Two Booklets Focus on

Trust in Schools

By Request: Building Trusting Relationships for School Improvement

Skim through the literature on school reform and words like "trust," "respect," "collegiality," and "buy-in" appear again and again. While it seems to be generally assumed that trust is a core criterion of successful school improvement efforts, few publications address the issue explicitly or examine it in much depth.

Part of the problem, no doubt, 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. From the perspective of educational researchers, measuring the level of trust present within a school is difficult, much less connecting it to concrete outcomes such as teacher retention, parent involvement, or student performance on standardized tests. While one may understand, intuitively, that trust "matters," questions about why and how are not so easily addressed.

By Request: Building Trust With Schools and Diverse Families

Two of the latest booklets from the By Request series attempt to address the issue of trust in schools and offer suggestions for building trust from the research and from educational practitioners. Building Trusting Relationships for School Improvement: Implications for Principals and Teachers examines the issue of trust within the context of school improvement, looking specifically at teacher-teacher and teacher-principal relationships. A second booklet, Building Trust With Schools and Diverse Families looks at the issue of trust as it relates to strengthening relationships among schools and families, with a focus on culturally diverse families.

Both booklets draw on existing research as well as the experiences of local practitioners. The publications offer a summary of current literature, discuss common roadblocks to trust-building, and identify steps that educators can take to increase the level of trust with each other and with their students’ families.

Free copies of By Request are available; e-mail info@nwrel.org, use the order form, or phone 503-275-9720. An online version is at www.nwrel.org/request.