Learning Culture Architecture
Case Study:
La Scuola International School
Role: Dean of Students • IB MYP Coordinator • Teacher Lead
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Challenge
As La Scuola expanded from a small early-childhood program into a full PreK-8th grade institution, it lacked a unified behavioral framework, shared agreements, or consistent culture practices. Teachers created their own rules, and expectations varied widely by classroom, making restorative practices difficult to implement consistently.
The School needed:
A shared behavior and culture framework
Alignment across all grade bands and languages
A transparent, fair process for defining values
A system that supported restorative, not punitive, discipline
Solution
I designed and facilitated a school-wide learning culture initiative that created a consistent, human-centered, restorative-aligned system of agreements adopted across all grade levels.
Key Components
- System of Agreements Framework
I developed a model that replaced punitive rules with collaborative agreements, shifting behavior expectations towards shared responsibility, trust, and mutual accountability. - Collaborative Values Identification Process
Using structured facilitation, I guided teachers, staff, and administrators through
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- Values brainstorming
- Categorization into conceptual clusters
- A democratic, color-banded voting process
- Synthesis into four final core agreements
The community-selected values became:
Cooperation, Responsibility, Empathy, Respect -
- Visual Communication & Environmental Integration
I designed and implemented bilingual signage across hallways, classrooms, and shared spaces to reinforce the four agreements through daily visual cues and environmental design. - Documentation & Staff Training Resource
I built a comprehensive Google Site to document the process, explain puprose and implementation steps, and provide templates for classroom agreements aligned with whole-school values.
Impact
- School-wide adoption of shared agreements PreK – 8th grade
- Improved consistency of behavior expectations
- Increased student ownership due to collaborative creation
- Strengthened trust between teachers and leadership
- A restorative culture system still used after leadership transitions
- A replicable model for future agreement / culture development
Artifacts
...And this was just the beginning!
- Discipline approach and policy
- Restorative training
- MYP coordination
- etc