Review of "building Trust, Forging Relationships"

Review of “Building Trust, Forging Relationships” Principal Leadership. May 2011. Volume 11 Issue 9: 20-25. Print.

The article “Building Trust, Forging Relationships” emphasizes the importance of building relationships in order to create a positive and productive school culture. Scott Andrews, the principal of Amityville Memorial High School, utilized this concept to begin turning around the failing high school over which he had been placed. His ability to implement “the four Rs” relevance, respect, responsibility, and relationships, was basically built on the foundation of one of the Rs, relationships.

It has been my experience that in order to get students to buy into anything, the students must first have a positive relationship with those involved. Otherwise, much of what is being done will have little to no effect. Although building relationships is one of the biggest shortfalls in our educational systems, it is actually one of the most needed actions. The students’ need to trust those around them is a essential, and the unavailability of this trust creates frustration on the part of the students. Mr. Andrews ability to implement curriculum alignment both vertically and with the state standards, increase academic rigor and use data to inform instruction resulted from his ability to first build a culture of trust and respect among the teachers and the students as well as among the staff members. One of the activities that stood out to me was the execution of the Amityville Awareness Weekend. I feel that once I become principal this is one activity that I could definitely tweak and implement to help create a culture of trust and respect at my school.

Once a culture of respect was created, Andrews then required the teachers to be trained in the implementation of more relevant and rigorous lessons and utilization of classroom management strategies. He created a culture of high expectations,