4 Ways to Keep Community Agreements Alive All Year

As educators, we often spend the first several days of school establishing routines and procedures and engaging students in classroom culture–building activities. During this time, many classrooms establish community agreements. But often these agreements are made and then left alone for the rest of the year.

Instead, I’ve found ways to keep these community agreements alive and relevant long after those first few weeks, helping to create a positive learning environment that lasts.

Maintaining Your COMMUNITY AGREEMENT

1. Create a classroom brand. At the start of the year, rather than just introducing community agreements or asking students what we want ours to be, I take it a bit further and have students create a classroom brand. Just like marketers who use brand logos and slogans to make things memorable, we can do the same in our classrooms.

To do this, I first introduce the idea of a classroom brand to my students. I tell them that we are going to come up with a logo and a slogan for our classroom that represents the kind of classroom environment we want to create. I also show students some examples from the real world to help them get ideas and context.

Next, I split my class up into small groups, and each group works to create a brand. They write out their slogan and draw their logo on chart paper. Then, we all vote as a class on the one that we want to use for the year. I hang the winning poster at the front of the room, and each morning during our morning meeting, we review the slogan. Last year, our classroom slogan that we reviewed every day was “Challenge makes us stronger.”

When community agreements are codified with a brand, not only do students work together to create a representation that feels aligned with the kind of classroom they want, but also the process creates a memorable phrase that we can review as a class every day. Plus, by working together to decide what the brand is, they build buy-in for the idea that we are a community of learners with a common vision.

2. Use community agreements to set expectations and share praise. In addition to our saying the classroom slogan each day during our morning meeting, I bring the community agreements to life in each lesson by grounding my expectations and praise in the agreements. For example, one of our classroom agreements is to “use whole body listening,” so when I am setting students up for a whole group discussion, I remind them of that specific agreement.

Additionally, I provide positive praise, specifically calling out the agreement I am seeing, and encourage students to do the same throughout our lessons. For example, another of our community agreements is to “use kind words,” so I will shout out students who I hear using kind words and encourage classmates to do the same when they hear a peer being kind.

3. Ground communication in community agreements. Similar to how I reference the community agreements in my expectations and praise, I also refer to our agreements in conversations with students’ families throughout the year. At the start of the year, I send home a letter that outlines the community agreements our classroom has created so that families have a point of reference.

Then, during both positive phone calls home and difficult conversations, I refer to the specific, relevant community agreement. I will also make sure to let the student know I am making the call so that we can have a discussion about the agreement as well.

For example, if a student who had initially struggled with whole body listening begins to show improvement, I may call that student’s family and let them know: “Your student has really improved in their ability to demonstrate one of our key classroom agreements.” I would then let the student know about the call, praise their progress, and talk through ways to continue to demonstrate behaviors that align with our agreements.

Alternatively, if a student is using unkind words in the classroom, I may call that student’s family and let them know: “Your student has violated one of our community agreements by speaking unkindly toward a classmate.” I would then let the student know about the call, framing my concerns around our community agreements, and then work on strategies to improve going forward.

4. Revisit the agreements and adjust as needed. Once the agreements are created, they are not stagnant. Instead, we revisit them every two months for any updates or revisions. We do this through a whole class discussion in which we review each agreement and discuss how it helps us have the kind of classroom we want and decide if we need to make any changes.

Sometimes, we may remove an agreement if we realize that it hasn’t actually been relevant in our classroom this year. The process of reviewing our agreements not only reinforces that we are a classroom community, but helps students feel a renewed sense of ownership over how the classroom functions.

When classroom agreements are not just set in the first week of school, but actively embraced through the entire year, teachers and students can ensure that they create a classroom community where everyone feels welcome and supported.