Journal of K-12 Educational Research 31 spoke primarily about how they ensured the integrity of the building was intact and looked presentable to students, staff, and parents, and two sub-themes which included campus walks and pride in ownership. The academic component of school culture, which encompasses leadership, teaching and learning, and professional development, is the most referenced of the qualitative data collected. The researcher coded 75 out of 330 references from all seven respondents to this theme, comprising 23% of all coded references. Based on participant responses, the researcher identified the academic environment as an overarching theme due to participant statements regarding instructional leadership and identifying student learning as a priority. The researcher then discovered five sub-themes, which include instructional walkthroughs, instructional priorities, learning facilitators, shared leadership, and PLCs or professional learning communities. The community domain encompasses parent and community partnerships, relationships, connectedness, and respect for diversity in a school environment. The researcher coded 33 out of 330 references from all seven respondents to this theme comprising 10% of all coded references. Building community was identified as one of the overarching themes as several comments were made about how principals create a sense of community by making students and staff feel connected to the school. Two additional sub-themes were found in building community, which include the house system and celebrating diversity. The researcher identified parent and community involvement as another overarching theme due to frequent statements regarding efforts to involve parents and the community. Two sub-themes were identified within parent and community involvement, which include local business partnerships and customized parent events. Limitations Limitations were identified in the current study. A limitation of the current study is that the sample size included 39 elementary schools within one large urban North Texas School District which may not be representative of a large population and diverse demographics. The data from the surveys were only aggregated to the campus level and did not account for differences in response rates. The sampling may have biased the findings by only including families who may value school, have available technology to access the survey, and speak English. The researcher selected items from each survey that were intended to assess perceptions of school culture but may not accurately assess participant’s perceptions of school culture. Additionally, the researcher only interviewed campuses with high scores on the surveys rather than lower scoring campuses. The District is only in its second year of utilizing the Pulse Check instrument, so it may not reflect the changes that may occur in subsequent years based on stakeholder feedback of the questions. Lastly, although the researcher provided participants with a transcript of what they had said during the interview, it is unclear if participants read their transcript to verify their responses. Recommendations The current study could be extended by conducting further research on specific actions, practices and strategies that are proven to increase parents’ positive perceptions of school climate. The current study illuminates a positive relationship between parents and staff, and parents’ and students’ perceptions of school climate so understanding what factors influence parents’ positive perceptions of school may impact desired outcomes for students. It may be beneficial to conduct focus groups of parents who responded both positively and negatively on a school climate survey to gain further insight into what factors shape their perceptions about school culture. The District might extend the sample of the Qualtrics surveys to include third grade students to increase the precision of the results for further studies regarding the relationship between parent and student perceptions of school climate. Principals set the tone for the entire school community and receive regular feedback from students, staff, and parents. Therefore, providing principals the opportunity to offer feedback on the survey questions may improve the quality and relevance of items included in the survey. Finally, the specific actions and strategies used by principal participants in the current study have resulted in improving positive school culture on each of their campuses. These insights
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODc4ODgx