Spring 2026 SOWK 587 Week 03 - Schools as Organizations - Understanding the Landscape

Spring 2026 SOWK 587 Week 03 - Schools as Organizations - Understanding the Landscape

title: Spring 2026 SOWK 587 Week 03 - Schools as Organizations - Understanding the Landscape date: 2026-02-05 15:54:41 location: Heritage University tags:

• Heritage University
• MSW Program
• SOWK 587 presentation_video: > “” description: >

Week three is synchronous, with class taking place on Saturday (2/7). This week’s content focuses on school culture and strategies to develop an environment that fosters safety, health, and learning for all students. Students will read about essential practices and skills for school social workers in Jarolmen and Bautista-Thomas (2023). They will review the updated standards of practice for school social workers, as defined by the National Association of Social Workers (2025), and read about opportunities for leadership and collaboration in addressing school climate (Teasley, 2017). Discussion forums this week offer opportunities to further engage with the material and share additional resources, helping to connect social work practice in schools, school culture, and student wellbeing. During the in-person class session, we will explore schools as organizations and multi-tiered systems of support. The agenda for the person session this week includes:

• Understanding school climate and school culture
• Exploring what the climate is in your schools
• Multi-Tiered Systems of Support
• Exploring interventions within MTSS
• Diversity and inclusion within services

Learning objectives this week include:

• Understand and demonstrate knowledge of working within the culture of the schools, creating an environment that fosters safety, health, and learning for the students
• Explain the difference between RTI, PBIS, and MTSS
• Be able to assess school climate
• Identify potential interventions and what tier they are
• Develop insight into diversity and inclusion

SOWK 587 Week 03 Agenda and Learning Objectives

Agenda

• Understanding school climate and school culture
• Exploring what the climate is in your schools
• Multi-Tiered Systems of Support
• Exploring interventions within MTSS
• Diversity and inclusion within services

Learning Objectives

• Explain the difference between RTI, PBIS, MTSS
• Be able to assess school climate
• Identify potential interventions and what tier they are
• Develop insight into diversity and inclusion

School Climate vs School Culture: Perceptions vs. Values/Beliefs

School climate and culture are essential concepts to review when considering the landscape of schools. Gruenert and Whitaker (2023) argue that school climate and culture are distinct concepts. They define that:

“A school’s climate is both a window into its culture and a learned response that the culture teaches new members”

Culture tends to be the long-term reasons why we do things, and it is changed over a long period of time based on addressing climate.

Definition of School Climate

The National School Climate Council (n.d., 2017) combines the topics of climate and culture and focuses on climate as specific topics. We are going to use their definition of school climate.

School climate

• refers to the quality and character of school life
• is based on patterns demonstrated across constituents’ (students, parents, and personnel) experiences and how they are enacted in school life (norms, goals, values, interpersonal relationships, teaching and learning practices, and organizational structures).

They define that climate is made up of:

• Norms, values and expectations that support people feeling socially, emotionally and physically safe.
• People are engaged and respected.
• Students, families and educators work together to develop, live and contribute to a shared school vision.
• Educators model and nurture attitudes that emphasize the benefits and satisfaction gained from learning.
• Each person contributes to the operations of the school and the care of the physical environment.

[Content Note] ✅ Competency B

What Is Your School’s Climate Like

I want you to talk about your school’s climate related to the criteria used in a survey that some schools use to assess school climate. We will speak generally about the domains evaluated by The Comprehensive School Climate Inventory (CSCI). It is not the inventory, but I think it can provide some meaningful discussion.

[Small Group Activity] Discuss Aspects of School Climate

• Move to be in groups within the same district, but you will have to include 2 or 3 districts
• Go to the PDF The 14 Dimensions of School Climate Measured by the CSCI
• Talk about each dimension and what you think perceptions might be.

[Whole Group Activity] Debrief discussion

• What stands out about some of the school culture you discussed?
• Was there one aspect that felt particularly successful or needing extra support?
• What are strategies for creating change in our districts?

The content of the 14 Dimensions includes the following:

Safety

• Rules and Norms
• Sense of Physical Security
• Sense of Social-Emotional Security
• Online Safety

Teaching and Learning

• Support for Academic Learning
• Social and Emotional Learning

Interpersonal Relationships

• Respect for Diversity
• Teacher-Student Relationships
• Peer Relationships

Institutional Environment

• School Connectedness
• Physical Surroundings
• Social Inclusion

Leadership and Efficacy

• Administration and Leadership
• Collective Efficacy

[Content Note] ✅ Competency B

Other Assessments: School Culture

The dimensions that you explored looking at the School Climate Measured by the CSCI are one way of evaluating culture. Some others include:

• Previous National School Climate Center (NSCC) Comprehensive School Climate Inventory (CSCI)
• PBIS School Climate Survey Suite (SCS)
• National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) ED School Climate Surveys (EDSCLS)

When I was at the Pasco School District, we used partnered with an organization to conduct a comprehensive evaluation including gathering survey responses from staff, students, and parents. We also did temperature checks during each staff meeting (every couple of weeks).

• Simple (what’s going on right now, questions/needs), Microsoft form
• Exit ticket
• Directly addressed

For the admin that was doing that, I actually really appreciated how they were direct and transparent.

RTI – MTSS – PBIS

Working in schools you will quickly come across many presentations with triangles. RTI and PBIS are commonly discussed as is MTSS. They all provide a format for how we bring support to students in a school setting.

RTI - Response to Intervention

Focused on academic focused and format for determining special education services.

PBIS - Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports

Focused on social, emotional, and behavioral needs. Often a set of strategies

MTSS - Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

Can be both academic and behavioral.

[Content Note] ✅ Competency B

Levels of Intervention

Within the different systems and across different frameworks sometimes the overall percentages are different, the tiers and percentages are generally as follows:

Tier 1 (Core Programming or Universal) - 80-90% Use of high-leverage practices and evidence-based practices; aligned with state or district standards; use of differentiated instruction.

Tier 2 (Supplemental Intervention or Indicated) - 5-10% Standardized interventions that are supplemented and for small-groups (through not always delivered in a small-group setting).

Their 3 (Indicated, Intensive Intervention, or Individualized) - 1-5% Individualized and intensive interventions for students with ongoing needs

[Whole Group Activity] Sharing Practice examples

• What are some examples of each of these intervention levels
• Is there any connection you see regarding social work levels of intervention

[Content Note] ✅ Competency B

PBIS/MTSS Teams

I know many of you are on teams at your schools.

[Whole Group Activity] Discuss Student Experiences of Engaging in MTSS Teams

• Are you on a team?
• How is it being on the team?
• What do they do?

Exploring Tiered Interventions

On MyHeritage, I have shared a number of resources around behavioral interventions within tiered systems. I want to have us explore what some of the potential intervention might be.

[Small Group Activity] Exploring Intervention on the EIS

• Divide the class up into three groups and assign a tier
• Groups to explore some of the problems, as a group with their interventions.
• Discuss as a group the interventions reviewed
  • What does it look like (share personal examples)
  • What do you think some of the strengths and weaknesses might be
  • Would it help at your school
• Share findings with the class

[Content Note] ✅ Competency B

Distribution and Receiving Services

In a MTSS system, we can think about two axes…

• Resources and Student Needs
• Each tier requires increased resources to match the increased student needs

WE also consider how gets the services. It is useful to remember who gets access to what services.

• The majority get tier 1 and only tier 1
• Those who have a higher need get tier 1 and 2
• Those who need tier three get all three tiers.

What about Tier 4? Discussion about my previous district program.

Addressing Problems and Promoting Prosocial Activities

Along with drawing from these evidence based interventions and thinking about them in the context of Tier I, II, and II, we can also think about them related to problem area.

We can can consider problems that need to be addressed, or how we can increase development of prosocial activities

[Whole Group Activity] Brainstorm and Propose Interventions based on problem/development area

• What school-wide problem are you using for the factsheet and policy brief, and what are some of the interventions we might think about in each tier?

[Content Note] ✅ Competency B

Access and Belonging

I got the opportunity to hear Krownapple speak a few years back. I really appreciated a graphic he shared representing belonging and access.

Excluded (conditional belonging and low access) Integrated (Conditional belonging and high access) Segregated (Unconditional belonging and low access) Integrated (unconditional belonging and high access)

I just really love the idea of integrated meaning that sometimes the boundaries get dispersed to include those on the edges.

Diversity and Inclusion: How do We Include Everybody

[Small Group Activity] Talk with a partner about inclusion

• What is the importance of inclusion
• What are some of the challenges
• How might some people be on the edges of inclusion
• What do we need to do to promote inclusion

[Small Group Activity] Report Back on Discussion

[Content Note] ✅ Competency B