of care. • Teachers value relationships with both staff and students. • Teachers work with teammates to create a schoolwide relationship-driven behavior system. • Teachers have a growth mindset about student abilities.

Non-PLC • Teachers do not care enough to take action about students or learning. • Teachers give minimal effort or only concentrate effort on limited components of the school culture. • Teachers do not uphold the school’s mission in their daily work. • Teachers do not uphold tight practices of the school and school community. • Teachers do not prioritize building relationships with students and families. • Teachers have a fixed mindset about student abilities and underestimate the power of the culture of care.

FIGURE 1.1: SIG for a culture of care.

Visit go.SolutionTree.com/PLCbooks for a free reproducible version of this figure.