A Missouri High School Works on Relationships with Students

In this Principal Leadership article, Missouri high-school principal Kristel Barr describes an activity that she and her colleagues did at an all-day staff meeting in the spring of 2006. The names of all 365 seniors were written on individual note cards and taped to the walls of the cafeteria. Teachers were asked to browse through the cards and write the answers to three questions on as many cards as possible:

• What is a hobby of this senior?
• What is the career goal of this senior?
• What are the post-secondary plans of this senior?

When teachers were finished, the cards were collected and the staff had lunch. Afterward, the results were announced: only 67 percent of the cards had one or more questions answered. That meant that 33 percent were blank. “It was sobering to realize the painful truth that we did not know our kids,” says Barr. “Before that moment, the faculty members prided themselves on having good, solid relationships with their students. This activity pointed out the fallacy in that belief… And so began our journey to change the culture of our school so that we could truly become what we thought we were.”

The first step was rewriting the school’s wordy, unfocused vision and mission statements so they identified the right values in a way that everyone could remember. The revised versions: Our vision: Truman High School will equip students to achieve their dreams. Our mission: Truman High School will embrace the practices of rigor, relevance, and relationships in all that we do. As soon as these were official, administrators began strolling the halls between classes giving pop quizzes to staff members: What is the vision? The mission? Can you give examples? Teachers who gave good answers got a treat. Before long, everybody knew the two statements. 

But that was just the beginning. “[C]ommitment to the a vision and a mission requires hard, consistent work,” says Barr. The two statements were posted everywhere around the school and appeared in all its publications. Parents were constantly reminded of them. School goals were directly tied to rigor, relevance, and relationships. The leadership team constantly checked on whether the vision and mission were alive in the school. And staff members were asked to say what the statements meant to them and how they were putting them into action.

In addition, Barr told stories about students in her weekly staff bulletin, which encouraged teachers and students to share their own. “People remember stories long after they forget facts and statistics,” she says. And staff meetings focused on relationships, not business, beginning with carefully chosen quotes flashed on a screen, priming the pump. Teachers then wrote short notes to students, to be delivered the next day in class. “Often they are told to write a note to a student who is currently driving them crazy,” says Barr. “Not only has this inspired students; it has led them to write notes to faculty members.” Subsequently, the student leadership team organized an annual activity dubbed BIONIC week (Believe It Or Not I Care). Students gave faculty members sub sandwiches (“There’s No Sub for You Day”) and created personalized mini-posters for every adult in the building about his or her contributions to the school.

Faculty meetings also focused on how to forge relationships with students, how to build students up, and how to reach the most troubled students. Exit tickets were common at these meetings: What is the one thing you love most about our kids? Be specific. “Thoughts and beliefs often change only after behavior changes,” says Barr. “By consistently focusing on knowing the good in students, teachers begin to see them through that lens.”

The school also surveyed students with questions like, Do you have an adult at Truman to whom you can go with an academic problem? A personal problem? Do teachers at Truman know what you are interested in? Staff members were asked similar questions, and Barr compared the results. Any gaps pointed toward areas for improvement. 

Three years after the cards-on-the-cafeteria wall activity, Barr did it again for that year’s seniors. “Same questions, different kids,” she says. “No prior notice was given so that there would be no last-minute cramming.” The results: 100 percent of students had at least one question answered, 85 percent had two, and 75 percent had all three. “We will be completing the activity again this year,” says Barr. “Will we reach 100 percent? There is only one acceptable answer: Yes, we will.” 

“Knowing All Students, Creating a Culture” by Kristel Barr in Principal Leadership, November 2012 (Vol. 13, #3, p. 40-43), www.nassp.org; Barr can be reached at 

kristelrbarr@gmail.com. 

From the Marshall Memo #462