Building Trusting Relationships for School Improvement
Implications for Principals and Teachers
Concepts such as “trust,” “respect,” “collegiality” and “buy-in” are vital in school improvement. Yet few publications address these qualities explicitly or examine them in depth. Part of the problem is the fuzzy nature of the word trust. Although most of us can easily identify relationships in which trust is or is not present, pinning down precisely what trust entails is harder to do.
This booklet examines the issue of trust within the context of school improvement, looking specifically at teacher-teacher and teacher-principal relationships. Drawing on existing research as well as the experiences of individual schools, we offer a literature summary of literature, discuss common roadblocks to trust-building, and identify specific steps that educators can take to increase the level of trust in their schools.
This vintage resource was created by Education Northwest in 2003 when the name of the organization was the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.
