Nacho Average Student

One of the most common topics in my conversations with other school principals is about building school culture. How do you do build a positive school culture? How do you know it's working? What more can I do as a principal to improve it? Is there a point where I have to just give up and look for another job? Is there anything specific you do as a middle school principal to improve school culture?

You'd be surprised at the number of questions I'll get that always seem to center around school culture. My answer can easily be summarized in three words: hire nice people.

But simply hiring the nicest people sometimes isn't enough. Often, you have to help create moments for your staff and students to connect. This was how our student recognition events were born.

Prior to my arrival, we held one end of the year student recognition event. It was held during the last week of school. Teachers would often take their favorite student from the current school year. Everyone would sit together for lunch and then quickly depart. The student would be with in the teacher's classroom one or two more days and then most likely depart for good.

One summer, I suggested to our leadership teacher that we should hold more events during the year. I intentionally wanted to have these new events earlier in the school year in an effort to water the relationship between a student and their teacher. My idea was not met with open arms. This was too big of change for some staff members and despite going ahead with the event, there were some teachers who chose not to attend. Even worse, there were some who attended but chose to not select a student. It was a rocky start.

As the odds would have it, a new leadership teacher shortly came on board thereafter and embraced the idea of holding multiple events during the school year. She worked with our intro to leadership teacher to provide more students the opportunity to put on the event. The staff was encouraged to suggest names for each event, such as "Way TOGO" (where we'd have Togo's sandwiches) and "Nacho Average Student" (possibly my favorite selection to date).

Over the past few years, we've refined who our target student is for the event. It's not the student who is the captain of the basketball team nor is it the band student who made sectionals last week. It's not the straight A student who receives heaps of praise on a daily basis. It's for the invisible kid. It's for that student who started the year with huge struggles and has finalized figured out how to manage the 8th grade work load. It's for that one student (and we have all seen this student at our schools) who has an unforgiving home life and just needs an adult on campus they can connect with. And yes, it's for that student who you're proud of for any reason you want.

At the recent event and every event previous, I interrupt the event with the following announcement. I first praise the students for being selected. I make mention that their teachers have anywhere from 25 to 250 students to select from and they were only allowed to select one... and I'll emphasize this last statement for the selected students: "and they chose you!"

This is my favorite moment of the event. I'll scan the students' faces and watch them slowly realize that this one adult that they see for 50 some-odd minutes each day thinks that they're special, that they're worthy, that they're amazing. I'll encourage the students to thank their teachers and every singe time, the students will begin to clap in unison for our staff.

We'll encourage our students to take home their certificate to their families. I'll reminder them that their certificate holds words of encouragement from their teacher. At the event, I'll intentionally circulate around to every student and read their certificate out loud to them. I've found it pretty powerful for each student to hear their teacher's words being said out loud to them by their principal. The student will often blush and then offer their thanks (without any prompting) to their teacher. It's not uncommon to get a few parent emails the following day from the parents of students who attended the event, sharing their gratitude and thanks.

Creating a school culture begins with hiring the very nicest adults you can find to join your staff. However, once you've got your staff, the next important step is cultivating a community where our kids know that we care and recognize each of them individually for just being amazing, for being themselves, and for being Nacho Average Student.