Abstract
School climate is becoming more prevalent in the literature. States such as California are starting to collect data on the health of a school’s climate. Leaders in education are starting to pose a positive school environment as essential for student success. Professional Learning Communities have been a professional development model that boasts of teacher collaboration and continuous improvement, which has been in use for over a decade. Studies on Professional Learning Communities suggest that is effective in increasing student success. Statement of the Problem The purpose of this study is to answer the question: Does the school’s use of a structured and facilitated Professional Leaning Community positively affect school climate? Methodology This posttest-only, quantitative design will study the difference of school climate between two schools that have officially adopted Professional Leaning Community practices and two schools that are the control group. The setting of the study is a rural county, using small middle schools that are similar. Conclusions and Recommendations The finding of this study suggests that schools using a Professional Learning Community have a markedly better school climate as measured by a survey of teachers. Interestingly, the two groups in the study reported having little difference in perceiving their school’s use of collaborative practices. This was contradictory to the conditions that this study assumed and was founded upon. The primary use of a Professional Learning Community in a school is to increase student achievement. The results of this thesis call for further study on the secondary outcome (making school climate more positive) of a Professional Learning Community for a school.