Routledge Improving School Climate: Practical Strategies to Reduce Behavior Problems and Promote Social and Emotional Learning

Improving School Climate provides evidence-based and practical strategies for cultivating a healthy school environment, while also avoiding behavior problems. The book is packed with strategies centered on key components and conditions for a positive school climate, such as positive teacher-student relationships, positive student-student relationships (including absence of bullying), supportive home-school relationships, student engagement, effective classroom management and school discipline, school safety, and student self-discipline. This text is an important inclusion for educators and school psychologists who prefer a structured, evidence-based, and practical approach for improving school climate, while also promoting students’ academic achievements, preventing behavior problems, and fostering students’ social and emotional competencies. Review Ambitious in scope yet always accessible, this compelling new resource offers an array of high quality strategies and is a terrific guide for practitioners, school leaders, and policy makers who want to understand and advance key elements of school climate using the most effective strategies. Improving School Climate provides extensive, practical recommendations at the end of each chapter… evidence-based and practical, it is the ideal combination for any educator! Linda Dusenbury, PhD, CASEL consulting senior scientist and director of the Collaborating States Initiative In this persuasive, practically written volume, Dr. Bear gives school administrators, teachers, and practitioners a framework for understanding the multiple dimensions of school climate and the impact each has on preventing and impacting a host of student academic and behavioral health outcomes. Each chapter provides a clear conceptual understanding of the topic and identifies practical recommendations or strategies for improving those factors that contribute most to school climate and to individual student success. Dr. Bear’s work is guided by a theoretical framework and is supported by empirical evidence which serves to answer questions of "why" the recommended strategies are effective and why an integration of assessment measures and evidence-based practices can sustain a positive and effective school climate for even the toughest schools. Rhonda J. Armistead, MS, NCSP; lead school psychologist (retired), Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, North Carolina Dr. Bear provides a theoretically grounded, balanced, comprehensive school climate framework that integrates themes central to school improvement: safety, bullying prevention, student self-discipline, and fostering SEL skills. A unique contribution is a thorough description of the Delaware Assessments, a suite of climate, safety, and SEL assessments that are linked with a comprehensive set of practical classroom and schoolwide prevention, intervention strategies. This volume is an essential resource for all educators who are invested in creating campus conditions that foster the competence and thriving development of all students. – Mike Furlong, PhD, distinguished professor emeritus and research professor, University of California Santa Barbara "This book is an essential resource for school leaders and educators working to link assessment of school climate to practical and effective school-wide interventions. Dr. Bear masterfully reviews literature and provides practical suggestions while also synthesizing over fifteen years of his scholarship that has had a lasting impact in Delaware schools." Sara Whitcomb, PhD; associate professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst About the Author George G. Bear, PhD, is a professor of school psychology at the University of Delaware. He has published over 100 book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals, and 8 books. As a member of four editorial boards of leading journals in school psychology, he has frequently reviewed articles on school climate. He