Teachers are key participants in creating and nurturing school connectedness. Asking for their thoughts and suggestions about school connectedness can help them feel invested in improving the school's climate and students' engagement. Here are some suggestions for conducting a faculty meeting on connectedness:

• Provide a brief overview of the research on and the theory of connectedness. Include the key findings on student health and academic outcomes.

• Ask the faculty to fill out a brief survey on connectedness. Here are some questions you might want to ask with responses ranging from 1 (indicating strongly agree) to 5 (indicating strongly disagree):

  • Each student is connected with at least one caring adult at school.
  • Teachers treat one another with respect.
  • Teachers know about their students' lives outside of school.
  • Student discipline practices and policies are fair.
  • The school environment is safe for students and teachers.
  • Teachers value what students have to say.
  • You might also ask them to describe key obstacles they face in building
    relationships with students, for example:
    • Using teaching time for classroom management
    • External circumstances that affect students (e.g., financial, social, family)
    • Not having enough time to get to know students as individuals
    • Differing ethnic, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds
    • Other (explain)

• Have the questions written on the board or on a flip chart. Ask faculty for their responses to each question and to elaborate on those responses. In discussion, point out how their responses are linked to connectedness. For example, if a teacher says that the discipline policies are not consistent, talk about how that affects connectedness.

• Ask them what areas of connectedness they think need to be addressed.

• If they need ideas, give them examples from this course, including “silent mentoring” and cooperative discipline practices.

• Make an action plan and assign teachers to follow through.

• Collect the responses.

• Make plans to follow up in future faculty meeting.

Source: Susan Parker (Web course writer), Ann Nargi (high school teacher), and www.whatkidscando.org