An Exploratory Analysis of School Culture within a Multi-School Charter School System

The primary purpose of this study is to examine and understand how teachers of charter schools perceive their respective schools’ cultures. The research is based upon data gathered from teachers (n=372) in schools (n=18) within a Charter School System (CSS) in the southern United States. We used descriptive statistics, t-test and one-way ANOVA as our statistical tools. The findings revealed that teachers at the Charter Schools have a positive perception of the school culture within their respective schools. Teachers particularly favored professional development opportunities and collegial support in their respected schools. School size, grade span, and years of operation did not make significant differences in CSS’s school culture except collegial support. Collegial support scores for the K-12 school was significantly higher than the 9-12 schools.


Introduction
In the past decade, charter schools have taken on an increasingly important role in educational reform efforts (Lake & Gross, 2012). The basic concept behind charter schools is to provide increased autonomy in exchange for greater accountability (Texas Education Agency, 2019a).
Charter schools are encouraged to adopt innovative teaching practices and create new professional opportunities for teachers and their leaders (Chen, 2018;Manno, Finn & Vanourek, towards a common mission, collaborative leadership, opportunities for teacher collaboration and professional development, collegial support, learning partnership among parents, teachers and students, and a school-wide emphasis on academic effort and achievement (Bulkley, Schneider, 2007;Gruenert & Whitaker, 2015;Ohlson et al. 2015;Wohlstetter, & Griffin, 1997).
Given the opportunities to innovate provided to charter schools, it appears especially pertinent to examine the school culture within charter schools.

Theoretical Framework
The theoretical framework for this study is derived from literature focused on school culture in general, school culture and school-level variables, and school culture in charter schools.

School Culture
Although there is no universal definition of school culture, one of the more commonly accepted definitions is provided by Peterson and Deal (2002), who stated that, "culture is a powerful web of rituals and traditions, norms and values that affect every corner of school life" (p. 10).
School culture can also be described as the guiding beliefs, assumptions, and expectations that are evident in the way the school operates (Fullan & Hargreaves, 1996). School culture shapes the way that school staff, students, and parents, think, behave and act in the school setting (Peterson & Deal, 2002).
School culture is seen as a critical variable in school effectiveness research and school improvement efforts (Cogaltay & Karadag, 2016;Schoen & Teddlie, 2008). Research has shown that successful schools are tightly linked structurally, symbolically, and culturally more so than unsuccessful schools (Peterson, 1999). In successful schools, the culture influences the actions and spirit of school life and shapes the school's motivation, commitment, effort and focus (Peterson, 1999). The culture of successful schools inspires school leaders and teachers to learn and grow, take risks, and work collegially.
In schools with positive school cultures, teachers feel supported when they want to take on additional responsibilities such as leadership roles. Effective school culture promotes a "professional community" where teachers pursue a clear, shared purpose, engage in collaborative activity, and accept collective responsibility for student learning (DuFour et al. 2008;Newmann & Wehlage, 1995).
School leadership is a critical element in the shaping of school culture (Huguet, 2017;McKinney, et al. 2015;Peterson & Deal, 1998).
School leadership provides the parameters within which school culture is established (Hinde, 2004;Kouzes & Posner, 2016). School leaders communicate values, set change in motion, and provide support to school staff. The principal, more than any other individual within the school, is responsible for establishing and maintaining the school culture (Schreiber, 2019). In successful schools, principals view themselves as collaborative leaders and empower teachers by including them in decision-making processes (Wallace Foundation, 2015). They foster collegiality and value opportunities for collaborative work among teachers and model behaviors that encourage student achievement.
The European Educational Researcher | 3 Successful schools cannot exist without highquality school leadership (Valentine et al., 2004).

School Culture and School-Level Variables
School Size. Existing research indicates that smaller schools may have more positive school cultures than medium or larger-sized schools.
While there is no clear definition of what makes up a "small" versus a "large" school, there is a general agreement that 300-400 students are an appropriate size for elementary school and 400-800 students is an appropriate size for a secondary school (Cotton, 1996). Outcomes associated with smaller schools include more positive student attitudes, greater student participation in extracurricular activities and lower absentee and dropout rates (Cotton, 1996;Gardner, Ritblatt, & Beatty, 2000). There is comparatively less research on school size in relation to teacher and administrator variables; however, existing research suggests benefits for smaller-sized schools. A study conducted by Lee and Loeb (2000) found that teachers at small schools reported more positive attitudes concerning their responsibility for student learning compared to teachers at medium-or larger-sized schools.
Grade-Level Configuration. There is limited research examining the relation between gradelevel configuration and school culture. Research has shown, however, that there are differences in school culture between elementary and secondary schools. In this regard, the culture of elementary schools is perceived as emphasizing care and control; whereas, the school culture within secondary schools tends to be influenced by larger size and departmentalized instruction and thus have a more academic orientation (Stoll, 2000).
Thus, it might be expected that different grade configurations could also influence school culture. Table 1 below illustrates previous research examining the relationship between school culture and school type.
Much of the research specifically examining the impact of grade-level configuration is focused on the middle grades. Research shows that there is typically a significant decline in academic achievement and self-esteem when students transition to middle school in 6 th or 7 th grade (Alspaugh, 1998;Rockoff & Lockwood, 2010). Anderman (2002) found that students' sense of school belonging was slightly higher among students attending schools with K-8 or K-12 grade configurations as opposed to the traditional 6th-8 th grade configuration.

Years of Operation. Previous research has
indicated that years of operation may impact school culture. In this regard, it has been posited that in the early years of a school, the dominant values that help define the school culture emanate largely from the school leadership and the school culture is made explicit. Over time, the role of the school leadership in shaping school culture may diminish, which can negatively impact school culture (Stoll, 2000).

School Culture in Charter Schools
Existing studies suggest that the enhanced autonomy provided to charter schools and the increased capacity for educational innovation would assist in fostering a positive school culture.
In this regard, charter schools are provided with more flexibility in structuring their curriculum and school environment (Gill, 2019). It has also been posited that the capacity to build a shared vision among teachers could enhance professional collaboration and support the development of a shared professional culture.
The European Educational Researcher | 5 Research has shown that a strong school culture is a critical element in the success of school reforms.

Present Study
Given the relative dearth of research on school culture within charter schools, the present study was designed to assess school culture within a multi-school charter system.
We seek answers to following research questions: One of the drawbacks of the survey design is that there are often low response rates, which negatively affects generalizability (Creswell, 2005). With that in mind, the first author of the study continuously tracked participation rates.
Due to the low response rate, he asked the contact person to send out a reminder email. This continued three times over a ten-day period.
The European Educational Researcher | 7

Results
The primary purpose of this study was to examine and collaborative leadership (3.50) lowest (see Table 2). In order to identify the specific strength and weaknesses of this multi-school charter system's school culture, we provided means for all 35 SCS items (see Table 3). Item-analysis revealed that specific school culture items were parallel with factor ratings. Teachers valued professional development and collegial support items the most such as Q30 (4.15), Q17 (4.12), and Q24 (4.11).
Similar to the school culture factor ratings, teachers rated teacher collaboration and collaborative leadership items the lowest. as teacher collaboration items and Q32 (3.13) as collaborative leadership item got the lowest scores from the teachers (see Table 3).
The European Educational Researcher | 9  Table 5).  Table 5). There was a statistically-significant relationship between participating CSS charter schools' grade span and respective schools' school culture on collegial support (F (2,369) =. 3.309, p=. 038) factor. We ran a post hoc analysis to reveal where the differences among grade spans were. Because sample sizes were not equal, we looked at the Scheffe test results to detect the differences. Post hoc comparisons using Scheffe test indicated that the mean score of collegial support scores for the K-12 schools (M=3.98, SD=. 55) was significantly higher than the 9-12 schools (M=3.70, SD=. 69). However, the K-8 schools' collegial support condition (M=3.97, SD= .66) did not significantly differ from the K-12 and 9-12 schools' scores.  Table   7).
The European Educational Researcher | 13  (Gruenert, 2005). This might Future research could address this limitation. The present study was also limited to the use of quantitative data in the assessment of school culture.
School culture could also be assessed using qualitative methods, such as written reflections or naturalistic observations.

Conclusion
The present study makes several unique contributions to the literature. First, this study is one of the few studies that examined a charter school system's school culture. Charter schools have now been in existence long enough that it was time to study factors that make charter schools successful. Second, this study revealed that teachers valued their professional growth. This was evident in their ratings of their charter schools' professional development opportunities. This seems one of the qualities of a healthy school culture.
Another finding that we found was how teachers value collegial support in their schools. This implied that teachers both pleasantly work together and improve this opportunity more. This was more prevalent in K-12 schools that other grade schools. Future research should investigate why this might be the case. We also learned that positive school culture was not up to school sizes and years of operation. Yet, teachers reported that an environment where they receive support from their administrators is crucial.