For nearly 30 years, educators, researchers, and organizations like the National School Climate Center have built the case that school climate drives academic success, wellbeing, and staff retention. In schools and districts around the world, school climate is a priority. However, the pressing question is not if they focus on a positive school climate, the question is how.
The answer is intentional, shared leadership.
“What I found most valuable from the School Climate Leadership Certification was recognizing that a positive school climate is intentionally created through leadership, not left to chance,” Wyoming school leader and SCLC participant.
A Small Survey, An Important Lesson
We recently asked a small sample — educators, parents, and community members — a simple question: Who is most responsible for shaping school climate?
73% said administrators
9% said teachers
9% said parents
9% said other
0% said district leaders or policymakers
The sample is small, but the result is familiar: school climate is still seen as one person’s job. Principals and other administrators set priorities, make staffing and resource decisions, establish expectations, and decide whether school climate is going to be treated as serious work or another initiative that fades after a year.
However, NSCC research points to a more impactful approach. Shared leadership across administrators, teachers, families, students, and the wider community is essential.
A school’s climate is shaped by hundreds of decisions and interactions that happen throughout the day. It is shaped by instruction, discipline, school policies, relationships among staff, relationships among students, communication with families, what happens on the bus, and what happens in the cafeteria or hallway when no administrator is present. No principal has full access to all of that. More importantly, no principal can improve all of it alone. Saying administrators are responsible is not the same as saying the work belongs only to them.
5 Shifts Toward Shared Leadership
School climate improvement is more likely to last when the people who experience and shape the climate have a role in leading the work. Schools that move from single-leader to team-based climate leadership tend to see 5 key changes:
Strategies for Building a Shared Leadership Model
- Establish a school climate leadership team with a defined purpose. This should include planning a school climate survey rollout, reviewing climate data, spotting patterns and identifying priorities (Where do conflicts cluster? Which transitions feel chaotic?). Simply forming another committee is not the answer.
- Bring every role to the table. Ensure that the School Climate Leadership Team has diverse leadership. The team needs to include people who experience the school differently, including teachers, parent coordinators, counselors, custodians, families, students, and administrators. A leadership team made up entirely of administrators will not have the full purview of the school experience.
- Give students real decision-making power. Bring students onto the leadership team itself, not just as respondents to a survey. Student councils and advisory groups can advise on shaping discipline policy, weigh in on climate action plans, and guide strategies for peer mediation.
- Close the loop on data. Set a clear, communicated process for collecting climate survey results and reporting back. Share what the school learned and what it’s doing next. Include families and community members as decision-makers, not just respondents.
The Result
A school climate built by many creates a culture that lasts. It survives when a principal changes schools. It adapts faster, because the people who notice problems are the same people empowered to solve them. And it models something important for students: healthy communities aren’t handed down. They are built together.
