Traditions as a Culture Builder

Once per month our group of edu-bloggers, the “Compelled Bloggers Community,” shares a common topic which we all blog about. This month’s shared topic is “Traditions.” I believe traditions go a long way in helping to build culture in a school, and I want to share one of the traditions we have at Hoover High School.

Paul Spiegelman (@paulspiegelman), NYT Best selling author and Chief Culture Officer at Stericycle, writes in an article for Inc.com:

“Building a company culture of engaged employees takes years and requires consistent execution.” He goes on to share that camaraderie and celebrations are two of the 10 essential components of culture strategy.

At Hoover High School, we have several traditions that come to mind as positive culture builders of camaraderie and celebrations. The one I want to share with you in this post is a relatively new tradition started by our Junior Class Officer sponsor, Jamey Nowlin. She had the vision of an annual schoolwide 3K race to serve as a fundraiser for a charity.

A teacher advertises to her students 

to join her team for the race.

This year was the sixth year of the race, and we usually have about half of the school body to participate. The participants pay $5 for a race bag, which includes a race number and entry into the courtyard after the race for free food, music, and fun. We run a special schedule, and the race and festivities are held between our last two periods of the day.

 

The Junior Class Officers secure sponsors for the food and festivities, so there is very little that has to be paid out in expenses to hold the event. Because of the support of the community, we are able to donate almost $8,000 to a charity.

Teachers and students come together to be a part of something bigger than us, and we never forget the reason which is to support a deserving organization. We build camaraderie and we celebrate each other through this annual event. What two better essential components could we have for our culture?