Running head: IMPLEMENTING A HOUSE SYSTEM

IMPLEMENTING A HOUSE SYSTEM IN ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE
SCHOOL: USING ACTION RESEARCH TO ANALYZE ACADEMIC, SCHOOL
CLIMATE, AND SCHOOL COMMUNITY CHANGE AFTER SYSTEMIC
REFORM

A Doctoral Capstone Project
Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies and Research
Department of Secondary Education and Administrative Leadership

In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Education

David A. Jagger
California University of Pennsylvania
August 2020

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© Copyright by
David Alan Jagger
All Rights Reserved
August 2020

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Dedication

for Mom and Dad

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Acknowledgements
This capstone project represents an investment of many people who took big risks
when common sense might have dictated more measured approaches to change. The
visionaries who work alongside me at the Preston Area School deserve far more credit
than a mention in my acknowledgements page, but it is a start. I am forever indebted to
these fine people for their willingness to take a leap and start a House system when we
had no idea if it would work or how successful we could be with it. Our program has
strengthened and evolved, even when it seems very different from what we may have
originally envisioned. Thank you.
My district administrators in the Wayne Highlands School District have allowed
me the space to try new things and grow with this doctoral program, and I am forever
grateful.
I must thank Dr. Mary Wolf for her guidance through the capstone process. She
and the faculty for California University of Pennsylvania’s doctoral program have been
spectacular.
Dr. Michael Elia has been endlessly supportive, always ready with thoughtful
advice and questions, and a sincere friend through this journey. For me, he has been a
perfect mentor and guide. Thank you, Mike. The next burrito lunch is on me!
My wife Lacie and my three amazing children have been infinitely patient and
supportive of my progress through this process. I owe you a lot of time as a husband and
father. I love you all and am proud of all you do and accomplish. You inspire me to be a
better person daily.

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Table of Contents

Dedication

iv

Acknowledgements

v

List of Tables

viii

List of Figures

ix

Abstract

x

CHAPTER I

1

Introduction

1

CHAPTER II

6

Review of the Literature

6

Introduction

6

Conceptual Framework

6

Connecting Research Framework to Implementing a House System as School
Climate Reform

19

Impact of School Climate Reform on Academic Achievement

31

Summary

38

CHAPTER III

39

Methodology

39

Introduction

39

Purpose of the Study

39

Setting and Participants

41

Intervention/Research Plan

45

Methods of Data Collection

53

Validity

63

Summary

64

CHAPTER IV

66

Data Analysis and Results

66

Introduction

66

Data Analysis and Results of the Research Questions

67

Research Question 1

67

Research Question 2

91

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Research Question 3

vii

97

Summary

102

CHAPTER V

104

Conclusions and Recommendations
Introduction

104
104

Research Question 1

105

Research Question 2

109

Research Question 3

112

Fiscal Implications

114

Future Directions for Research

115

Recommendations for Principals and Educational Leaders

118

Summary

120

References

124

Appendix A

137

Appendix B

141

Appendix C

142

Appendix D

143

Appendix E

144

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List of Tables
Table 1. Percentage of Preston Area School Students Scoring Proficient or Advanced on
2015-16 and 2016-17 PSSA ELA and Math

42

Table 2. Cohort PSSA National Curve Equivalency (NCE) Data, Preston Area School,
2016-2019

70

Table 3. Preston Area School Cohort CDT Reading Data 2015-2020 Measured by
Percentage of State Scale Score

75

Table 4. Preston Area School Cohort CDT Math Data 2015-2020 Measured by
Percentage of State Scale Score Mean

76

Table 5. Results of Preston Area School Faculty and Staff Research Survey, 2017-2018
and 2018-2019

87

Table 6. Results of Preston Area School Faculty and Staff Research Survey, 2019-2020
88
Table 7. Discipline referrals by year at the Preston Area School, 2015-2020

95

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List of Figures
Figure 1. Attendance rate for Preston Area School

92

Figure 2. Faculty and Staff Survey Responses Regarding House System Impact

99

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Abstract
The purpose of this action research study was to determine the impact of implementing a
House system in a K-8 rural school over a three-year period to address academic, school
climate, and school community concerns. The review of the literature framed the House
system as a school climate reform effort in the mold of John Dewey’s social learning
theory and experiential learning models, and Paulo Freire’s critical consciousness and
democratic principles. The impact of the House system was measured using academic
data from summative and diagnostic assessments, school climate data from attendance
and discipline records, a faculty focus group, and a faculty and staff survey measuring the
perception of the House system’s impact on the relevant areas of focus. The cyclical
nature of action research, including planning, acting, developing, and reflecting stages of
addressing concerns resulted in school leadership adjusting the design of the House
system over the three-year implementation period to best fit the needs and structure of the
school setting. Findings included evidence of stronger student effort and modest
improvements on summative and diagnostic assessment, increased attendance percentage,
decreased discipline referrals, and improved perceptions of faculty and staff in year three
of the program as the House system evolved to best fit the school setting. The fiscal
implications of school climate reform at this scale were analyzed and documented for the
community partnerships that emerged. Research in this area should continue to focus on
the effect of a token economy on the whole child, the role of faculty and staff perception
on school climate and academic results, and the potential of student mentoring and role
modeling within House systems to influence school climate and academic results.

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CHAPTER I
Introduction
As a member school of the Wayne Highlands School District in Pennsylvania, the
Preston Area School has a long history of both high academic achievement and high rates
of participation in the school’s extracurricular music, drama, and sports programs. This
tradition has endured despite a remote and rural location with a limited local economy, as
well as demographics usually consistent with lower academic achievement and
community involvement.
In the past five years, from 2014-2019, The Preston School has seen a more
drastic decline in student population from approximately 200 students to approximately
160 students in grades K-8. Also, the school has had an increase in percentage of
socioeconomically disadvantaged students over the same time from 50-60% to
approximately 70%. Student achievement has declined as student enrollment has
declined and the percentage of socioeconomically disadvantaged students has increased.
Teachers whose students regularly achieved higher proficiency rates on state standardized
Reading and Math than most schools in the region have seen their student performance
drop. Additionally, the school Parent Teacher Organization, or PTO, has seen a drastic
reduction in membership and parent involvement and there are fewer families available to
support school programs. Many of the families who remain are struggling with mental
health issues, unemployment or underemployment, drug issues, or transient living
situations.

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As the Principal of the Preston Area School, these realities matter greatly to me.
As of this writing, I have finished my seventh year at Preston, and have struggled to
maintain the instructional excellence typical of the school. In addition to the
demographic challenges we have faced, many teachers out for extended leaves of
absence. In such a small school, with only one section per grade level, there are students
who have had multiple school years with long-term substitute teachers. The impact of
these fragmented school years is difficult to measure, but it has contributed to the realities
we faced at Preston when planning academic and social interventions.
In response to the problem, my staff and I at Preston implemented a House
system, largely modeled after the well-publicized and frequently imitated original model
at the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia. In September 2017, all K-8 Preston
students were randomly selected into one of four Houses, identified by a name, color, and
attribute: the Amistad House, identified by the color red and the theme of friendship; the
Altruismo House, identified by the color black and the theme of giving; the Isibindi
House, identified by the color green and the theme of courage; and the Reveur House,
identified by the color blue and the themes of dreams and creativity. All staff members
chose a House in September 2017. New students and Kindergarten students each year
are selected randomly into Houses. New staff members were selected into Houses to
maintain balanced staff membership across all four Houses. Once students and staff
members were selected in a House, it became their House for life. The basis of the
system was a points model serving as a token economy for rewarding outstanding
academic achievement, citizenship, behavior, extracurricular participation, and

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community service. Activities related to the House system were designed to promote
school spirit, team building, and competition.
The Preston House System was instituted for the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019
school years. Some of the data and resulting analysis was based on these two years in
addition to the 2019-2020 school year during which this action research project is
conducted. For control purposes, the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 school years were
considered as baseline years.
From a fiscal perspective, the House system had costs associated with
implementation. These included:
•

Costs for materials and supplies related to assemblies, House shirts, banners, and
other promotional materials placed around the school to help establish House
identities.

•

Costs for House reward trips periodically throughout the year for achieving
challenges or accumulating the most points.
The fiscal obligations to start the House system led to opportunities for me, as

building principal, to engage with the community to partner with the school to help fund
the effort. As will be described later, these community partnerships helped to raise
awareness of the Preston Area School and provided enough support that the impact on the
building budget to implement the House system has been negligible.
As examples of the community partnerships and their support for the project, the
Preston School Parent Teacher Organization purchased $1200 of promotional banners for
Houses to hang in the school. The George A. and Margaret Mee Charitable Foundation,

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as a part of a much larger grant to support innovative programs at the Preston School,
provided nearly $2000 for House reward trips for the 2018-19 school year. And a local
lumber business donated a beautiful handmade trophy to be awarded to the annual winner
of the points competition.
While these seem like trivial purchases when related to academic achievement,
they supported the development of House identity in the school setting. That investment
in school culture and climate, along with the energy and investment from the staff in
faithfully implementing the token economy of the points system, became the publicfacing structure of the House system. The fiscal impact of implementing the House
system at the Preston Area School was minimized. Thanks to community partnerships
and grants, revenues nearly met expenses.
With the fiscal impact minimized, school leadership focused on securing staff and
student investment in the program. The full impact of this program was measured via the
action research conducted during the 2019-2020 school year, a challenge undertaken to
improve upon the program as it had existed in 2017-2018 and 2018-2019. Reaching the
full potential of the program to positively impact academic achievement and school
climate, while remaining nearly cost-neutral, was an administrative and programmatic
goal of the House system.
The research questions analyzed through this action research project include:
1. What impact does a schoolwide points system implemented within a House
structure have on academic achievement for grades 3-8?

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2. What impact does a schoolwide points system implemented within a House
structure have on school climate?
3. What are the benefits to a schoolwide House system as identified?
The purpose of this action research project was to gain a deeper understanding of
social learning theories, experiential educational models, critical pedagogy and critical
consciousness and their relationship to school climate and academic achievement. These
concepts formed the framework of understanding that grounded a whole-school climate
reform effort like a House system within traditional research.
Connecting the implementation of a House system to academic and behavioral
data helped add data-driven results to the currently scant research base regarding this
particular model of intervention. While the House system, made quite popular by the
Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, GA, had very clear aesthetic appeal and the potential to
invigorate a school setting with a new identity and energy, connecting this program with
academic growth and behavioral improvement had not been the focus of traditional
school climate reform research efforts. A major objective of this research process was to
focus the implementation of a House system to a theoretical framework and assess the
correlation of this implementation to academic and behavioral data.

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CHAPTER II
Review of the Literature
Introduction
The following review of relevant literature includes a conceptual framework
based on research from John Dewey and Paulo Freire, a connection of that conceptual
framework to school culture and climate research, and exploration through the literature
of the connection of school climate reform on academic achievement.
The research base on House systems in school settings was scant, but fit within a
larger context of research on school climate reform. As this literature review
demonstrates, whole school climate reform can be a powerful effort to address student
needs related to attendance, discipline, and academic achievement.
Conceptual Framework
The purpose of the conceptual framework for this project was to ground a House
system within traditional research strands that evolved from such seminal researchers as
John Dewey and Paolo Freire. In doing so, the precedent was set that the social aspects
of school were areas where educators can intentionally address climate. A climate occurs
when stakeholders agree on values that become embedded as the behavioral expectations
of an organization (Smith & Shouppe, 2018). Cohen (2006), in a landmark and oftencited paper on the development of positive and healthy school climate, identified
foundational elements of social, emotional, ethical, and academic education to be
considered in the school setting. Compelling research demonstrated that sustained

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positive school climate promotes academic achievement and healthy development
(Cohen, Pickeral, & McCloskey, 2009; Ali & Siddiqui, 2016; Wang & Degol, 2016).
Dewey’s theories related to social learning and experiential education were
reviewed with a focus on school climate. Freire’s theories, which challenged educators
to consider critical consciousness and problem posing education for all learners within a
system, were reviewed to support reform efforts at the school level. Both philosophers
are often cited in research regarding school reform, and the objective of this research
effort was to situate school climate reform, which is an area of ambiguous definition,
within their work. While there is a body of research that supports empirical data that
higher academic achievement results from healthy and positive school climates, there is
very little in the way of blueprints to apply to realize this change.
John Dewey, in his 1938 text Experience and Education, said that schools are
marked off from other social institutions by time schedules, rules of order and behavioral
expectations, seating arrangements, methods of classifying students, examination, and
promotion. In this traditional paradigm, Dewey noted that students, in order to learn,
must be docile, receptive, and obedient. Textbooks contained all the correct knowledge,
and teachers’ roles were to connect students to the content and enforce standards of
conduct. It was a dynamic of imposition upon students from above and beyond. These
impositions threatened the organic relationship between democracy and education, and
placed an overreliance on the power of authority figures to maintain an artificial control
that limited learners from realizing their full potential within a democratic society
(Dewey, 1938/2012).

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In traditional environments such as the schools described by Dewey, young
people were considered incapable of developing norms for learning or conduct. Adults
were considered the elders and the finished product. Traditional routines were habitually
easy. A progressive model of education was more difficult to execute than a traditional
model. A progressive model does not have learning outcomes as a final target, but
requires that these outcomes lead into new learning (Roberts, 2003). Experiential, social,
or democratic routines are hard, but these are meant to be the true aims of education, as
the resulting skills and knowledge become the foundation for people to be responsible
and caring participants in a democratic society (Cohen, 2006).
Dewey’s theoretical stance about social learning created space for young people
to generate authority through experience, and admonished that mature adults are not the
sole source of authority (Dewey, 1938). Dewey’s argument was that students become
actors in their education, rather than merely audience members (Clayton et al., 2014). In
this mindset, students become legitimate participants in the school, and move from the
status of newcomers to experienced members within a system. With this transition came
the transfer of legitimacy, where the newcomer eventually is empowered and emboldened
to have expert status and equal status (Lave & Wenger, 1991).
A modern emphasis troubles the notion of students achieving legitimate
peripheral participation in traditional school models, as it places curriculum at the center
of focus, rather than students (Breunig, 2004). As these pressures create dynamics of
oppression on student thought and action, Dewey noted that children were able to discern
the actions of adults that were geared toward power and dictating freedom rather than
actions geared toward fairness and choice (1938). This emphasis reduced opportunities

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for democratic models of social learning, as pressure on teachers and administrators
mounted for assessment results (Cohen, 2006). Dewey reinforced that all analysis of
social structures yielded the result that democratic decision-making and processes were
more fruitful and satisfying than anti-democratic models (1938).
Dewey was careful to note that schools and organizations must have rules, and
that social learning did not mean anarchy (1938). This important distinction regarding
any consideration for social reform to improve school climate applied to this research
project. However, having rules and order did not mean there should not be a mindset of
progress and change, especially when the potential for change was viewed as a method
for improving society (Dewey, 1916/2016). Blad (2019) described a form of social
groups called advisories, where social emotional learning was the focus of less-structured
experiences advised by teachers. These experiences were typically thematic with
curricular areas but were led by students, with the objective to legitimize student input
and support the development of students’ coping strategies to handle more sociallydriven constructs.
Social learning, then, forms a layer above rules and order, a layer that promotes
social and moral development, with preferences for learner-centered educational
decisions (Williams, 2017). This presents a shift in mindset, where teachers begin to lead
students as a social group, rather than dictate to a class. Teachers lose the role of external
boss and become the leader of social and group activities (Dewey, 1938). Staff members
within this setting become coordinators. They see slightly ahead of others, advocate and
champion learner opportunities, and are committed that students can learn by contributing
to their communities (Pennsylvania Service Learning Evaluation Network, 1996). The

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yield of social learning is measured by what students can become in these dynamics.
Students who participate in programs with emphasis on community, relationships, and
higher-level thinking skills are likely to become critical thinkers and positive contributors
to their local communities and society (Williams, 2017).
Over the decades since Dewey, other psychologists and philosophers have worked
with the concept of social learning. Very notably, Bandura’s (1977) model of social
learning, which is more widely regarded in modern research as social cognitive theory,
followed a more closely scripted stimulus-response-reinforcement model. For the
purposes of this research study, these theories more grounded in scientific models were
not as pertinent, as the connection to school climate from a reform perspective was less
discernible for individual stimuli. Rather, as Cohen (2006) defined it, learning related to
behavior, self-concept, and learning environment involves social, emotional, ethical, and
academic education (SEEAE). Intervention requires an assessment of needs, critical
analysis, and proper relations where educators recognize that their position in learning
dynamics is to design a climate or environment where SEEAE occurs organically
(Jacobson, 2010; Cohen, 2006; Dewey 1916/2016).
Dewey’s second strand of study to be considered in the conceptual framework
was experiential learning. A characteristic of traditional schooling is to place experiences
into separate categories, those that channel directly to the curricular lessons to be learned
and those that are more frivolous and not to be taken seriously in the school setting
(Dewey, 1916/2016). Instead, he continued, all experiences should be lived first, then
applied to a construct of critical questions that would allow for further exploration as the
learner dictates. As teachers create experiences with social learning in mind, where

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students will move toward expert knowledge of a learning community and become
legitimate participants, key principles are continuity and interaction, meaning experiences
are structured strategically. Intentionally connecting experiences to each other becomes
the responsibility of the teachers and school staff, to structure experiences that cede
control gradually so that learners gain independence in thought and learning opportunities
(Dewey, 1938).
In a community devoted to experiential learning, there is a shared responsibility
for those committed to cultivating empowered actor-learners. This results in designing
teaching and learning environments where students, staff, and community share value for
students becoming full agents of their own and others’ learning (Clayton et al., 2014).
The Pennsylvania Service Learning Evaluation Network (1996) described this model of
experiential learning as service learning, where students learn by doing. This process
pushes students to think about the skills and knowledge necessary for learning (Cohen,
2006). Students reflect on the process of learning itself, driving de facto citizenship
education, which promotes participation in a democracy.
The design of learning activities for an experiential learning or service learning
system, in a model of thinking dating back to Dewey’s (1938) work states that
experiences layer upon each other. Experiences are stimuli. When a young person
chooses to become a lawyer or doctor, experiences that connect to that choice become
more impactful than other experiences. The challenge of experiences leading to
education is that experiences may not connect to each other. Experiences of automatic or
rote control do not promote analysis and capacity to think intelligently (Dewey, 1938).

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Clayton et al., (2014) in their application of Deweyan democratic experiential
learning principles, designed Terms of Engagement, outlining the roles of students and
staff in the learning paradigm. These terms, which include students committing to shortterm and long-term learning goals and staff committing to a mutual respect for students
and their ideas related to the program, frame the expectations that students have authority
and a voice in the teaching and learning process. These ideas echoed Dewey by walking
the talk of democratic principles in design of teaching and learning experiences (Clayton
et al., 2014).
Henness (2001), through an affiliation with the Corporation for National Service,
conducted a study on rural K-12 schools who adopted strategies of service learning to
build community awareness and renewal. In the eleven communities surveyed, totaling
145 participants from common school stakeholder groups (students, teachers,
administrators, community leaders), service learning activities resulted in students
developing stronger ties with their schools and communities and improved relationships
between adults and students within the school and larger community (Henness, 2001).
Henness’ findings align well with guidance given in the literature about school
structures for experiential and service learning. The majority of respondents in Henness’
work were high school age and junior high school age students. The Pennsylvania
Service Learning Evaluation Network (1996) outlined school structures that value service
learning. The Network identified application of service learning structures at the middle
school level as highly appropriate, as middle school students value social interactions
above academic settings. Students in service learning systems develop improved identity
as citizens within their communities, heightened appreciations for collaboration, and

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increased tolerance for diversity (Thapa, Cohen, Guffey, Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2013;
Cohen, 2006). Additionally, service learning activities are a model of high student
agency activities that build habits for legitimate participation in a democratic society
(Dewey, 1916/2016).
This heightened level of engagement for students within their school and
community crosses over to adult stakeholder groups as well. Evaluation of service-based
systems yield feedback that teachers are more invested when managing the learning
process rather than dominating it. Administrators demonstrate pride within their
communities, and community groups feel motivated to connect with the school
(Pennsylvania Service Learning Evaluation Network, 1996). Service learning systems
must meet community needs, integrate academic instruction, and include time for
reflection (Cohen, 2006).
School climate, as defined earlier, is a construct of embedded values that drive
behavioral expectations within cultural norms. When considering a value system that
prioritizes experiential learning and service learning, school leaders can capitalize on a
learning model that brings into focus the whole child. For Dewey, the curriculum and the
child were intertwined, and not compartmentalized (Ozar, 2015). Experiences and areas
for learning deserve full treatments to assess their values, and should not be limited to
simply those experiences directly related to curricular standards (Dewey, 1916/2016).
This connection between curriculum and child bears out in the research regarding
the intentional design of experiential learning. Experiential learning is to be designed to
cultivate learner capacities including seeing the dignity of all, including those
marginalized and oppressed by traditional structures; working to extend and defend

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individual rights; seeking out perspectives that challenge norms and structures; and
working to nourish the flourishing of all life and remove obstacles (Clayton et al, 2014).
Experiential education has been shown to positively affect at-risk students, contextualize
learning, and make learning opportunities more equitable for all learners (Muir, 2003).
This approach to valuing all learners allows for a common vision between teacher and
students in a classroom setting. Such a shared vision leads to reflection, discussion, and
further learning (Cohen, 2006).
As an example of applying the larger philosophical approach to experiential
learning, Montgomery-Fate (1990) addressed experiential learning in the learning-writing
process. When students have responsibility in the process, they gain a writing voice and
self-confidence. With a stronger voice, their personal authority grows. With more
personal authority, students gain in identity and self-concept. As this action research
continues, the value of students gaining their voice and developing self-concept through
their identity within a House system is a result to be monitored and documented further,
as research in educational psychology has resulted in conclusions that student
identification with their school climate in positive ways has a resulting positive impact on
student achievement.
Dewey’s vision for schooling resulted in the Dewey University Elementary
School, which failed as a school itself but spawned a long history of experience-based
educational enterprises in the century-plus since its closure. Ozar (2015) identified key
principles that originated in Dewey’s experimental school and continued to resonate in
the modern educational setting, such as capitalizing upon natural connections to the
community and using resources that are relevant to students. These leadership elements

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become experiential or service learning opportunities for the school staff serving in an
advisory capacity for the reform effort. A strong advisory board supports the
collaborative nature of service learning. This group can be informal or formal in
structure, but must meet with regularity to promote persistence. Not all collaborative
efforts are immediately successful. A strong advisory board persists to make the program
as successful as possible (Pennsylvania Service Learning Evaluation Network, 1996).
Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968/1970/2005) served as a second arm of
the conceptual framework for the action research project on implementing a House
system as a model of school climate reform. Freire’s work, which originated from his
life and work in a Brazilian system where class and race inequalities permeated all
aspects of society, including education, has become a touchstone for modern applications
of social reform in education circles. The concept of critical pedagogy emerged from
Freire’s work to guide advancement in the field of emancipatory education and student
empowerment (Cho, 2010).
Similar to Dewey, Freire (1968/1970/2005) believed that traditional school
practices are based on the banking notion, where teacher deposits content into the
student. This banking concept means students are expected to receive, memorize, and
repeat. This misguided system suppresses student creativity, transformation, and
inventive knowledge (Freire, 1968/1970/2005). The resulting frustration of this mindset
in a modern context applies to school climate in a culture of standardized testing. White
and Levers (2017) conducted focus groups of teachers and parents, with resulting input
that their students and children are preparing to take tests rather than preparing to be face
the world.

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Freire’s preferred model for teaching and learning was to liberate those groups of
the learner population that have traditionally been oppressed by both societal values and
banking concepts of teaching. His libertarian education required that the roles of student
and teacher become interchangeable (Freire, 1968/1970/2005). Students have an equal
role with teachers regarding learning and dialogue (Shih, 2018). The purpose of critical
pedagogy is to recast schooling to focus teaching and learning on a moral project to
inform social transformation (Breunig, 2005).
Such a social transformation dictates new cultural norms that become the basis for
a new school climate. Critical pedagogy, by the nature of its message of anti-structure
and anti-system, prompts its advocates to be inventive in the design of new democratic
classroom and cultural models (Cho, 2010). Freire argued that education must be free
from oppressive practices, and that education is a cultural forum that promotes
democratic practices (Shih, 2018). Breaking from what have become traditional
schooling practices is risky in a modern context of accountability, and such risk-taking is
rare for school administrators and leadership, as “superintendents and principals learn
early to tread gingerly, pursue consensus, get clearance before acting, and abide by
established procedures” (Hess, 2009, para. 12). However, critical pedagogical practices
may just be the aspect of leadership required to make a school climate reform reflect
democratic, experience-based mindsets to maximum effect.
Making this shift toward critical pedagogy meant, according to Freire, that the
critical consciousness of students would be taken seriously. The true job of students in a
liberated model is to develop critical consciousness, where learners intervene in the world
to transform the world. This comes from learners refusing to accept a passive role

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(Freire, 1968/1970/2005). Traditional systems promote this passive role, particularly
with a student population that has a preponderance of students from low socioeconomic
demographics. These working class students, as studied by Chiang (2019), tended to
come from families with limited economic flexibility and constrained cultural capital.
This, in turn, led to passivity toward academics and initiative to engage critically with
school climate. The resulting dynamics between schools and families tended to conflict
with each other, with teachers and parents each assigning blame to each other for the
passivity of their students and children (White & Levers, 2017).
Freire warned against simply having a passive consciousness, that doing so
amounted to just being in the world. Critical consciousness meant being with the world
(Freire, 1968/1970/2005). Part of the mission of educators in a system rife with societal
pitfalls that limit students’ academic and social engagement is to think of people of as
being associated with their world in a critical way, where dialogue, freedom, and
criticism are crucial, rejecting the “banking method” in favor of problem posing/problem
solving inquiry method of teaching and learning (Shih, 2018).
Problem posing education requires the teacher and student to continuously work
together. Teachers and students investigate problems, solutions, and each other’s input as
a means of praxis, where teaching and learning join in a seamless process (Freire,
1968/1970/2005). Glass (2001) noted that this idea, like many of Freire’s and most
philosophers in general, was a good example of Freire linking an understanding of human
nature with an idealistic conception of society. Best practices for teaching and learning
have always been known for teaching and learning to be closely intertwined. Madero
(2017) noted that education was communication between two people where they share

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their lives, not simply content, and that Freire’s vision through education was a more
complete humanity.
A pragmatic understanding of both Dewey’s and Freire’s visions for social
transformation through democratic principles and valuing the learner’s experience creates
links supported by the research. Glass (2001) noted that Dewey’s naturalistic approach
focused on the scientific similarities of all people and Freire’s humanistic viewpoint
focused on the need to rise up against the discontinuities that create classes of oppressors
and oppressed. Either way, there is an exigency to building discourse at the school level
on the impact of these practices, as dialogue and the process of education are key to
overcoming myths about human and social relations (Madero, 2017).
Freire’s development of the concept of praxis, or combining reflection and direct
and purposeful action to transform reality (Freire 1968/1970/2005; Breunig, 2005),
echoed Dewey’s belief that the challenge of experiences leading to learning was that
experiences did not connect to each other. Experiences of automatic or rote control do
not promote analysis and capacity to think intelligently (Dewey, 1938). When we
consider learning as a series of investigations of problems, we develop thematic patterns.
We consider people’s thinking in these patterns. Change results as we intentionally
remain in these thematic patterns of intervention and investigation. Learning occurs most
effectively in an experience-driven model when the learner is involved and immersed
with a situation, and develops a continuity between the past, present, and future (Wilson
& Burket, 1989; Aasebo, Midtsundstad, & Willbergh, 2017).

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Connecting Research Framework to Implementing a House System as School
Climate Reform
Surveying definitions of school climate as a term revealed ambiguity in the
research. A recent review of school climate measures reinforced no clear definition of
school climate and only mild consensus regarding grounding the term in concepts of
quality and character of school life (Olsen, Preston, Algozzine, Algozzine, & Cusumano,
2018; Wang & Degol, 2016). Cohen (2006) identified eleven factors that define school
climate that cover the physical school building, social-emotional education practices,
instructional quality, and relationship between students, teachers, parents, and
community. Hoy and Hannum (1997) found that school climate, per the research
literature, is a loosely gathered construct that holds together studies of school
environment, learning environment, school climate, and community, among other similar
concepts. Hoy and Hannum’s definition of climate boiled down to six areas: academic
emphasis, teacher affiliation, collegial leadership, resource support, principal influence,
and institutional integrity. Their resulting survey of teachers led to the identification of
teacher affiliation and academic emphasis as the most closely correlated elements of a
perceived “healthy” school (1997). The concept of affiliation was a subtopic of Bragg
and Manchester’s (2016) aspect of “consideration,” a component of a larger ethos that
healthy school climates emanated. Consideration is a less defined area, based on
feedback of how students feel and an openness of staff to welcome students to try new
things without fear of rejection.
Other researchers have made more definitive claims about what constitutes school
climate. A strong climate incentivizes stakeholders who support and espouse positive

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organizational values and removes those who deny or do not follow them (Smith &
Shouppe, 2018). Four primary areas constitute school climate: safety, relationships,
teaching and learning, and the institutional environment (Cohen, Pickeral, & McCloskey,
2009). Even with these more clarified statements, however, the field was still
inconclusive to conclude these are the only measures to consider (Olsen, Preston,
Algozzine, Algozzine, & Cusumano, 2018). Zullig, Huebner, and Patton (2011) found
academic support, positive teacher-student relationships, school connectedness, order and
discipline, and academic satisfaction to be the most impactful indicators of school climate
on school satisfaction. Their study, a multiple regression model analysis based on survey
results of secondary age students on the School Climate Measure, was considered one of
the few generalizable climate surveys. What was clear from all research is that
systematic diagnosis and monitoring of a school’s climate is a best practice for school
personnel (Olsen, Preston, Algozzine, Algozzine, & Cusumano, 2018; Hoy and Hannum,
1997).
Rather than the term climate, Freire referenced the concept of culture, when
discussed imaginatively and critically among members of the learning group, becomes
thematic. The resulting circles of problem posing, dialogue, learning, and new problem
posing results in a greater potential for change to the culture (Freire 1968/1970/2005).
Ikpeze (2013) outlined a school wide reform effort geared at school climate called
Expeditionary Learning. Learning centered on the student experience, where social
contact and the school as community were prevailing themes. Regular meetings of the
school, complete with music, student performances, and student awards, became part of
the cultural fabric of the school.

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Application of experiential and problem posing education frameworks to school
climate reform efforts was a lightly researched area. Brennan (2012) noted that there was
copious research on school climate, but a dearth on House systems, their implementation,
and results of their implementation. Examples of House systems are typically found in
more mainstream media or Internet sources. These examples help to establish the House
program as popular and as potentially positive for impacting school climate, but the data
on each example tends to be more circumstantial and solely reflecting the perceptions of
the staff members interviewed about such programs.
The implementation of a school reform program like a House system, which has
very individualized structures in different settings, can be a disorderly process. The
research base demonstrates this point across programs that seek social reform through the
construction of experiences. An experientially-based pedagogy promotes distraction,
movement, and disorder, with the intention of creating movement, both physical and
social, away from the classroom and toward the community (Montgomery-Fate, 1990).
This is an effort often at odds with a modern school emphasis on testing and evaluation,
which pressures teachers to deliver content and curriculum in the most socially efficient
manner possible (Breunig, 2005). Cohen (2006) put forth a belief that this modern
emphasis on test scores has an inadvertent negative effect on actual learning, and leaves
schools with less time for and reduced expectations to challenge students to become
socially aware and active future members of a democratic society. Such practices related
to passive educational practices where students are subjected to banking methods of
instruction risk leaving students, particularly those with risk factors for not achieving
highly in school, as oppressed groups (White & Levers, 2017).

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Schools who have implemented House systems need to establish the reasons for
considering and adopting the program at the start. This is a challenging process, because
there is a need to balance academic pressures in a modern context of standardized test
accountability against a program like a House system that does not have a clear-cut
academic element or direct connection to the curriculum. When starting their House
systems, school teams identified areas of concern such as student and teacher
marginalization, limited student interactions, limited relationships between staff and
students, poor student behavior, and a lack of a sense of belonging (Brennan, 2012;
Buchanan, 2018; Cornwall, 2018; The Bedford School, n.d.; Vidal, 2015). Interventions
related to these needs become person-centered rather than variable-centered. Personcentered interventions allow for program changes to differentiate among subgroups of
students (Wang & Degol, 2016).
Brennan (2012) references teacher isolation as a specific concern in the
development of the House system at Most Holy Trinity Catholic School in rural Arizona.
Teacher and staff involvement in the system at Mill Creek Elementary in Madison,
Alabama became a highlight of the program’s development. All faculty had a role in
creation, framing ideas around questions like, “why not?” instead of, “that won’t work”
(Buchanan, 2018). Building a collaborative approach to addressing school climate is
reminiscent of Deweyan practices, charging teachers to become the facilitators of the
social group, rather than simply the deliverers of content (Dewey, 1938). This
collaborative approach also rings clear in leadership research, with key staff members
collaborating with the principal to identify needs and commit to actions (Fullan &
Pinchot, 2018). That collaboration must be led with children, not content, as the focus of

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education. To introduce content without integrating social context limits learning, and
challenges the ethics of teaching (Williams, 2017). A collegial environment has been
found to be an important factor in improving school climate, although the creation of and
maintenance of that collegiality is more impactful when it is led among the teachers, and
not necessarily directed by the principal (Hoy & Hannum, 1997).
As stated earlier, taking on a whole school reform effort related to school climate
is not without struggle. Bear, Yang, Pell, and Gaskins (2014) found that there is a
paucity of reliable measurement devices for school climate, with very few qualifying as
valid and reliable. The uniqueness of each school extends beyond what they all have in
common, meaning school leaders may have similar questions to consider in any setting,
but may have very different variables to consider for program improvement (Davis &
Warner, 2018). Experiential learning and critical pedagogy contain elements of disorder
and chaos that threaten the traditional school structures. Montgomery-Fate (1990)
described a series of experiences by his college students in a writing assignment on the
Chicago Transit Authority. The experiential design made students the subject, rather than
the object of the learning/writing process, requiring their whole involvement from the
rational and analytical to the emotional, spiritual, and physical. He considered
experiential learning a disorderly ordering process. While there are certainly more
complex situations to conceive in a whole school effort rather than a writing assignment
for a few students, the idea of disorder and struggles in experiential learning at any scale
applies.
As a school climate reform effort that relies on students and staff to integrate
experiential and service learning ideas within the traditional school structure, a House

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system may best be described as a leap of faith for a school principal. Establishing the
need to take this leap of faith while still practicing within the understanding that school
reform efforts must be coordinated, sustained and intentional, drawing from many
formative data sources on school climate to address students’ social, emotional, ethical
and intellectual abilities (Cohen, Pickeral, & McCloskey, 2009). The structure becomes
the staff’s responsibility to identify why a House system would match the needs.
Brennan (2012) conducted surveys, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups of
students and staff at Most Holy Trinity Catholic School before and after implementation
of the school house system to assess school climate, sense of community, and Catholic
identity. Early findings indicated enthusiasm for the house system by both teachers and
students, but limitations in the social interactions desired. Longer-range assessment and
evaluation of the system were needed before impact could be fully measured. Positive
results related to community spirit and relationships between teachers and students
emerged (Brennan, 2012). These findings are consistent with Wang and Degol (2016),
who found a limitation of many studies of school climate to be a lack of a time element,
either in the amount of time that an intervention had been in place, or a longitudinal
variable that tracks the impact of school climate over the course of many years in the life
of a student or group of students.
At Lake Canyon Elementary School in Galt, California, the needs of the school
related to student behavior and a lack of opportunities for young students to learn from
their older peers. Following implementation, students communicate with many different
teachers, creating smaller communities within the larger school community (Cornwall,
2018). Deweyan ideas include those focused on community, safe and happy learning

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environment, play between students and teachers, celebrating accomplishments, and
gaining a sense of belonging (Williams, 2017). This positive focus is often overlooked in
the research, as Chiang (2019) notes, highlighting that students who come from working
class or otherwise nonacademic backgrounds are still quite capable of positive social
interactions with teachers and classmates. A critical pedagogy argument also becomes
apt here, that the visionary work of educational settings must not be content with simply
adapting individuals to the world of conditions they experienced when they walked in the
door, but striving toward liberating learners from their social limitations and create new
possibilities (McLaren, 2016). These positive experiences support a positive school
climate, creating a platform from which academic growth may emerge.
Goleta Valley Junior High School’s House system, in Goleta, California, where
900 seventh and eighth grade students were sorted into six houses, was endorsed by
faculty, who note that social houses reduced anxiety as students transitioned to higher
grade levels, smaller environments reduced insecurities stemming from rapid physical
and psychological changes, and house activities engaged early adolescents’ idealism and
interests in the world (Green, 2006). Mill Creek’s six-house elementary system results
indicated significant reduction in disciplinary referrals. Soft data indicated positive staff
feelings, family connections, media coverage, and collaborative culture among all staff
members (Buchanan, 2018). The House system at Westwood Elementary School, in
Westlake, Louisiana, helped to build stronger bonds between staff and students (Vidal,
2015). House systems have proven to foster community among diverse populations,
provide for pastoral needs of children, and generate a sense of belonging among students
at Most Holy Trinity Catholic School (Brennan, 2012). These strong interpersonal

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relationships are crucial for constructive discourse and progress beyond the school walls
(Hoy & Hannum, 1997).
The development of smaller communities and creation of smaller social unity
among students in a modern era was found to be a method for promoting unity, selfworth, and responsibility in schools (Brennan, 2012). This thematic element is consistent
across House systems in school settings. The House system at The Bedford School in
Fairburn, Georgia was designed to create smaller communities, foster a sense of
belonging, and promote character development (The Bedford School, n.d.). The Bedford
School, a private school for students with learning disabilities or dyslexia, serves an
enrollment of 150 students in first through ninth grade. The common-sense belief about
students with disabilities was that they will be at risk for poor academic achievement and
struggles with social interaction. We know from Dewey that experiential education
practices are likely to positively impact at-risk student groups (Muir, 2003), and that
humans must look beyond their biases to develop inquiry practices to overcome obstacles
that limit the liberation opportunities of these groups (Harris, 2017). In order to
accomplish this, highly structured activities need to be considered that involve student
competencies, while high student agency activities are designed around students
developing problem solving and finding their own resources (Clayton et al., 2014). High
student agency activities are also representative of aims and qualities of schools that hold
dear the values of democratic societies (Dewey, 1916/2016).
For students in the House system at Bedford School, the points system awards the
students making the honor roll, displaying good citizenship and behavior, completing
service projects, and participating in athletic events and house competitions (The Bedford

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School, n.d.). These carefully designed reinforcements and rewards combine elements of
academic achievement, social development, and community service that are believed to
be indicative of healthy school climate. At Mill Creek Elementary School, the House
system was based on the six pillars of the school’s character education program:
trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship. These values,
designed to be the cultural expectations from which school climate emerges, became the
basis for the points system, and staff awarded points for students exhibiting any of the six
pillar characteristics (Buchanan, 2018). As these were socially constructed values by the
staff and leadership of the school, they became the frames of reference for students upon
which they reflect when House points were awarded for their accomplishments. This
reflection becomes the conjunction of personal and socially inculcated value structures,
and becomes the lynchpin of learning in an experiential learning system (Wilson &
Burket, 1989).
Another common aspect of House systems in effect is the inclusion of recognition
for leadership and service learning. At Goleta Valley Junior High School, students
participated in Houses for social and academic competitions, community service
activities, and schoolwide leadership activities. Community service opportunities,
including helping at shelters and conducting clothing and food drives, were attached to
points system, but staff members also recognized the intrinsic value that students gain
from the experiences (Green, 2006). In a school with a very diverse population, both
ethnically and socioeconomically (California Department of Education, 2017), many
students were from working class families, and were likely exposed to very few
opportunities to develop cultural capital for leadership or service (Chiang, 2019).

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Service learning dynamics require staff and students to continually plan,
implement, and evaluate activities to energize the system (The Pennsylvania Service
Learning Evaluation Network, 1996). Along with the building of cultural capital for
learners to use as experiences for personal growth, the activities implemented by students
and staff in the name of service learning become the basis for building personal histories
and culture, creating opportunities for liberation and the overcoming of oppressive
realities (Glass, 2001). In the spirit of students developing as leaders and service
learners, the House system at Most Holy Trinity Catholic School was led by a House
Coordinating Committee and House Directors Committee. Both were student groups
whose responsibilities included securing administrative and staff buy-in, along with
scheduling activities (Brennan, 2012). As these approaches decentralize power by
offering students leadership in developing programs, and reconciling their successes and
failure without downward pressure, a critical pedagogy emerges where the school staff
ascribes to a basic faith in others as human beings, that students will emerge closer to
liberated and develop abilities to lead others thusly (Jenlink, 2017).
School climate reform must include results that are consistent with the areas
addressed by the reform effort. School climate, due to its malleability based on staff
control over behavioral expectations and reinforcement systems, is a prime area to
consider intervention (Wang & Degol, 2016). Incentives like House points, which lead to
individual and House recognition in all of the researched examples, are manipulated by
staff members. This may represent a departure from a true Freirean system, where
legitimacy of students as full participants in the system will not be a reality. Staff are
accountable for data related to student performance in a modern educational system,

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however. At Goleta Valley Junior High School, in an effort to safeguard against the
points system becoming too heavily based on competitions or achievement, staff
collaborated to balance points on participation, effort, and growth. Suspensions dropped
by fifty percent in a two-year period. The University of California at Santa Barbara
conducted a study on teasing, harmful rumors, and physical violence over the same time,
finding that each decreased over the two-year period (Green, 2006).
At Lake Canyon Elementary School, Principal Judi Hayes attributed mentoring
opportunities between older students and younger students with reducing behavioral and
disciplinary issues. Causation between House system and reduced suspensions was hard
to prove, as the school adopted restorative disciplinary practices at the same time
(Cornwall, 2018). There was evidence from school climate research analysis that shows
a high correlation for higher academic achievement and improved student behavior in
schools where students get along with and care about one another (Bear, Yang, Pell, &
Gaskins, 2014). In student mentoring dynamics, protégés who report positive
interactions with student mentors were more willing to continue participation in positive
school programs, even if results about the impact of student mentoring for student
achievement were scarce in the research (Laco & Johnson, 2017).
Staff sought similar results at Mill Creek Elementary, where identified needs
included building stronger student-to-student relationships and teacher-to-student
relationships, reducing office discipline referrals, and building a sense of belonging
(Buchanan, 2018). This focus on relationship building reflects models of risk and
resilience, where protective factors are prioritized to minimize the impact of risk factors
related to parental support, parental expectations for youth behavior, social supports in

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the community, and social supports in the school on student results (Hopson, Schiller, &
Lawson, 2014). Additionally, research on adult-initiated contact with students regarding
positive behavior and relationships led to improved student behavior and outcomes
(Cash, Debnam, Waasdorp, Wahl, & Bradshaw, 2018). Laco and Johnson (2017) found
teacher-led mentoring opportunities provided space for students and teachers to engage in
discussion of personal themes that enabled mentees to understand their own social and
emotional circumstances and growth.
A House system is a sound program to consider for the sake of addressing and
improving school climate. It matches up well with experiential education theories and
critical pedagogy concepts, and is customizable enough to match diverse educational
settings. The House systems profiled each shared a full commitment of staff and
students. “Every part of our school culture now flows through the lens of the house
system,” Judi Hayes, Principal of Lake Canyon Elementary School, said (Cornwall,
2018). This commitment is a prime example of Hoy’s and Hannum’s (1997) conclusion
that teacher (staff) affiliation is a driving force of a healthy school climate. Hayes
concluded that, “for a House system to succeed, there has to be something substantive
behind it, an underlying ethos being reinforced” (Cornwall, 2018).
The development of a powerful ethos includes the concept of conviviality, where
all stakeholders in a school setting live interdependently with democratic ideals in mind,
and sharing the consensus to reject deficit discourses, such as those about the
disadvantaged or overlooked (Bragg & Manchester, 2016). Cohen (2006) referenced the
need for “spread,” or the willingness and active commitment of school staff to introduce
the active reform effort as well as spread the altered underlying beliefs of the reform

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effort. Teacher efficacy, or the belief by individual teachers or a collective staff of
teachers that all students will learn no matter their demographic circumstances or
background, was shown to be correlated with improved school climate and academic
achievement (Mosoge, Challens, & Xaba, 2018).
Impact of School Climate Reform on Academic Achievement
A primary objective of this action research was to improve academic achievement
results at the Preston School using a House system as a school climate reform approach.
A House system, as framed within the theories of experiential education and critical
pedagogy, will be the variable by which change is assessed. Across the examples of
House systems reviewed, there was very little evidence or commentary available on the
direct impact of such a program on academic achievement. There was, however, much
available about the impact of a healthy school climate on academic achievement (Thapa,
Cohen, Guffey, & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2013; Ali & Siddiqui, 2016; Davis & Warner,
2018). As this action research project was based on the process of successfully
implementing a House system to yield positive results in both school climate and
academic achievement results, identifying evidence that supports both outcomes is
possible if the research is to be validated.
Identifying indicators of school climate is a process unique to each school, a
process where school staff members assess their needs and develop interventions based
on these needs and the resources at their disposal (Thapa, Cohen, Guffey, & HigginsD’Alessandro, 2013). Much of the available research indicates that school climate is
difficult to define and assess beyond very general terms. In his action research on the
implementation of a House system at Most Holy Trinity Catholic School in rural Arizona,

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Brennan (2012) concluded that there was positive momentum among staff and students
regarding the areas of need identified to be addressed by a House system. However,
results within the first year of implementation were too preliminary to attach to more
concrete measures of achievement and needed more time. Only one of the House
systems reviewed reported data related to academic achievement, with student
performance on Goleta Valley’s Academic Performance Indicator rising thirty five
points, which was four times the previous year’s increase (Green, 2006).
Generalizing the effort a bit, there is evidence in the research that, when
controlling for socioeconomic status, positive school climate had a significant impact on
student achievement (Maxwell, Reynolds, Lee, Subasic, & Bromhead, 2006). Research
conducted through the National School Climate Center concluded that school climate
impacted students’ physical and mental health significantly, which in turn mitigated risk
factors and led to improved student self-esteem, attendance, student engagement, and
academic results (Thapa, Cohen, Higgins-D’Alessandro, & Guffey, 2013). Studies
reviewed by this group identified outcomes that students who are encouraged via school
climate measures to engage in academic learning have greater potential for increased
academic achievement results (Thapa, Cohen, Guffey, & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2013).
There is evidence that school climate measures designed to support student engagement
through efforts like advisories opened up avenues for reluctant and at-risk students to
access academic support with fewer obstacles (Blad, 2019).
The setting for this action research project, the Preston Area School in the Wayne
Highlands School District, is a small K-8 school in a very rural area of Wayne County,
Pennsylvania. Like most rural communities in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Preston

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Area School student population decreased to under 170 students from a high of over 400
in the 1980’s, with a majority qualifying for free and reduced lunch. These demographics
would indicate a student population much more at risk for lower educational attainment
and expectation (Thornton, 2017; Sanders et al. 2018). The historical data for student
achievement at Preston far outpaced these modest expectations, buoyed by a core of highachieving families whose children modeled their parents’ distinctive work ethic and
career aspirations. In more recent years, however, the school’s achievement has more
closely aligned with its demographic realities. This downward trend of student
achievement to more align with local demographics is consistent with findings from
Reynolds, Lee, Turner, Bromhead, and Subasic (2017), whose study of factors of school
climate and their impact on academic achievement yielded the strongest correlation for
parent education, socioeconomic status, and school identification, or student feelings
toward their school. Research findings regarding the impact of school climate on student
achievement acknowledged the reality of socioeconomic status and accompanying social
risk factors that often resulted from poverty are difficult to overcome without significant
reform (Hopson, Schiller, & Lawson, 2014) that focuses on clear solutions with targets
and established conditions for success that will last over time (Fullan & Pinchot, 2018).
As stated earlier in this review, positive perceptions of school climate impacts
academic achievement, although socioeconomic status is one factor that requires more
significant intervention, usually through the specialized staff of such schools who are
tasked with second or third tier intervention supports, and special education programs
(Maxwell, Reynolds, Lee, Subasic, & Bromhead, 2017; Thornton, 2017). A literature
review by Sanders et al. (2018) indicated a lack of research regarding the association

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between school climate and students with disabilities or ELL students. This was in
contrast to the body of work available regarding school climate and the academic
achievement of students from low socioeconomic status or racial minority identification,
which was more substantial. Additional intervention areas identified that correlated with
increased academic achievement were teacher behavior, curricular improvements, and
group procedures related to instructional practices (Ali & Siddiqui, 2016). Proving a
correlation between an isolated school climate reform measure like a House system
without contextualizing the impact of multi-tiered intervention programs, special
education programs, and improvement of instructional practices could be a limited
conclusion (Reynolds, Lee, Turner, Bromhead, & Subasic, 2017). This will be an area
for consideration during the course of the action research process.
Further research on at-risk student populations reveal conclusions that
interventions in isolation may not correlate well with academic achievement, improved
student behavior, or improved school climate. In a study conducted by Reno, Friend,
Carruthers, and Smith (2018), teachers were surveyed regarding their students receiving
Tier II behavioral interventions. In the results and conclusions, no correlation was found
between students receiving these interventions and academic growth. Indeed, most
beliefs regarding school improvement efforts echo that academics and behavior must be
addressed in tandem (Fullan & Pinchot, 2018). These findings and beliefs supported the
research that concluded more and more often that student perception of school climate
matters as much to academic achievement as which program or intervention is used
(Sanders et al. 2018). Aasebo, Midtsundstad, and Willbergh (2017) agreed in principle
that the potential of interventions like dialogical teaching communication had the

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potential to improve student perception of school culture beyond demographic limitations
like parental resources. Effective practices and policies related to school climate that
considered student perception as an input source helped clarify an understanding of the
relationship between the two (Reynolds, Lee, Turner, Bromhead, & Subasic, 2017).
One conclusion of school climate research is that a strong academic climate yields
higher student achievement when individual students develop their self-concept, by
knowing and meeting challenges to reach their personal achievement and growth goals
(Wang & Degol, 2016). This idea of student self-concept is reminiscent of Freire’s
critical consciousness, where learner awareness of the pathway toward liberation is both
clarified and intentionally constructed. Student self-concept shows itself in different
ways, one being a student’s willingness to ask for support, which is shown through
research to be a notable indicator of a healthy school climate (Fullan & Pinchot, 2018).
Developing student self-concept and self-efficacy is a product of dialogical teacher
communication practices, where students are empowered and trusted to explore their
voice for the sake and benefit of societal participation and building autonomy (Aasebo,
Midtsundstad, & Willbergh, 2017). Empowered students, who have high aspirations and
expectations for success, and who are supported within healthy school climates where
educators value positive relationships, realize high student achievement results (Kirk,
Lewis, Brown, Karibo, & Park, 2016).
Additional studies of school climate show correlation to student achievement.
Hopson, Schiller, and Lawson (2014) conducted a multilevel modeling analysis of
student results on the School Success Profile (SSP) survey, including results from over
37,000 students across over 300 schools. The data yielded conclusions about student

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demographics and their impact on student achievement that, when controlling for
independent variables, indicate schools with students who have positive perceptions of
school climate have higher student achievement and better behavior. Davis and Warner
(2018) had similar conclusions after their study of school climate survey results in New
York City Schools. Their conclusions included evidence that stakeholder perceptions of
school climate were a stronger variable correlating with student achievement than were
the composite of students’ background variables.
Interestingly, Davis and Warner’s results broke from Hopson, Schiller, and
Lawson (2014). The latter found stronger correlation of student perception of school
climate than teacher perception, while Davis and Warner found teacher and parent
perception of school climate to be more aligned with high student achievement than
students’ perceptions. Elia (2015) also found parent perception of their middle school
students’ school impacted their relationship and expectations for their children, resulting
in academic achievement that outpaced their socioeconomic status. All three sets of
researchers agreed that these areas were fodder for future research. As it pertains to
school climate reform, however, guidance remains strong that the development of these
perceptions in practice requires careful planning and deliberate inclusion of student input,
consistent with the types of activities of House systems or advisory programs (Cohen,
Pickeral, & McCloskey, 2009; Blad, 2019).
These student perceptions often are reflective of teacher or staff behavior toward
elements of school climate. For example, students who view their teachers as treating
them fairly, offering them a voice in developing and implementing school climate, and
enforcing rules with consistency have higher student achievement scores, particularly in

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Math (Cash, Debnam, Waasdorp, Wahl, & Bradshaw, 2018). Analysis of responses
given by 5,781 school personnel in 132 schools on the Delaware School Climate SurveyTeacher/Staff demonstrated that teacher-student relations did correlate well with
academic achievement, but not as well as student-student relations (Bear, Yang, Pell, &
Gaskins, 2014). These results citing the impact of student-student relations as the most
impactful on academic achievement are particularly notable as they came from the
version of the survey offered specifically to teachers and other school staff. Sanders et al.
(2018) also found significant correlations between student perception of school climate
and academic achievement. Student perception of the school climate and their
involvement in the school to the point that they regard it as a meaningful place of
reference for how they define themselves correlates very well with high student
achievement (Reynolds, Lee, Turner, Bromhead, & Subasic, 2017).
Fullan and Pinchot (2018) discuss the importance of establishing a sense of
urgency to accompany school climate reform as a pivotal leadership component. While
this urgency may not mean swiftness to reach the final result, it is an exigency to
recognize the need for change and movement. The development of a schoolwide ethos
can be a representation of this urgency. As Bragg and Manchester (2016) describe it, an
ethos requires staff and leadership to think openly and creatively about how their school
is defined by how much we are “considerate,” or positive and inclusive; “convivial,” or
reliant upon each other to act with integrity regarding the vision for the work; and
“capacious,” or willing and able to expand and grow together. The buy-in of a schoolwide ethos represents the type of staff relations effort that researchers like Back, Polk,
Keys, and McMahon (2015) recognize have an impact on school climate, and potentially

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on academic achievement as well. Harkening back to the theoretical framework of
Dewey and Freire, this collegiality and shared value for social, emotional, ethical and
academic education is reminiscent of social learning and critical pedagogy, where
practitioners become continually reflective of how well the school climate is received by
students, and how well the academic climate aligns with the social climate.
Summary
The body of literature supporting school climate reform to effect change in
academic achievement is strong, particularly for practices that support democratic
theories and critical pedagogy. The difficulties of this reform in a modern context will
continue to be the juxtaposition of an educational environment of accountability and
standardized testing with school climate reform efforts that decry the dynamics of these
suffocating environs. The objective of a House system is to provide opportunities to
reinforce student achievement, effort, citizenship, behavior, involvement in school
programs, and community service. This literature review provides both theoretical
standing and evidence from research that a program like a House system, when
implemented with full support from faculty and staff, can affect school climate and
academic achievement.

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CHAPTER III
Methodology
Introduction
As outlined in the literature review, intervening to improve school climate and
academic achievement is inexact science, although there are steps related to stakeholder
perception and setting clear targets for students that strongly correlate with success. In a
small rural school with obstacles related to socioeconomic status, such as the Preston
Area School, intervening with respect to fiscal responsibility has been necessary. The
Preston House system has served as the intervention model to improve school climate
and academic achievement.
Action research was the model implemented through this study for the purpose of
analyzing the impact of the Preston House system on academic achievement and school
climate. Through the action research model, quantitative data such as test scores were
introduced and analyzed. Qualitative and inquiry data were analyzed through a faculty
and staff survey and a focus group that also served as a program leadership committee.
The action research model fit well with the intervention program, as the malleable
structure of a House system allowed for adaptation based on needs as progressively
identified over time by faculty and staff.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this action research project was to gain a deeper understanding of
social learning theories, experiential educational models, critical pedagogical practices
and their relationship to school climate and academic achievement. These concepts

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formed the framework of understanding that grounds a whole-school climate reform
effort like a House system within traditional research.
A House system involves the establishment of smaller communities of students
and staff members within the larger school setting. After the selection of students and
staff are considered, the resulting Houses compete with a token economy for recognition
and rewards. This token economy, represented by points that all students earn for their
academic achievement, citizenship, behavior, community service, or extracurricular
participation, becomes the tangible indicator of student success. Connecting the
implementation of a House system to academic and behavioral data adds data-driven
results to the currently scant research base regarding this particular model of intervention.
While the House system, made most popular by the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, GA,
has very clear aesthetic appeal and the potential to invigorate a school setting with a new
identity and energy, connecting this program with academic growth and behavioral
improvement has not been the focus of traditional research efforts. A major objective of
this research process was to focus the implementation of a House system to a theoretical
framework and assess the correlation of this implementation to academic and behavioral
data.
The research questions analyzed and considered through this research project
include:
1. What impact does a schoolwide points system implemented within a House
structure have on academic achievement for grades 3-8?
2. What impact does a schoolwide points system implemented within a House
structure have on school climate?

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3. What are the perceived benefits to a schoolwide House system as identified?
Setting and Participants
By the time of implementation of the Preston House system in Fall 2017, the
Preston School consisted of approximately 165 students in grades Kindergarten through
eight. The staff included one homeroom teacher per grade, one reading specialist, two
learning support teachers, a nurse, a school counselor, five full-time paraprofessional and
office staff, five custodial and kitchen staff, one principal who split time with another
school in the district, an assistant principal who spent two half-days weekly at Preston
while the principal was at his other school, and nine special area teachers who split time
with other schools in the district. This total staff of 33 each selected their House based on
the thematic characteristics of each. As staff came and left the school over the
subsequent school years, their replacements were assigned House affiliation in order to
maintain balanced numbers of staff members to provide supervision and leadership for
each House.
The use of a House system as a schoolwide intervention came as a result of
analysis of student achievement and school culture during the 2015-16 and 2016-17
academic years. Table 1 displays the percentage of students achieving proficiency in
grades 3-8 on the English Language Arts (ELA) and Math PSSA assessments.

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Table 1
Percentage of Preston Area School Students Scoring Proficient or Advanced on 2015-16
and 2016-17 PSSA ELA and Math
Number of
Students
Tested
2015-16

2015-16
ELA

2015-16
Math

2016-17
ELA

2016-17
Math

37.5%

Number
of
Students
Tested
2016-17
16

Grade 3

16

68.8%

37.5%

25.0%

Grade 4

26

38.5%

26.9%

16

75.0%

43.8%

Grade 5

18

72.2%

50.0%

21

33.3%

14.3%

Grade 6

12

58.3%

41.7%

18

77.8%

55.6%

Grade 7

23

73.9%

47.8%

11

81.8%

36.4%

Grade 8

24(ELA)/

79.2%

56.0%

21

57.1%

42.9%

25(Math)

In Table 1, the data indicated stronger achievement for students in the higher
grades. In 2015-16, the Grade 4 group, for example, scored well below the typical
proficiency numbers for Grade 4 at Preston. However, one low-scoring cohort group was
not cause for alarm by itself, especially when dealing with such small class numbers at
Preston. The difficulty of the new PA Core-aligned PSSA assessment highlighted this as
a low-scoring cohort, as the test itself was notably much more difficult in academic
complexity and rigor for struggling readers than the preceding version of the PSSA.
What became alarming was the 2016-17 Grade 3 class. With two classes in Grades 3-5
testing well below historical data trends for Preston, the need for intervention became

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more exigent. Similar data trends emerged in benchmark assessment tools used for
universal screening purposes for remedial and intervention purposes at younger grades.
Certain factors start to emerge as noteworthy regarding these two classes. First,
the 2016-17 Grade 5 class had been split into two sections during their Kindergarten year,
with a first-year teacher coming in to take half of the class. They were then together in
one large First Grade section, then split halfway through Second Grade again, with
another first year teacher coming in mid-year. This group was then split for third and
fourth grade, with a new first year teacher for third grade looping with them into fourth
grade. They were then combined in fifth grade after the class reduced to a more
manageable size through students moving out of the school. While students typically
have new teachers each year in public schools, the number of first-year teachers and
transitions during two very important formative years of Kindergarten and Second Grade
seemed to have had a negative impact educationally. Teachers and staff who worked
with this group of students noticed a very different identity than the academically minded
groups that preceded them for many years at Preston. This particular class had a
strikingly high number of students identified as socioeconomically disadvantaged. While
this number fluctuated a bit from year to year as students move in and out, it maintained
at or above 65%, and reached as high as 90%. Preston always had higher percentages of
socioeconomically disadvantaged students than other schools in the Wayne Highlands
School District, but was always able to overcome that reality when standardized test
results came in each year. This was different.
When the 2015-16 third grade looked more normalized compared to other years’
achievement numbers, there was a sense of relief, that maybe we were going to be fine

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and just needed to focus on the one group of students whose achievement was out of
place. However, the 2016-17 third grade was once again a very low-scoring group.
When considering the context of this group’s instructional background, they had a firstyear long-term substitute in third grade, and a long-term half-year substitute in second
grade. Additionally, nearly forty percent of this class had been identified as in need of
special education services. This much higher percentage of students with learning
struggles continued for the next two years of classes.
The school Instructional Support Team evaluated practices related to intervention
structure and success. The Team was confident that it had continued to operate correctly
as a multi-tiered system of support, with very engaging and exciting young teachers in
place who were extremely dedicated to student success. Across the school, there was
very little that looked or seemed different from previous years, outside of the frequent
long-term leaves of absence of many teachers.
What did seem different was a concern among staff that parents and guardians in
the school cared less about their children’s academic success. Fewer students were
achieving the honor roll in their middle school years, and more students began missing
homework assignments. Staff reported parents communicated more frustration about
their basic needs and struggles outside of school, and were less willing to push their
children to persevere through academic struggles. Fewer parents were apologetic when
their student had a behavioral issue, and more parents were contentious and
argumentative. Heading into the summer of 2017, an intervention was necessary to
reinvigorate the school community.

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One teacher at Preston had attended a three-day professional development
experience during the spring of 2017 at the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia,
where the House system is omnipresent. Through planning sessions in the summer of
2017, this teacher and I developed the Preston House system. Over the following two
school years, 2017-18 and 2018-19, the Preston faculty and staff implemented and
structured the House system. Amidst successes and growing pains, the program became
a part of the school fabric. The 2019-20 academic school year served as the third year of
implementation. During the 2019-2020 school year, this action research study was
conducted to evaluate the program for its impact. All staff members at the Preston Area
School during the 2019-2020 school year were invited to participate in the Preston Area
School Faculty and Staff Research Survey (see Appendix A) anonymously as a method
for evaluating faculty and staff perception of the program and its impact on academic,
school climate, and other areas of influence in the school community. This survey was
administered in September 2019 to assess the perceptual impact of the House system on
the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years, and in May 2020 to assess the perceptual
impact of the House impact on the 2019-2020 school year.
Intervention/Research Plan
The faculty and staff of the Preston School designed the House system to meet
objectives that included fostering and maintaining a sense of togetherness and teamwork
for all students and staff, reinforcement and celebration of academic achievement and
growth, promotion and empowerment of healthy competition, and recognition of
prosocial behavior. This set of objectives are reminiscent of Cohen’s (2006) version of
social, emotional, ethical, and academic education (SEEAE). Implementation in Fall of

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2017 was an energetic process, complete with assembly programs for inducting students
into Houses. As with any brand new program, initiation involved all the stakeholders.
The principal and staff leaders developed literature to share with parents, consulted with
the school PTO about partnerships for purchasing items and supporting the program, and
spoke with local businesses about sponsoring the program.
During the first year, staff developed and began implementing the House points
system, which is the lifeblood and ongoing element of this intervention that drives its
success. We developed a method for all staff to report and count House points using a
phone and computer application, purchased a screen for the cafeteria to display the
running point totals of each House throughout the year, and designed reward trips and
activities for Houses that won points competitions.
The points system, serving as a token economy, offers any adult staff member in
the building the chance to recognize a student for their behavior, effort, or distinctive
achievement. When House points are assigned often enough, students associate them
with success. This served as a response to concerns that Preston students had a
diminished value for success that needed to be addressed.
In order to reinforce and support community and extracurricular involvement
among students, I developed a voucher system and administered it through the principal’s
office. Upon completion of a program, activity, sport, or community service effort, a
student completed a voucher, secured a parent signature, and submitted it for House
points. This is a direct response to concerns that Preston students were not interacting
with their larger school community, and not thereby becoming legitimate peripheral
participants as full agents in their education, which is a Deweyan goal of experiential

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learning (Dewey, 1938; Clayton et al., 2014; Lave & Wenger, 1991). The decision to
include parent or activity leader signature on each voucher was very intentional, as we
wanted to promote our students to practice the seemingly simple step of interacting with
adults and seeking permission.
The structure of the Preston House system includes students’ selection into
Houses, to which they will belong for life. Staff members serve as leaders of the House,
but student leadership has emerged over time. The school’s House Council has replaced
the more traditional Student Council model, and House elections of student leaders have
replaced general student elections for leadership. The leadership structure of the House
system evolved, evoking Dewey, who promoted the idea that students gain authority
through experience, and that leadership decisions become learner-centered over time.
Adult House leaders designed and led initial House activities. This was necessary, as
students at Preston had been left with very few leadership development opportunities in a
remote and rural community where students were largely disconnected except through
social media and electronic means.
What emerged over the first months of the House system were conflicts between
previous structures for student activity and leadership and the new House activities.
House leadership committee members hoped that older students would recognize the
energy and potential of this program to reinvigorate their school experience. However,
older students in seventh and eighth grade were quite skeptical and took exception to the
House system threatening the opportunities they thought they had earned over their many
years at Preston. For example, Spirit Games were traditionally organized by grade level.
When the Student Council members learned Spirit Games would now be organized by

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House instead, there were letters written in protest and petitions signed by students.
Interestingly, the resulting discussions, deliberations, and decisions over Spirit Games
continuing to be organized by grade for year one were valuable opportunities for social
learning theory to emerge. Students, as Dewey (1938) warned they might when change
emerges, were questioning the reasons for this new House system, and staff leadership
needed to consider whether the ideals of the new system were worth pursuing. While
these conflicts were frustrating and challenged the House leadership committee who were
seeking investment by staff and student groups in the new House system, they provided
very keen insight into the students’ mindset. The success of the House system needed to
involve student input and feedback in order to be a viable school-wide program. In other
words, the House leadership committee needed to fully value students’ critical
consciousness and regard what students valued going forward and what they no longer
valued in their school experience.
These values helped House leadership committee members as educators, as they
became very attuned to the importance of layering experiences, a la Deweyan thought, to
better structure the Preston House system. At the time there was no guidebook for this
program, outside of some basic organization to be copied from existing school efforts.
During the first year of implementation, House activities were focused on team-building,
bringing each House together to create and rehearse chants, work together to solve
puzzles and challenges, and learn more about each other as a group. The group dynamics
were quite unusual for typical school activities, with students between Kindergarten and
eighth grade all together in House groups of approximately forty students and five staff
members. Significant challenges to overcome emerged, specifically how to organize

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experiences that fourteen-year-old eighth graders could value alongside five-year-old
Kindergarten students. Student response to these first activities was quite tepid, which
was frustrating for staff members who invested time and energy into planning these
activities.
In a very intentional application of Deweyan democratic educational principles,
teachers held open forum conversations with students, which led to open conversations
among staff members regarding the House system and establishing direction. My only
directive as building principal was that the House system was here to stay, that this would
not be a failed initiative because the school community had not yet fully committed to
new demographics that the traditional approach to education at Preston was no longer
addressing effectively. This became my role as principal, to espouse and champion
values for pride for self, school and community. The school climate needed to reflect my
values. Because I was split as principal between two buildings, and truly only at Preston
two days per week, I needed to rely on the rest of the staff to share these values and
practice them daily.
House leadership among staff was assigned when staff members chose their
Houses in the fall of 2017. I strategically chose staff members to serve as House leaders
who I knew would be committed to the objectives of the program, and who would have
the positive energy needed to persevere through the challenges of a new school climate
reform. An identified area of concern was the passive attitudes of students and their
families in the years leading up to starting this program, particularly in the elementary
level classes. Our critical consciousness, as Freire would have demanded, needed a
jump-start. The Preston Area School had become very good at the banking methods that

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both Dewey and Freire criticized and that research right through Shih (2018) has
characterized as taking away from problem-posing learning dynamics and teacher-student
relationships that are learner-focused. The new House system needed to be learnerfocused, and the House leadership committee needed to be open to responding to
feedback to match the system with targets for student achievement, behavior, and
citizenship.
As the 2017-2018 school year progressed, additional opportunities emerged to use
the House points system to recognize academic achievement beyond the classroom. A
concern had emerged that parents were not recognizing their children for their academic
performance or accomplishments. Many report cards sat at the office for a long time
because of unpaid lunch balances or library fines, which indicated that parents simply
were not concerned with how their children fared in school. We decided to use the points
system to help in this regard.
I began assigning House points for honor roll achievement and CDT diagnostic
assessment performance for winter and spring administrations in grades 3-8, and
prompted teachers to make House points available for academic performance on a regular
basis. The economy of House points had begun to take shape as follows:
•

1-2 points awarded for citizenship, manners, positive behavior, classroom
effort, responsibility, respect, or readiness. Staff assigned points as
intermittent reinforcement for individual students as the staff person sees
fit.

•

1-3 points for classroom academic accomplishments such as outstanding
grades on a test, project, or long-term task.

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51

7 points for achieving Honor Roll in a marking period and 10 points for
achieving High Honor Roll in a marking period for students in Grades 6-8.

•

5-10 points for reaching achievement or growth targets on Math and
Reading benchmark assessments for students in grades 3-8.

•

1-5 points for a student helping with a community service event, such as a
community hall dinner or a school litter pick up.

•

10-20 points for a student completing an athletic, music, or educational
program. These programs include interscholastic and community sports,
school-based chorus or band, the annual school musical, Sunday School,
4H, and other programs as submitted and considered.

A very visible physical element of the Preston House system is the big wheel.
The Preston teacher who attended the Ron Clark Academy professional development
experience built the Preston House wheel out of used parts, including a table and an old
whiteboard frame on wheels. Every two weeks, all students and staff at Preston gather in
the school’s large group instruction room. Each House sends a student up to spin the
wheel for House points. Staff members in each House select the students who will spin
the wheel for their accomplishments, behavior, citizenship, or special recognition. Point
values on the wheel range from more frequent results between 0-10 points, up to the very
rare 50-100 points.
House points by themselves were a nice reward for students, but they began to
take on additional meaning when they were incentivized with larger prizes. The resulting
competitions, which over the first three years of implementation became the most
energized aspects of the Preston House system, required all students in the House to

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consider how they contributed to the team effort. This team dynamic was unusual in a
school atmosphere, especially stretching across grades K-8. House reward activities
included trips to local recreational facilities, picnics in the local town park, the movie
theater and restaurant in the nearby town, the nearby YMCA for swimming and
recreation, and to the Pocono Raceway for a special presentation of a local charitable
effort that Preston students helped complete.
Incorporating a school climate reform effort included financial investment. The
Preston House system was no exception. As described in the introduction section, this
intervention had largely been cost-neutral, largely due to community partnerships.
Fundraising efforts for the Preston Area School PTO began to directly reflect House
reward trips and activities. Sales of House shirts shifted from donations to become part
of PTO fundraising campaigns. House leadership committee members sought donations
for hardware and paint, and repurposed old materials like magnetic chalkboards to
construct House point standings boards. Careful branding of this program, which took
the first three years, allowed for very strategic purchasing. An important part of this
branding effort was my role as principal, and I used public opportunities such as opening
parent meetings and school concerts to address parents about the House program, the
ideals we sought, and the partnerships we needed within the larger school community to
grow. These public presentations, both formal and informal in nature, made a
tremendous difference in the willingness of parents, local business owners, and
community groups to support the House system.
Just as finding funds to pay for reward trips and marketing materials took time
and discipline, and just as repurposing available materials helped mitigate costs, the

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House leadership committee faced challenges with building consensus among staff
members for the need for the House system. Through the slow development of this
program, the best intentions and plans related to school climate reform did not guarantee
improvements in staff or student affiliation with school. The examples of House systems
highlighted in the review of the literature for this project yielded a conclusion that school
climate reform is more likely influential with a person-centered focus rather than a
variable-centered focus. The Preston House system was no different. This project sought
to demonstrate the possibilities to connect the implementation of a House system to
variables that traditionally measure school success while acknowledging that such a
connection has been difficult to quantify in available research.
Methods of Data Collection
This action research project includes both quantitative and qualitative data
analysis. This mixed methods approach, as Hendricks (2017) notes, allows the researcher
to concentrate on the data that best leads to conclusiveness regarding whether the action
led to the desired outcome. The researcher submitted the proposal for this action research
project to the Institutional Review Board, or IRB, of California University of
Pennsylvania on July 26, 2019. The IRB approved this research project proposal via
email and attachment on September 4, 2019, with an expiration date of September 3,
2020 (See Appendix B). Due to the statewide closure of schools for the time period
covering March 13, 2020 until the close of the 2019-2020 school year as a result of the
COVID-19 Pandemic, the research proposal was updated via addendum letter to reflect
modified data collection procedures for the Preston Area School Faculty and Staff
Research Survey on April 10, 2020 (See Appendix C). The IRB granted an updated

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approval for the research project to continue as amended, with a revised expiration date
of April 9, 2021 (see Appendix D).
The first research question considered in this action research project was how the
implementation of a House system impacts academic achievement in grades 3-8.
Academic achievement was measured using summative and diagnostic assessment
instruments. In accordance with federal and state laws regarding required assessment in
Math and English Language Arts for students in grades 3 through 8, the Pennsylvania
System of Standardized Assessment (PSSA) was administered at the Preston Area School
annually. Student performance on these assessments at Preston was represented in raw
scores, which translate to the scoring categories of Advanced, Proficient, Basic, and
Below Basic. These scores were also represented in Normal Curve Equivalent, or NCE,
units, which were used to measure student growth from year to year in the Pennsylvania
Value Added Assessment System, or PVAAS.
For this action research project, the use of NCE units was the most relevant way
to measure student performance, as individual student performance was measured against
all other students who took the same test, rather than analyzing raw scores and their
relationship to proficiency, which were numerical data that shift from year to year
depending on the student’s grade level assessment. Approximately one hundred students
at the Preston Area School took the PSSA assessments in each academic year in grades 38.
Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Pennsylvania Department of Education
canceled administration of the Spring 2020 PSSA assessments. For that reason, analysis
of NCE scores included scores from the two implementation years of 2017-2018 and

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2018-2019 as compared to the two pre-implementation years of 2015-2016 and 20162017.
The Classroom Diagnostic Test, or CDT, is a diagnostic assessment system
developed and maintained by Data Recognition Corporation, or DRC, and is freely
available for use in Pennsylvania schools. Beginning in the 2015-2016 school year,
students at the Preston Area School, students have taken the CDT as a diagnostic
assessment multiple times annually in Reading and Math in grades 3 through 8. While
these tests were not designed as direct preparation for the PSSA assessments, they served
as indicators of student readiness for Eligible Content used by PSSA at grade level
(Pennsylvania Department of Education, 2020). Student scaled scores indicating
strengths at grade level on CDT logically projected to proficiency on PSSA.
Student scores on CDT were reported in scaled scores. In 2015-2016, students
took CDT two times, in November and in March. Beginning in 2016-2017, students took
a baseline CDT within the first two weeks of the school year. A second administration of
the CDT followed in early December, with a third in late February or early March.
Beginning in 2017-2018, House points were awarded for students maintaining a score in
the highest scoring range, achieving the next scoring range or for closing at least half the
gap between their most recent score and the next scoring range.
A primary characteristic of action research is that causal relationships are difficult
and cumbersome to prove using typical quantitative methodology in the field (Dick &
Swepson, 2013). A challenge of analyzing the positive or negative impact of a House
system on student achievement was that the system may not appear to act as a direct
catalyst for change. Rather, the attachment of House points to PSSA and CDT served as

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a more global indicator of student and teacher affiliation with the Preston Area School. If
students were motivated by House points for academic achievement on summative and
diagnostic assessments, the results would demonstrate perseverance and improved
results.
Action research may not be easy to generalize, as the relationship between
researcher and setting is typically quite personal (Dick & Swepson, 2013). The Preston
House system research is likely to be unique to the setting, and will certainly inform
future school climate decisions as well as instructional decisions. Having made these
disclaimers, there is value to be gained through quantitative analysis of PSSA and CDT
assessment data to answer the research question.
Other data collected to help answer the first research question regarding the
impact of the Preston House system on academic achievement included survey results
from the Preston Area School Faculty and Staff Research Survey, displayed in Appendix
A. This survey asked staff members to rate their opinion of the impact of the Preston
House system using a Likert scale on various topics reflecting student achievement as
well as school climate. Questions 1-4 of this survey referenced student achievement on
PSSA Reading, PSSA Math, CDT Reading, and CDT Math. Analysis of this data served
to triangulate student achievement data.
The second research question considered through this research was to analyze and
measure the impact of the Preston House system on school climate. This question was
answered through quantitative analysis of school records like attendance rate and student
discipline. According to Hendricks (2017), archived artifacts can be useful sources of
data for the sake of action research at the school level.

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Attendance rate was calculated by the total number of days present divided by the
total number of days enrolled for all students during a school year. As stated in the
review of the literature, positive school climate yielded positive returns in measurements
such as attendance (Thapa, Cohen, Higgins-D’Alessandro, & Guffey, 2013). The
baseline years of 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 were compared with the implementation
years of 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2019-2020. Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and
the closure of all Pennsylvania schools from March 13, 2020 through the close of the
2019-2020 school year, attendance data for 2019-2020 was truncated and considered as
an incomplete data set. The analysis of attendance data reflected this unfortunate
predicament.
Student discipline data was treated similarly to student attendance data, as holistic
indicators of school climate. The review of the literature accentuated many
characteristics associated with positive school climate, including orderly student conduct
in line with institutional values that promote both discipline and a sense of community
(Zullig, Huebner, & Patton, 2011). Baseline data for 2015-16 and 2016-2017 were
compared with the implementation years of 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2019-2020. Due
to the COVID-19 Pandemic and the closure of all Pennsylvania schools from March 13,
2020 through the close of the 2019-2020 school year, discipline data for 2019-2020 was
truncated and considered as an incomplete data set. The analysis of discipline data
reflected this unfortunate predicament.
Answering this research question about the impact of the Preston House system
on school climate by using only holistic measures may not have reflected the full
complexity of the many concepts and components of school climate. To better reflect the

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more qualitative elements of school climate, such as social awareness and espousing
organizational values, the Preston House leadership committee served as a focus group.
As Hendricks (2017) described the use of the focus group as a data collection strategy,
the rich discussion between group members in a more informal setting allows for inquiry
that is more authentic. Focus group members agreed to participate in the research study
via the informed consent form referenced in Appendix E. Focus group data was kept by
the researcher in journal form, documenting the monthly meetings, the topics discussed,
general input and consensus from the group, and individual standpoints and quotes where
appropriate. Focus group data does not contain personally identifying characteristics and
was presented through the data findings anonymously.
The authenticity of the data collected was crucial when assessing the Preston
House system for its impact on school climate. A strong advisory board is a crucial
element of school-based programs that focus on service learning or experiential learning
(Ozar, 2015; Pennsylvania Service Learning Evaluation Network, 1996). The Preston
House leadership committee served in the capacity of advisory board. The committee
met monthly to discuss and plan upcoming events and competitions, contribute feedback
from recent events and activities, and consider how best to structure the program related
to the current climate of the building. As described earlier, the Preston House system is a
loosely structured program, with opportunities for staff to adjust direction based on the
current feedback and needs of the school. Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Preston
House Leadership Committee met during the months of August 2019 through February
2020, ceasing activity in March 2020 due to the statewide school closure. As a result, the

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data for this focus group represented the seven months during which school was in
session for the 2019-2020 school year.
Examples of how the House leadership committee used the House system to
address the needs of the school were plentiful. In response to a lack of community
service opportunities for our students, the committee designed a House activity to
contribute to a local charitable effort. Due to concerns over students’ passive attitudes in
the classroom, a House points challenge was organized to encourage teachers to
recognize student engagement and effort more regularly, with the winning House earning
a reward trip to a local pool. Team-building activities, student leadership opportunities,
and even public speaking and peer mentoring have all been topics addressed through the
House system that originated through the adult advisors. Inquiry data collected through
focus group discussions documented the evolution of the Preston House system and the
impact it had on school climate over the implementation years of 2017-2018, 2018-2019,
and 2019-2020. Inquiry data was collected via a journal kept by the principal that loosely
transcribed the meeting, referencing input from focus group members, and resulting
actions based on that feedback.
A final data component for analysis of the impact of the Preston House system on
school climate represented the responses of faculty and staff members on the Preston
Area School Faculty and Staff Research Survey, displayed in Appendix A, for items
related to the topic. Survey items 5 and 6 dealt directly with the perception of staff
members of the influence the Preston House system has had on student attendance and
student discipline, specifically for students in grades 3 through 8. The decision to focus
on staff perception of the impact of the House system for students in grades 3 through 8

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was based on the importance of standardized testing that occurs for students in these
grades. This data provides triangulation with the attendance and student discipline
introduced earlier.
The third research question, which addresses the perceived benefits of the Preston
House system as identified by staff members, was a qualitative inquiry. Data was
collated and analyzed from the previously identified Preston House leadership committee
focus group and from the Preston Area School Faculty and Staff Research Survey,
displayed in Appendix A.
Preston Area School Faculty and Staff Research Survey items 7 through 12
addressed topics and ideas that intertwined with academic achievement and school
climate, but that also represented areas of the larger school community that may have
benefited from the Preston House system over the first three years of implementation.
Brennan (2012) concluded that the impact of the House system he researched was
premature when assessed after only one year of implementation. His findings did include
energy for the program by staff and students and positive community awareness for the
program.
At Preston, I had the advantage of having three full years of implementation data
to consider as a part of this research study. Consequently, the data on the impact of the
Preston House system on the school and community reflected this longer history. Survey
item 8, for example, asked staff for their perception of the positive, neutral, or negative
impact of the Preston House system on Community Service. By the third year of the
system, I had publicized the voucher system for students to complete for House points for
community service at great length throughout the local community. The depth of faculty

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and staff opinions was more significant and meaningful due to the three years’
implementation experience.
As the researcher, my primary interest was to gauge the perceptions of the
primary stakeholders in the Preston House system, who are the Preston Area School staff.
As the Preston Area School principal, my interest was that my staff members were
invested in our House system to best facilitate improvements. The nexus between these
roles as researcher and principal in the school setting was where my personal investment
in the data needed reconciliation.
Hendricks (2017) explains the advantages of the action research model for
principals as both researchers and practitioners. Principals can “encourage and evaluate
action research by their teachers and conduct their own school improvement studies
related to school climate, professional development, school-community relations,
working with parents, curricular programs, student achievement, attendance, and
discipline” (p.5). A whole-school reform effort such as a House system has the potential
to reach and influence all of these stated areas.
Focus group data served to triangulate staff survey data and either support or
refute survey input. The Preston House Leadership Committee served as a representation
of the staff, but not all staff members participate with this group. All staff members,
however, were invited to participate on the staff survey. The survey data yielded staff
input and feedback on the House system that went unvoiced in the general course of the
school year as well as in the focus group.

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The Preston Area School Faculty and Staff Research Survey was administered
twice over the scope of this research project. The first administration of the Survey was
in the Fall of 2019, and served as baseline data to encapsulate the first two years of
implementation, 2017-2018 and 2018-2019. The second administration was near the
close of the 2019-2020 school year and served to measure the impact of the Preston
House system during this respective school year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the
May 2020 administration of the survey was completed electronically using the Survey
Monkey program. This process allowed for anonymity of responses.
The third research question is the question where the fiscal implications of the
Preston House system was explored and analyzed. The focus group considered the
partnerships we at the school have in our community to plan and pay for House reward
trips. These partnerships included the Preston Area School Parent Teacher Organization,
or PTO, as well as local businesses who have offered support for House events as well as
support for PTO events that have led to support of the House system. Other costs for this
program included marketing materials and displays around the school for House points
and House legacy. The focus group provided inquiry data and discussion data related to
these costs, as well as working to secure the donations of materials, money, and finished
products received over the years for the House system.
The Preston Area School Faculty and Staff Research Survey, Appendix A,
provided for feedback on survey item 12 that sought opinion on the impact of the House
system as it related to the image of the Preston Area School in the community. This data
was supportive of the larger discussion of the Preston Area School community as it
continued to change and evolve demographically.

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Validity
Hendricks (2017) offered four criteria for demonstrating validity in action
research, including credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. The
purpose of this section was to demonstrate the research plan to establish these criteria in
relation to the data collection for the Preston House system and to lead toward
conclusiveness regarding the program’s impact on academic achievement, school
climate, and other benefits as identified by staff.
This action research was conducted under the guidance of an external committee,
who served in support, editing, and peer debriefing roles. These supporters were not
biased regarding the project, as they were not employees of the Wayne Highlands School
District and, thus, had no personal investment in the Preston House system. As such,
their editing and research feedback served to help me reconcile my roles as both principal
of the Preston Area School and researcher for this study.
As this intervention program was in its third year of implementation at the time of
the research study, the Preston House system withstood many of the questions that
emerged about similar yet younger programs highlighted in the review of the literature.
This prolonged data set served to demonstrate dependability of the information. The
Preston House Leadership Committee became a valuable source of member checks,
which Hendricks (2017) identified as a strategy for increasing credibility in the study.
This group, in its role as a focus group, had a three-year history with this program.
Opinions, feedback, and memories of previous events and activities were plentiful with
this group, and served well to confirm current input and data. Additionally, this group
helped to support checks and balances for the use of the points system. Discussions

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about various staff members’ use of the points system and the evolution of the voucher
system to fairly reward community and extracurricular student participation were
ongoing, ensuring an authentic and rewarding system for staff and students to
continuously implement.
Perhaps the most visible strategy for supporting the use of the Preston House
system as a whole-school intervention was the continuous, ongoing reflective planning
that continued to occur with this program. In my role as action researcher and principal
of the school, I was able to make adjustments regularly to how this system was being
used by faculty and staff, as well as increasing communication with external school
stakeholders at strategic times. This strategy contributed to the dependability of the
inquiry data.
Summary
This section summarized the process of action research to respond to the research
questions posed regarding the impact of the Preston House system. When considering
the complexity of researching a program designed to address whole school cultural
reform, action research emerged as a design process that allowed for the necessary praxis,
which Freire (1968/1970/2005) termed as the joining of teaching and learning in a
seamless process, encouraging staff to collaborate to continuously identify needs and
solve problems without concern for the strict fidelity of an intervention that may require
more structure.
As documented throughout this chapter, the global COVID-19 pandemic brought
a premature close to the 2019-2020 school year in the physical sense. Although review

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and enrichment activities continued for students and staff at the Preston Area School
through the close of the 2019-2020 school year, data related to this action research
project was impacted for the affected school year. Despite these obstacles, the
implementation years of 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 yielded substantial data to support
analysis and conclusions based on the identified research questions.

65

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CHAPTER IV
Data Analysis and Results
Introduction
Action research data analysis was described by Sagor (2000) as a process of
sorting, sifting, ranking, and examining data to develop answers regarding what happened
as a result of the intervention and why these results may have occurred. Riel (2019)
placed the process of data analysis within the iterative cycles of the action research
process, after the phases of studying, planning, and taking action, and before the
reflection step. Mertler (2019) described the action research process as a series of cycles
where the researcher or research team proceeds through the planning stage, acting stage,
developing stage, and reflecting stage. These steps repeat themselves over time, with the
results shared progressively from informal sources to the broader academic community.
The analysis that follows aligned with Sagor’s approach to using data in the
action research methodology; practitioners need the flexibility to accumulate and allow
the data to indicate the effectiveness of an intervention in stages. Additionally, the data
used to respond to the research questions represents the strategic sorting and culling
necessary to isolate potential effectiveness of the Preston House system apart from other
interventions occurring simultaneously in the school setting designed to address more
specific areas.
The following data collection and analysis addresses these research questions:
1. What impact does a schoolwide points system implemented within a House
structure have on academic achievement for grades 3-8?

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2. What impact does a schoolwide points system implemented within a House
structure have on school climate?
3. What are the benefits to a schoolwide House system as identified?
Data Analysis and Results of the Research Questions
Research Question 1: What impact does a schoolwide points system
implemented within a House structure have on academic achievement for grades 38? The context of this question was that the Preston Area School had achieved extremely
well historically on the Pennsylvania System of Standardized Assessment, or PSSA, in
Reading and Math for grades 3-8 until the eligible content for the tests shifted to the PA
Core Standards in 2015. From that time forward, while other schools in the Wayne
Highlands School District saw achievement at or above most other schools in the region,
the Preston Area School lagged. Table 1 in Chapter 3 demonstrated specific concern for
cohorts in third and fifth grade after Spring 2017 PSSA results were considered. The
Spring 2017 PSSA results represented the last PSSA results before implementation of the
Preston House system.
A primary concerns identified facing these cohorts, as well as student groups that
followed, was the numerous long-term substitutes assigned to their classrooms due to
faculty leaves of absence. Additionally, the Preston Area School is very far from the
school district town center, and numerous teachers seek transfers to the town schools as
soon as they become available. This led to frequent teacher turnover, which strained the
strong building culture.
The Preston House system arose as an intervention strategy to address school
needs related to climate. As described in previous chapters, this effort began in the

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summer of 2017. The House leadership committee formed soon afterward, and the
House system started in full in the fall of 2017. The original vision of the House system
was that students would learn, practice, and celebrate skills related to achievement,
behavior, and citizenship in a fun and exciting fashion.
The points system serves as the token economy designed to reinforce all aspects
of student achievement, behavior, and citizenship that teachers and staff members deem
important and worthy of recognition. As discussed in Chapter 3, this points system was a
diverse model of intermittent reinforcement that evolved in application over the three
years of implementation under study. Students earned House points for their
performance on the diagnostic CDT tests, and Houses earned points collectively each
year for PSSA achievement. Teachers used the points system individually within the
classroom to reinforce student behavior, academic achievement, or effort was at their
discretion.
Data sources to analyze in regard to the research question included Pennsylvania
System of Standardized Assessment (PSSA) results, reported in National Curve
Equivalency (NCE) units to consider student achievement in comparison to other samegrade peers. This summative assessment is administered in accordance with the federal
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) annually in English Language Arts and Math for
students in grades 3-8. For the purposes of this research study, the typical score reports
of Advanced, Proficient, Basic, and Below Basic were eschewed for the more userfriendly NCE scores.
Table 2 displays the average NCE of each cohort of Preston Area School students
who took all of their PSSA tests at Preston since third grade. The research question

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required consideration of how these students performed before and after implementation
of the House system. The data was further isolated to represent just those cohorts of
students who took PSSA at Preston before and after the House system was implemented
in the fall of 2017, with at least one data point before implementation and one data point
post-implementation. As a result of this winnowing, five cohorts were included in the
data set.
Due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, all Pennsylvania schools were closed as
of March 13 for the duration of the 2019-2020 school year. The federal government
subsequently canceled all standardized assessments for spring 2020. This resulted in no
PSSA data for consideration in this study for spring 2020. Although this data would have
certainly been helpful to better judge the impact of the House system on academic
achievement, as well as other instructional intervention efforts, there were other data
sources available to further that analysis.
Analysis of NCE cohort performance in Table 2 required significant context. The
data is sorted by cohorts representing graduation years. The 2022 cohort, for example,
represents those students whose final year as eighth grade students at Preston was in
2018. These cohorts, as indicated by the n count in Table 2, were very small, consistent
with the small enrollment at Preston. Therefore, the data analysis was limited by privacy
and anonymity concerns, where identifying demographic factors such as disability status,
mental health concerns, and socioeconomic status could be too revealing in such small
numbers.

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Table 2
Cohort PSSA National Curve Equivalency (NCE) Data, Preston Area School, 2016-2019
Graduating
Year

n

Subject

2016
Mean
NCE

2017
Mean
NCE

2018
Mean
NCE

2019
Mean
NCE

2022

11

Math
ELA

55
47.1

53.3
58.5

54.4
59.1

---

54.2 0.70
54.9 5.52

2023

10

Math
ELA

55.5
55.5

65.1
58.8

58
60.7

54.8
57.3

58.4 4.07
58.1 1.91

2024

17

Math
ELA

47.6
41.5

45.8
44.2

49.4
43.1

46.5
47.4

47.3 1.33
44.1 2.15

2025

12

Math
ELA

46.5
51.4

53.6
50.8

47.8
47.2

60.7
53.3

52.1 5.61
50.7 2.21

2026

15

Math
ELA

---

44.7
42.1

48.3
45.4

53.3
45.2

48.8 3.50
44.2 1.50

M

SD

Note: NCE, or National Curve Equivalency, is measured on 0-100 scale. Raw data
retrieved from PVAAS Pennsylvania (2020).
When analyzing the data in Table 2 from the perspective of an action researcher,
there were numerous data points that compare favorably to the mean (M) of each cohort’s
composite performance. The class of 2025 saw performance gains in 2019 that outpaced
their previous achievement dating back to 2016. This was notable because the class of
2025 had some of the largest standard deviation (SD) spread in the data. Putting these
two factors in juxtaposition, the House leadership committee considered whether this was
a group that potentially would respond academically to the competitive nature of the
House system.

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Conversely, the class of 2024 had both a very low average NCE and a small
standard deviation. Not surprisingly, school leadership and instructional support teams
considered numerous interventions at the individual and the group level for this class
over their years at Preston. While no interventions seemed to have an impact on PSSA
achievement in a strongly positive direction, there was positive data that average NCE
mildly improved or remained stable, while the standard deviation remained low. This
indicated consistent student effort, regardless of results.
The two classes who were in the oldest grades when the House system was
implemented, the classes of 2022 and 2023, came into this study with stronger histories
of academic performance. Their resistance to change regarding the House system is
discussed later in chapter 5, but the data indicated that their performance was not
adversely impacted by the systemic change. Rather, their Math achievement remained
stable, while their ELA achievement improved.
The youngest class in the sample, the class of 2026, was among the classes whose
early learning results were impacted by the number of long-term substitute teachers and
first-year teachers, as well as a concern over a lack of early childhood education
opportunities in the local community. Table 2 indicated their performance slowly
improved over time. As stated earlier, the number of individually identifying factors in
such a small group make analysis of demographics problematic. This class, along with
the class of 2024, typify the performance and demographics that spurred the adoption of
the House system.
A second data set used in analysis of the impact of the Preston House system on
academic achievement was the Classroom Diagnostic Test, or CDT. This diagnostic

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assessment was administered each school year since the 2015-2016 school year at the
Preston Area School. In the first year of administration, students in grades 3 through 8
took the respective grade level Reading and Math test twice, in November and February.
In subsequent years, students in grades 3 through 8 took the respective grade level
Reading and Math tests three times. These three administrations occurred during the first
weeks of the school year, again in early December, and again in late February or early
March.
The CDT was designed to provide data regarding student weaknesses and
strengths related to test questions that reflected the same eligible content as the PSSA
(Pennsylvania Department of Education, 2017). While the most useful student score data
for teachers was within the eligible content categories, as this data more specifically
drove instructional planning for future interventions, the overall scale score provided
important data that reflects overall student achievement and progress. Available
resources that defined and explained CDT stated that the purpose of the overall scale
score was not to predict success on the PSSA, but that both assessments were based on
the same eligible content, and that there was a logical connection between success on the
CDT and proficiency on PSSA (Pennsylvania Department of Education, 2017;
Pennsylvania Department of Education, 2020).
Technical reports released by the Pennsylvania Department of Education provided
Scale Score Mean data for each test, organized by grade level (Pennsylvania Department
of Education, 2018). This data, designed by the corporation administering the test to
improve reliability when determining standard error by increasing the n count, provides
an interesting comparison point to analyze student results at the school level. As of the

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writing of this chapter, technical reports were only available through the 2017-2018 CDT
administration. For the sake of this study, all CDT data analysis for the 2018-2019 and
2019-2020 school years were measured against scale score means presented in the 20172018 CDT Technical Report.
Preston CDT data was organized by the same cohorts measured in the PSSA data
analysis. The only students included in each cohort were those who had accumulated all
of their CDT data beginning in Grade 3 at Preston. Cohorts with at least three years of
data were included in Tables 3 and 4, reflecting the pre-implementation years of 20152016 and 2016-2017 and the post implementation years of 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and
2019-2020. Unlike the PSSA data, which was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic
in the Spring of 2020, the CDT was administered at Preston in early March, providing a
third data point for the 2019-2020 school year.
Table 3 displays Reading CDT data for each cohort. Cohorts were identified by
their graduation years and were comprised of students whose entire CDT testing history
beginning with Grade 3 was completed at Preston. Students were included in each cohort
if their individual CDT data is complete for the years included in the table. For example,
students in the graduating class of 2022 completed their final year, eighth grade, at
Preston in 2017-2018. Their CDT data includes two tests taken in grade 6 in 2015-2016,
three tests taken in grade 7 in 2016-2017, and three tests taken in grade 8 in 2017-2018.
Each successive cohort is listed vertically, with their grade level for each year and scale
score mean listed chronologically over the years they accumulated CDT scores.
Columns labeled as “% of State Mean” reflect each cohort’s mean score as a
percentage of the state scale score mean found in the CDT Technical Report. A mean

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score of 100% indicated that the cohort’s average performance was equivalent to the state
scale score for that grade level for that academic year. Percentages below 100% meant
the cohort’s mean score was below the state scale score mean, while percentages above
100% meant the cohort’s mean score was above the state scale score mean.
Table 4 displays Math CDT data for the same years and student cohorts. Each
test taken within an individual academic year was based on the same eligible content,
serving as a diagnostic assessment where student performance is measured against the
same scale of performance. Hence, student performance typically improves with each
test administration.
Both Table 3 and Table 4 demonstrate this improvement of performance. For
example, during the 2017-2018 school year, the Graduation Year 2024 cohort took the
CDT in Reading three times, at the Grade 6 level. Their performance as a percentage of
the state scale score improved from 90.7% to 95.3% to 96.8%. There were examples in
both Table 3 and Table 4 where cohorts performed at their highest level in relation to the
state scale score mean on a CDT other than the final attempt for the academic year.
These instances were the minority of the sample.

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Table 3
Preston Area School Cohort CDT Reading Data 2015-2020 Measured by Percentage of State Scale Score

School
Year
20152016
20162017
20172018
20182019
20192020

Graduation Year
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
% of
% of
% of
% of
% of
Test
Grade State Grade State Grade State Grade State Grade State
Administration Level Mean Level Mean Level Mean Level Mean Level Mean
Reading 1
6
94.4%
5
104.2%
4
84.8%
3
100.1%
Reading 2
6
97.9%
5
105.4%
4
87.5%
3
106.1%
Reading 1
7
100.7%
6
94.1%
5
84.0%
4
95.6%
3
87.2%
Reading 2
7
104.0%
6
93.8%
5
91.1%
4
98.8%
3
92.0%
Reading 3
7
106.9%
6
100.9%
5
91.7%
4
98.8%
3
97.0%
Reading 1
8
105.5%
7
102.7%
6
90.7%
5
93.0%
4
85.5%
Reading 2
8
106.2%
7
105.7%
6
95.3%
5
96.0%
4
95.3%
Reading 3
8
106.7%
7
105.8%
6
96.8%
5
99.9%
4
96.9%
Reading 1
8
97.5%
7
93.6%
6
95.0%
5
91.9%
Reading 2
8
102.6%
7
94.7%
6
98.0%
5
97.9%
Reading 3
8
99.4%
7
94.7%
6
99.3%
5
98.4%
Reading 1
8
92.1%
7
94.0%
6
91.7%
Reading 2
8
95.6%
7
96.5%
6
94.2%
Reading 3
8
93.7%
7
100.0%
6
99.0%

2027
% of
Grade State
Level Mean
3
83.7%
3
91.7%
3
93.1%
4
84.2%
4
91.5%
4
92.9%
5
90.0%
5
97.5%
5
98.8%

Note: 2015-2016, 2016-2017, and 2017-2018 mean score data taken from respective Pennsylvania Department of Education CDT
Technical Report (2016, 2017, 2018). 2017-2018 mean score data was used for subsequent years, as 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 mean
score data was unavailable at the time of the study.

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Table 4
Preston Area School Cohort CDT Math Data 2015-2020 Measured by Percentage of State Scale Score Mean

2022
School
Year
20152016
20162017
20172018
20182019
20192020

Test
Administration
Math 1
Math 2
Math 1
Math 2
Math 3
Math 1
Math 2
Math 3
Math 1
Math 2
Math 3
Math 1
Math 2
Math 3

Grade
Level
6
6
7
7
7
8
8
8
-

% of
State
Mean
98.1%
101.9%
102.9%
105.3%
107.5%
101.9%
104.9%
106.2%
-

2023
Grade
Level
5
5
6
6
6
7
7
7
8
8
8
-

% of
State
Mean
104.6%
104.0%
97.1%
103.0%
106.0%
101.9%
106.8%
109.8%
104.1%
107.9%
107.7%
-

2024
Grade
Level
4
4
5
5
5
6
6
6
7
7
7
8
8
8

Graduation Year
2025

% of
State
Mean
91.7%
94.4%
94.6%
97.4%
100.3%
92.0%
98.5%
102.4%
99.1%
99.7%
103.9%
92.8%
97.7%
101.0%

Grade
Level
3
3
4
4
4
5
5
5
6
6
6
7
7
7

% of
State
Mean
93.4%
101.4%
93.2%
96.6%
104.3%
96.0%
101.9%
106.4%
95.5%
99.8%
105.8%
99.7%
101.1%
104.7%

2026
Grade
Level
3
3
3
4
4
4
5
5
5
6
6
6

% of
State
Mean
81.4%
91.4%
103.8%
92.5%
99.0%
102.9%
95.4%
98.2%
100.7%
90.4%
97.6%
103.2%

2027
Grade
Level
3
3
3
4
4
4
5
5
5

% of
State
Mean
88.0%
97.9%
103.7%
90.0%
98.3%
102.4%
96.3%
99.3%
105.3%

Note: 2015-2016, 2016-2017, and 2017-2018 mean score data taken from respective Pennsylvania Department of Education CDT
Technical Report (2016, 2017, 2018). 2017-2018 mean score data was used for subsequent years, as 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 mean
score data was unavailable at the time of the study.

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When reviewing Table 3 Reading data, the purpose of the research question was
to determine whether the House system had an impact on academic achievement over the
years of implementation. Hypotheses that I considered for each cohort that would reflect
a positive result when analyzing CDT Reading or Math data included:
1. Greater increases: cohort CDT Reading or Math data would increase at a greater
pace from the first score to the peak score as a percentage of the state scale score
mean during years when the House system was implemented at the start of the
2017-2018 school year than during the pre-implementation years of 2015-2016
and 2016-2017.
2. Higher peak scores: cohort CDT Reading or Math data would reflect higher peak
scores as a percentage of the state scale score mean during years when the House
system was implemented at the start of the 2017-2018 school year than the preimplementation years of 2015-2016 and 2016-2017.
3. First test performance: cohort CDT Reading or Math data would reflect
improvement on first test scores as a percentage of the state scale score mean over
the course of successive schools years during years when the House system was
implemented at the start of the 2017-2018 school year than the preimplementation years of 2015-2016 and 2016-2017.
The Graduation Year 2022 cohort Reading data displayed in Table 3 included one
year of CDT data during the House system era at Preston, 2017-2018. This data showed
an increase of 1.2% of change from 105.5% to 106.7% from first test score to peak score
as percentages of the state scale score mean. This was not as great an increase as
compared to previous years, when the increase was as high as 6.2% of improvement from

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first test to peak score during the 2016-2017 school year. The cohort peak score in 20172018 106.7% of the state scale mean was extremely close to their 2016-2017 peak of
106.9%, while they demonstrated improved first test scores of 105.5% as compared to
previous first test scores of 94.4% in 2015-2016 and 100.7% in 2016-2017. Considering
the first test score was so much higher in 2017-2018 for this cohort, matching the
percentage of improvement of the previous academic year may not have been a realistic
expectation.
The Graduation Year 2022 cohort Math data displayed in Table 4 includes one
year of CDT results in the House system era at Preston, 2017-2018. The increase from
first test to peak score 2017-2018 was 4.3%, from 101.9% of the state scale score mean to
the peak score of 106.2%. This was less than the 2016-2017 of 4.6%. The peak score of
106.2% of the state scale score mean in 2017-2018 was near but below the previous peak
of 107.5% in the final test of 2016-2017. The first test data for 2017-2018 reflected a
score of 101.9% of the state scale score mean, also just below the previous year’s
opening score of 102.9%.
The Graduation Year 2022 cohort did not reflect significant growth, peak
performance, or first test improvement on CDT performance in Reading or Math for the
2017-2018 year, which was their last year at Preston and the first year of the House
system. However, as stated earlier, this cohort’s performance was not of great concern
regarding their academic ability, participation socially, or affiliation with their school.
The Graduation Year 2023 cohort Reading data displayed in Table 3 included two
years of CDT results in the House system era at Preston, 2017-2018 and 2018-2019. This
data showed percentage increases from first test to peak score of 3.1% in 2017-2018 and

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5.1% in 2018-2019, slightly below the peak increase in 2016-2017 of 6.8%. This cohort
achieved its highest peak score of 105.8% of the state scale score mean in 2017-2018,
although their peak score in 2018-2019 fell back to 102.6% of the state scale score mean.
This cohort’s first test performance as was inconsistent over the entire set of data, from
104.2% of the state scale score mean in 2015-2016 to 94.1% in 2016-2017 to 102.7% in
2017-2018 to 97.5% in 2018-2019.
The Graduation Year 2023 cohort Math data displayed in Table 4 included two
years of CDT results in the House system era at Preston, 2017-2018 and 2018-2019. This
data showed a similar percentage increase of 7.9% in 2017-2018 from first test to last test
as the 2016-2017 increase of 8.9%. The cohort achieved their highest peak scores as
compared to the state scale score mean during 2017-2018 and 2018-2019, at 109.8% and
107.7%. First test performance data also improved in both 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 as
compared to 2016-2017, with opening test scores improving from 97.1% to 101.9% to
104.1% of the state scale score mean.
The Graduation Year 2024 cohort Reading data displayed in Table 3 included
three years of CDT results in the House system era at Preston, 2017-2018 through 20192020. This data showed a similar percentage increase from first test to peak score for
2017-2018 of 6.1% as compared to their previous high increase during 2016-2017 of
7.3%. The percentage increase in 2018-2019 of 1.1% and 3.5% for 2019-2020 were
smaller. This cohort did reach its highest peak score at 96.8% of the state scale score
mean on the final test of 2017-2018. This cohort’s first test performance improved over
the years of the House system, as their first test scores of 90.7%, 93.6%, and 92.1% of the

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state mean were significantly improved over their 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 first test
scores of 84.8% and 84.0% of the state mean, respectively.
The Graduation Year 2024 cohort Math data displayed in Table 4 included three
years of CDT results in the House system era at Preston, 2017-2018 through 2019-2020.
This data showed higher percentage increases of 10.2% from first test score to peak score
in 2017-2018 and 8.2% in 2019-2020 as compared to their highest increase in 2016-2017
of 5.7%. This cohort scored its three highest peak scores as compared to the state mean
during the three years of the House system at 102.4% of the state scale score mean in
2017-2018, 103.9% in 2018-2019, and 101.0% in 2019-2020. This cohort’s first test
score performance was only notably improved in one of the three House years, with a
first test cohort mean performance at 99.1% of the state mean in their seventh grade year
of 2018-2019. The other two years were similar to the years before the House system.
The Graduation Year 2025 cohort Reading data displayed in Table 3 included
three years of CDT results in the House system era at Preston, 2017-2018 through 20192020. This data showed percentage increases from first test score to peak score of 6.9%
in 2017-2018, 4.3% in 2018-2019, and 6.0% in 2019-2020. These increases were very
similar to the 6.0% and 3.2% increases for this cohort in 2015-2016 and 2016-2017,
respectively. Peak performance for this cohort was achieved in their third grade year of
2015-2016 with a score of 106.1% of the state scale score mean. Peak scores in the
House system years were not close to that level, with a high of 100.0% of the state scale
score mean in the final test of 2019-2020, although peak scores outside of 2015-2016
were very consistent, which indicated that the peak score of 2015-2016 may have been an
outlier. First test performance data showed a progression from 100.1% in 2015-2016,

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95.6% in 2016-2017, 93.0% in 2017-2018, 95.0% in 2018-2019, and 94.0% in 20192020. This progression did not demonstrate an increase in performance over the years of
the House system.
The Graduation Year 2025 cohort Math data displayed in Table 4 included three
years of CDT results in the House system era at Preston, 2017-2018 through 2019-2020.
This data showed percentage increases from first test to peak score of 10.4% in 20172018, 10.3% in 2018-2019, and 5.0% in 2019-2020. These percentages were consistent
with the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 increases of 8.0% and 11.1%, respectively. More
impressively, this cohort achieved its three highest peak scores as a percentage of the
state scale score mean in 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2020. Additionally, this cohort
achieved its three highest first test scores as a percentage of the state scale score mean in
2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2019-2020
The Graduation Year 2026 cohort Reading data displayed in Table 3 included
three years of CDT results in the House system era at Preston, 2017-2018 through 20192020. This data showed percentage increases from first test to peak score of 11.4% in
2017-2018, 6.5% in 2018-2019, and 7.3% in 2019-2020. These last two figures were not
as large as the 9.8% increase in 2016-2017. Peak scores for this cohort as a percentage of
the state mean were 96.9% in 2017-2018, 98.4% in 2018-2019, and 99.0% in 2019-2020.
These peak scores were slightly above the 2016-2017 peak score of 97.0%, but not
significantly. First test performance data as measured by percentage of the state scale
score mean in successive years showed increases from 87.2% in 2016-2017 and 85.5% in
2017-2018 up to 91.9% in 2018-2019 and 91.7% in 2019-2020.

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The Graduation Year 2026 cohort Math data displayed in Table 4 included three
years of CDT results in the House system era at Preston, 2017-2018 through 2019-2020.
This data showed percentage increases from first test to peak score of 10.4% in 20172018, 5.3% in 2018-2019, and 12.8% in 2019-2020. These increases were not as large as
the 22.4% increase of 2016-2017. The 2016-2017 data for this cohort was noteworthy
because it had the lowest first test score and the highest peak of any years in the study for
this cohort. As a result of such a low first test score in 2016-2017, this cohort’s first test
performance data appears significantly improved, to 92.5% of the state scale score mean
in 2017-2018, 95.4% in 2018-2019, and 90.4% in 2019-2020. The three years of data
during the House system at Preston are grouped more closely, which may indicate that
more consistent student effort may have resulted in more predictable and meaningful
data.
The Graduation Year 2027 cohort was included in the data table to analyze
potential patterns that may be emerging at Preston based on the volatility of the
Graduation Year 2026 data, specifically in Math. The much lower first test scores in
third grade are particularly troubling. In my role as school principal and as researcher, I
made the decision to include this cohort. The Reading data for this cohort in Table 3
included three years of data, all during the House system era at Preston. Percentage
increases from first test to peak test were 9.4% in 2017-2018, 8.7% in 2018-2019, and
8.8% in 2019-2020. Peak scores for this cohort were very similar to the cohort before,
topping out at 98.8% of the state scale score mean on the last test of 2019-2020. First test
performance did not appreciably improve until the 2019-2020 school year, with scores of

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83.7% of the state scale score mean in 2017-2018, 84.2% in 2018-2019, and 90.0% in
2019-2020.
The Graduation Year 2027 cohort Math data in Table 4 included three years of
data, all during the House system era at Preston. Percentage increases from first test to
peak test were 15.7% in 2017-2018, 12.4% in 2018-2019, and 9.0% in 2019-2020. These
are large percentage increases, and this cohort demonstrated the potential for strong
academic performance with a peak cohort score of 105.3% of the state scale score mean
on the last test of 2019-2020. First test performance also improved for this group, from
88.0% of the state scale score mean in 2017-2018 up to 96.3% in 2019-2020.
The cohorts in the sample only included students who attended Preston for the
entirety of the years tested. Students who moved in or moved out of the school were not
included, although some of these students attended the school for nearly the entire time
period in the study. During the compilation of this data, there were times when I, as the
action researcher interested in the complexity of how factors impact school climate,
noticed that there were some individual students within cohorts who experienced
increases in CDT performance that may have resulted from new students who moved into
the school and created positive academic competition among the class. There were also
examples of student performance remaining stagnant or even decreasing after highachieving peers moved away from the school or experienced family-related or mental
health struggles. Members of the House leadership committee, in consistent reflection
over the years of the study, noted the positive impact of the House system had on
welcoming new students, and also in coping with the impact of losing students who
moved away on remaining peers.

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Another contextual factor when analyzing CDT scores was the consideration of
other interventions in the school during the same time period. In both Math and ELA, the
school adopted new editions of curriculum or entirely new curriculum. As a result,
teacher training and focus sharpened to match these new instructional efforts. As the
school principal as well as the action researcher, I could not judge academic data as a sole
result of school climate reform without acknowledging these instructional interventions
along concurrent timelines. From a positive perspective, first test performance from
school year to school year improved for most cohorts and most cohorts achieved their
peak performances as a percentage of the state scale score mean during the 2018-2019
and 2019-2020 school years when these curricular updates were implemented.
At the Principal of the Preston Area School, I developed the reinforcement
structure of House points for students achieving growth or performance benchmarks on
CDT in the Fall of 2017, and have applied House points for students in each academic
year of the study. Students have earned up to ten House points for successfully achieving
at higher score levels within the test, or for closing the gap between their score and the
next scoring range across test administrations in the same academic year. This, like many
aspects of the House system, does not reflect the effectiveness of curricular interventions,
but has the objective of ensuring consistent best effort by students, some of whom found
CDT to be a long and frustrating assessment.
The House leadership committee, in function and form as a focus group, spent
many meetings discussing the perception of the House system by individual staff
members, students, and the local school community. This perception regarding how
student achievement may be impacted through the use of the points token economy

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evolved over the course of the three years of implementation studied. In focus group
discussions in September 2019, for example, there was agreement among many of the
House leadership committee that those teachers who most frequently awarded House
points in everyday classroom situations reaped the benefits in increased student effort on
CDT, as students would be more “tuned in” to the House points available for
achievement and growth. Students who cared about the rewards that resulted from
earning House points, the committee reasoned, would show more consistent waver
despite the difficult assessment.
This perception by House leadership committee members is one of the many areas
in this action research where the numerical data does not complete the narrative regarding
the research question. As a method of triangulating the PSSA and CDT data as well as
situating the narrative data from the House leadership committee, the Preston Area
School Faculty and Staff Research Survey was administered to gauge the perceptions of
this stakeholder group. Combining this Likert scale instrument with the achievement
data and the narrative focus group data, there should be increased reliability regarding
conclusions for the measurement of the House system on student achievement.
Tables 5 and 6 display the results of the Preston Area School Faculty and Staff
Research Survey, organizing responses by their ordinal categories. Through the survey,
respondents identified their perception of the type of impact they feel the Preston House
system has had on many academic and cultural aspects of life in schools. The survey was
administered in September of 2019 to collect data on staff perception of the House
system related to the first two years of implementation, 2017-2018 and 2018-209. The
survey was administered a second time in May of 2020 to collect similar data on the

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impact of the House system during the 2019-2020 school year. Due to the COVID-19
pandemic and resulting state-mandated school closure during the spring of 2020, the
survey was administered electronically instead of the paper version that had been
administered in September of 2019. Confidentiality and anonymity was maintained
through the use of an internet-based survey application. Because state standardized
assessments for the Spring of 2020 were canceled as well due to the pandemic, survey
questions related to the impact of the House system on PSSA Reading and Math for
grades 3-8 were omitted for the May 2020 survey.

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Table 5
Results of Preston Area School Faculty and Staff Research Survey, 2017-2018 and 2018-2019
Survey
Prompt

Perception of House system
regarding impact on:

N

Significant
Positive
Impact

Some
Positive
Impact

No
Impact

Some
Negative
Impact

Significant
Negative
Impact

1

PSSA Reading

18

0%

22%

61%

6%

11%

2

PSSA Math

18

0%

22%

61%

6%

11%

3

CDT Reading

18

0%

28%

61%

0%

11%

4

CDT Math

18

0%

28%

61%

0%

11%

5

Attendance

18

6%

44%

44%

0%

6%

6

Discipline

18

22%

44%

28%

0%

6%

7

School Spirit

18

33%

39%

6%

17%

6%

8

Community Service

18

17%

17%

56%

0%

11%

9

Extracurricular Participation

18

22%

17%

56%

6%

0%

10

Attitude toward Learning

18

17%

39%

33%

6%

6%

11

Attitude toward School

18

17%

44%

22%

11%

6%

12
Image in Community
18
17%
33%
Note: Survey results from first survey administration during September 2019.

28%

11%

11%

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Table 6
Results of Preston Area School Faculty and Staff Research Survey, 2019-2020

Question

Perception of House system
regarding impact on:

N

Significant
Positive
Impact (%)

Some
Positive
Impact (%)

No Impact
(%)

Some
Negative
Impact (%)

Significant
Negative
Impact (%)

1

CDT Reading

21

14%

38%

38%

10%

0%

2

CDT Math

21

19%

38%

43%

0%

0%

3

Attendance

21

5%

38%

52%

5%

0%

4

Discipline

21

10%

38%

48%

5%

0%

5

School Spirit

21

33%

43%

5%

19%

0%

6

Community Service

21

5%

52%

38%

5%

0%

7

Extracurricular Participation

21

10%

48%

33%

10%

0%

8

Attitude toward Learning

21

10%

62%

19%

10%

0%

9

Attitude toward School

21

14%

62%

14%

5%

5%

10
Image in Community
21
10%
52%
24%
10%
5%
Note: Survey results from second survey administration in May 2020, administered electronically due to state-mandated
COVID-19 school closure.

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Results from Table 5, representing faculty and staff perceptions of the House
system on academic and school life at Preston for the first two years of implementation
highlighted the lack of impact felt in most areas from respondents. As the Preston House
leadership committee considered these results following the survey administration in
September 2019, there was frustration among many members. These members identified
the work done to that point, including the financial resources gathered and spent for
promotional materials and reward activities, the work done to promote the House system
among students and families, and the many assemblies and efforts to further the vision of
the program as supportive of student achievement, behavior and citizenship. To see the
high percentages of staff members identifying no impact or even negative impact of the
program on student achievement markers like PSSA and CDT, along with the
committee’s analysis of PSSA and CDT data that reinforced the lack of significant
progress in student achievement, forced the House leadership committee to engage in a
new action research cycle.
For the 2019-2020 school year, the House leadership committee met monthly,
serving as both a group devoted to the implementation of the House system and as a
focus group to assess and analyze the success or direction of the system. A new
mathematics intervention program adopted and used across the entire school allowed for
House points to be focused on its use. CDT administration was accompanied by more
focused reminders about House points available for student achievement and growth.
Faculty meeting agendas included discussions about assigning House points more
consistently in classroom settings where students would benefit from intermittent
reinforcement for demonstrating characteristics of good learners. Most notably,

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assemblies and efforts to hold House competitions with non-academic themes were
reduced, as the House leadership committee agreed with some input from the September
2019 survey that returning focus to the classroom setting may be beneficial.
Table 6 results demonstrate more favorable impressions of the House system in
many areas, and specifically identify improved perception of the impact on survey items
related to CDT performance in Reading and Math, attitude toward learning, and attitude
toward school. Commentary from the House leadership committee meetings that
occurred through the 2019-2020 school year reflects the success of this more
academically-focused reinforcement structure. For example, in January of 2020, one
faculty advisor who is also an elementary teacher noted that the House points she had
started giving for students meeting their daily, weekly, and monthly classroom goals were
having a significant impact on her students’ positive attitude and progress. Another
House leadership committee member noted that the House points faithfully awarded for
student progress on the schoolwide mathematics intervention program were very
incentivizing for students who benefited from a tangible reward structure. Earlier in the
school year, a House leadership committee meeting included a conversation about the
importance of continuing House wheel spin assemblies and focusing the students
nominated by each House to spin the wheel around themes that included academic areas.
The pattern of adding focus to our House activities at Preston drove the action research
process during the 2019-2020 school year, and became the basis for better defining and
executing the cycles of action research.
Survey items related to student effort and attitude were pertinent to this analysis,
as positive perceptions by students and staff of school climate were noted in the literature

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review as having positive correlation to student achievement. In Table 5, survey items 10
and 11 showed a small majority of staff members responding with a favorable perception
of the impact of the Preston House system on student attitude toward learning or attitude
toward school. In Table 6, following year 3 of implementation, these two items, shifted
to survey items 8 and 9, yielded a much larger majority of staff members responding
favorably.
In sum, data sources compiled to consider the impact of the Preston House system
on academic achievement for students in grades 3-8 for the three years of implementation
indicated more consistent student effort that resulted in more consistent summative data.
Cohorts realized greater leaps in performances year over year in diagnostic assessment
results. Faculty and staff indicated improved perception of student attitudes toward
learning and school in year three of implementation.
Research Question 2: What impact does a schoolwide points system
implemented within a House structure have on school climate? The research base
around school climate, including attempts at definition and characterization, proved quite
ambiguous, and formed a very complex backdrop for addressing this research question
with measurable data. The data sources for this research included specific data on
student attendance and student discipline, focus group data, and survey response data
related to markers of school climate.
Students upholding the behavioral expectations of a school was found to be an
indicator of a healthy school climate by Smith and Shouppe (2018). Regular student
attendance is a commonly agreed-upon indicator of student achievement and
performance. Tracking attendance data is an annual practice for school leaders, both for

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compliance with state and federal data tracking, but also for assessing local school
climate. Preston Area School attendance has been historically very good. Figure 1
displays the two years of attendance data for K-8 students before implementation of the
Preston House system as well as the first two years of implementation. Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, attendance data for 2019-2020, the third year of implementation of
the House system, was truncated to the point that it was not applicable as a data point.
The regular flu season had been particularly hard on Preston students, and with the
shortened school year, along with many parents choosing to keep their children home in
the days leading up to the school closure, the resulting attendance rate was too affected to
be considered relevant for 2019-2020.

Attendance Rate
0.956

Attendance Rate

0.954
0.952
0.95
0.948
0.946
0.944
0.942

2015-2016

2016-2017

2017-2018

2018-2019

School Year

Figure 1. Attendance rate for Preston Area School. This figure displays attendance rate
from 2015-2019.
Attendance rate, calculated by dividing Average Daily Attendance into Average
Daily Membership, is a common data point compiled through the district’s student

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information system. Pre-implementation data indicates nearly identical attendance rates
for 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 that round to 94.7% and 94.6%, respectively. Postimplementation data reflects improvement to 95.2% in 2017-2018 and 95.4% in 20182019.
Contextually, the attendance rates for the pre-implementation years were
outstanding figures well above targets for state and federal performance plans. The
growth from the outstanding numbers pre-implementation to the even greater attendance
rates for 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 is evidence of a continued strong school climate at
Preston.
There is irony in this growth when considering focus group data regarding House
points given to students for attendance. The House leadership committee agreed upon a
monthly points total to be assigned to each House depending on their rank for that month
in attendance rate, behavior infractions, and a teacher-assigned rating for each student for
their effort in the classroom. Over the first year of implementation, this was kept
faithfully. At the start of 2018-2019, year two of the program, the House leadership
committee discussed the amount of work that went into compiling this data and
juxtaposed it against the lack of student awareness regarding this points reward and
decided to stop the monthly award. Notes from these meetings reflect that individual
students could only minimally impact the data for the entire House of 30-40 students, and
because the data was shared with the entire school periodically and not with individual
students, it was ineffective. Despite not maintaining each House’s monthly attendance
and awarding House points, the attendance rate for the school continued to increase
through 2018-2019. According to the House leadership committee meetings from

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December 2019, this was noted as a strength of the school climate, that the consistent
message of high expectations for attendance and the student affiliation with their school
continued to result in high rates of attendance.
Faculty and staff perceptions of student attendance were collected through
participation in the Preston Area School Faculty and Staff Research Survey. Table 5
shows staff perception regarding the impact of the House system on student attendance to
be considered positive on 50% of responses. Interestingly, this same question on the May
2020 administration of the survey, given in the midst of the school closure due to the
COVID-19 pandemic yielded a smaller positive response, with only 44% identifying a
positive impact on student attendance because of the House system. The Preston House
leadership committee, in its final meeting of the year in February, reflected on reasons for
attendance being affected during the 2019-2020 school year. The consensus from the
meeting notes indicated that no matter the effectiveness of the House system or any other
incentives for good attendance, the flu season had been devastating at Preston, leading to
mass absences in January and February. The survey data reflecting a more neutral
response served to validate this interpretation.
Student discipline data was compiled as well for the pre-implementation school
years of 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 and the implementation years of 2017-2018, 20182019, and the COVID-19 pandemic-shortened 2019-2020. Additional consideration
needed to be taken to protect student identity in the presentation of discipline data, as the
small number of incidents could easily lead to identification of individual students when
type of infraction or consequence were included. Table 7 reflects discipline data for the
years in the study, with emphasis placed on the total number of students referred to

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administration for behavioral infractions and the number of students with multiple
offenses. In order to consider a context under which 2019-2020 data could be included, a
column was added to indicate the school year was shortened to 124 school days instead
of the customary 180.
Table 7
Discipline referrals by year at the Preston Area School, 2015-2020
Average
Total Students
Students
Daily
Referred to
Referred
Total
School Year Membership Administration Multiple Times Referrals
2015-2016
180
32
13
66
2016-2017
174
25
7
37
2017-2018
168
29
11
49
2018-2019
162
23
7
35
2019-2020
164
13
3
16
Note: 2019-2020 shortened due to COVID-19 pandemic.

School
Days
180
180
180
180
124

Discipline data for the two pre-implementation years of 2015-2016 and 20162017 did not indicate significantly higher numbers of discipline referrals or students
referred multiple times than the first two implementation years of 2017-2018 and 20182019. Referring back to research on school climate, this would support the Preston Area
School faculty and staff committing to reinforcing the rules and expectations of the
school and classroom setting with the same consistency as previous years, despite the
addition of the House points system. This consistency resulted in reductions that are
more significant across the categories in 2019-2020, shortened school year
notwithstanding. The annual average of 46.75 discipline referrals for 2015-2016 through
2018-2019 resulted in a rate of one referral every 3.85 school days. That rate in 20192020 had slowed considerably, to one referral every 7.75 school days.

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Regarding staff responses to the impact of the House system on student discipline,
the data mellowed from more robust 66% positive responses in the survey administration
regarding the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years to the 48% positive responses in
the May 2020 survey that referenced the 2019-2020 school year. Focus group notes from
the Preston House leadership committee in October and November reflects discussion
around the idea that teachers who most consistently rewarded positive and prosocial
behavior with House points had fewer behavioral issues that required administrative
intervention. One House leader noted that, thanks to the frequent House points she was
giving out, other students acted more interested in imitating the behavior of the students
she awarded than in acting out to receive negative attention. As a result, she felt, her
classroom climate had improved because the points system became a common bond. The
House leadership committee decided at their November 2020 meeting to address the
entire faculty about the importance of consistently awarding House points to support
strengthening classroom climate. Disciplinary data continued to trend toward lower
numbers of referrals through the March 2020 school closure.
School climate, as was covered extensively in the review of the literature and
restated in this section, is diverse in definition and in study. The application of
attendance data and discipline data, along with the triangulation data of the staff survey
provides quantitative measures that served the action research process well. The House
leadership committee reviewed this data, allowing for greater depth of discussion and
reflection on the implementation of the House system, and constructed more refined
understandings of the school climate at Preston as a result of the resulting conversations.

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Research Question 3: What are the benefits to a schoolwide House system as
identified? The Preston House system, beyond the academic and behavioral points token
economy, also addresses community service, extracurricular participation, and affiliation
with a House and the school community. These areas of influence are reinforced
formally through a voucher system overseen by the principal, where students submit
parent-signed vouchers for their participation in extracurricular activities or community
service programs.
Tracking student involvement in community service or extracurricular activities
via the voucher method was problematic, as students only received the House points if
they submitted the parent-signed voucher. This was an intentional decision by the House
leadership committee, who identified the role of the parent as part of the school
community and a stakeholder group to be involved in building stronger connections
between home and school. There were feelings that parents had become less involved at
Preston among the classes coming of middle school age. As a K-8 school, parents spend
many years with the school, and the pattern of non-involvement by those cohorts coming
through the elementary years was a major concern.
Rather than rely on the voucher system, which proved to be more an exercise in
parent involvement than in actual tracking of student participation in community service
or extracurricular activities, the data used to interpret the impact of the House system was
taken from the Preston Area School Faculty and Staff Research Survey (Appendix A),
specifically the final five response prompts. These prompts, referenced in Table 5 and
Table 6 for each administration of the survey, ask for respondents to indicate their
perception of the impact of the House system on school spirit, community service,

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extracurricular participation, attitude toward learning, attitude toward school, and the
image of the Preston Area School in the community.
Figure 2 displays the percentages of faculty and staff responses for each of the six
prompts considered for the third research question from the first survey administration,
grouped into categories representing positive impact, no impact, and negative impact. As
the survey was administered twice, responses are displayed related to the September 2019
survey administration regarding the perception of the impact of the Preston House system
for the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years, represented as 2017-2019 in the charts,
and for the May 2020 survey administration regarding the perception of the impact of the
Preston House system for the 2019-2020 school year, identified in each chart as 20192020. The charts in Figure 2 demonstrate increases in perceptions of positive impact of
the Preston House system in all six prompts. There is also a reduction in negative
responses regarding staff perception for the survey administration addressing 2019-2020
for nearly all of the six prompts considered for the third research question, with
extracurricular participation the lone exception.

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School Spirit
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Extracurricular Participation
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Attitude toward School
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Community Service
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Attitude toward Learning
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Image of School in the Community
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Figure 2. Faculty and Staff Survey Responses Regarding House System Impact

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Through analysis of the survey data included in Table 5 and Table 6 and
displayed in Figure 2, a benefit of the House system could be inferred that faculty and
staff felt more invested in the school during the 2019-2020 school year and that the
system was more beneficial to nearly all the areas where its influence reached during the
2019-2020 school year. Faculty and staff perception of the House system impact was
more positive in 2019-2020 for school spirit, community service, extracurricular
participation, attitude toward learning, attitude toward school, and the image of the
Preston Area School in the community.
I used the House leadership committee as a focus group to seek triangulation and
validity for data regarding perception of the impact of the House system on these areas of
focus. Discussing school spirit, for example, involves evaluating the role of student
leadership as it evolved via the House system. By 2019-2020, the Preston Student
Council had been reorganized into the House Council, where student leadership positions
were chosen by individual Houses, with the four Houses selecting a senior and a junior
member to comprise the school Student Council. This change was a major subject of
discussion and reflection by the leadership committee. The discussion about continuing
the House Council format or reverting back to the more traditional Student Council
format was quite contentious and was a major topic in the August 2019 opening meeting.
Notes from that meeting identified the current student leadership advisor stating
that the House Council format meant some Houses had very strong competition for
representation, while some Houses simply did not have strong leadership candidates.
Others at the table noted this was one of the points of adopting the House system, to
embolden more students to strengthen their connection to their school. The decision was

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to stay with the House Council format and build school spirit around it rather than find
ways that the student sorting process may have led to unbalanced Houses.
House events had become a way to build connection among students and staff and
connect with the local community as well. The House leadership committee noted in the
November notes that events over the first two years such as the Bus Driver Breakfast
sponsored by the Reveur House, the Altruismo House making thank you cards for local
veterans, and the Isibindi House Lunches were all effective for increasing the profile of
the House system locally and for building student awareness of their role in their
community.
There was dissension within the October 2019 House leadership committee notes
regarding the effectiveness of the House system to convince students to change their
actions, and that it serves as a reward system that only certain students in the school care
about accessing. This mindset, seen in the faculty and staff survey data through the No
Impact responses, shrank from the first survey administration to the second. This
indicated that the House system had reached more students positively in year three of
implementation. House leadership committee notes from February reflected that the
system was in a better place serving as an accessible token economy with simplified
goals, rather than a driver of systemic change.
This mindset, that the House system might serve the Preston students better in a
more streamlined, less complex model, seemed to be the direction the House leadership
committee was dedicated to developing when the March COVID-19 pandemic closed
schools for the duration of the 2019-2020 school year. Reward trips for Houses winning
academic challenges, wearing House clothing and demonstrating House spirit through

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scheduled opportunities, and continuing the Wheel Spin assemblies were priorities going
forward for the committee. Priorities for large-scale team-building events were lessened.
The system, in short, was finding a comfortable place among the fabric of the school.
The survey data from May 2020 reflected that improved standing of the system.
Summary
The action research methodology provided school staff a framework to
continuously evaluate and address aspects of the House system over the course of the
three years of implementation in the study. The process of analyzing data in real-time,
adjusting plans, sharing and communicating results with a team of practitioners, and
reflecting on the results became a platform for professional growth and collegial
collaboration among the House leadership committee.
Evaluating the effectiveness or the impact of a whole-school reform effort like a
House system was challenging for any research process, but the action research method
fit the amorphous House system well. This chapter started with a reference to Sagor
(2000), who described action research data analysis as sorting, sifting, ranking and
evaluating. The execution of the data analysis for this project was consistent with the
earlier literature review findings that school climate is difficult to pin down and
crystallize for the sake of assessment, and that school climate reform does not easily
correlate to academic achievement data. At the same time, the action research process
allowed for a wide view of what data is, allowing for the researcher to regard many
avenues for effectively answering the research questions. A more limited quantitative or
qualitative research format may have resulted in data that became obsolete as the House
system changed over time. The very close marriage between the action research

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methodology and framework and the work done by the Preston faculty and staff to
implement and evolve the House system over the first three years of the program are
worth further discussion and conclusion in the following chapter.

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CHAPTER V
Conclusions and Recommendations
Introduction
The purpose of this action research study was to apply the framework and
methodology of the practical action research model to the evaluation of the effectiveness
of implementing a House system as a driving influence for school climate reform in a K8 setting. The study involved academic, behavioral, and staff survey data from multiple
years, in an effort to make plain the need to consider school climate or cultural reform at
Preston in the fall of 2017, while offering a longer-range analysis of effectiveness than
was readily available in the research regarding implementing this type of reform effort.
This chapter contains my conclusions and recommendations applied to the
research questions considered throughout the study, the action research process as the
framework for analysis of the study, the fiscal impact of investing in and executing the
House system at the Preston Area School, and overall impressions of the House system
from the practitioner standpoint as they connect to the theoretical framework presented in
the review of the literature. The House system model, as introduced through largely
popular media resources and popularized at the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia,
has been implemented in many schools by personnel seeking to spark new energy into
their school communities. The depth of implementation varied in many cases, and the
data available to measure the success of these efforts is scant in both academic and
popular media research. Conclusions and recommendations from this research project

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may be useful for future efforts to consider and implement a House system in the K-12
setting.
The following research questions were considered throughout the study:
1. What impact does a schoolwide points system implemented within a House
structure have on academic achievement for grades 3-8?
2. What impact does a schoolwide points system implemented within a House
structure have on school climate?
3. What are the benefits to a schoolwide House system as identified?
Research Question 1: What impact does a schoolwide points system
implemented within a House structure have on academic achievement for grades 38? Preston faculty and staff implemented the House system in the fall of 2017 in
response to growing concern about academic achievement data that was not consistent
with the historical tradition of high performance of the students at the school. Students
were observed to be quiet and obedient, with less energy and outward signs of affiliation
with their school. The academic environment was similar to the model that Dewey
(1938) and Freire (1968/1970/2005) each identified as representing the passive, teacherdriven model problematic for innovation or improvement to take hold. Many reasons
were identified as contributing factors, including a shift in family dynamics and
socioeconomic demographics for the student body. Regardless of the underlying reasons
staff could identify, the need to change how students connected with each other, their
teachers, and their school were worthy of addressing. The House system was selected as
the vehicle, led by a small group of teachers and I who had recently visited the Ron Clark
Academy and were introduced to the program.

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Multiple academic and curricular interventions were in place concurrently with
the implementation of the House system. During these years, a new English Language
Arts curriculum was adopted. A more current copyright of the K-6 Math curriculum was
purchased. Additional after-school programming designed to promote PSSA
achievement occurred during the 2018-2019 school year. All of these efforts, plus more
focused interventions in Title I Reading, Special Education, and Instructional Support,
would all accompany the House system as potentially impacting academic achievement.
School climate reform conducted in isolation without regard for accompanying academic
and curricular interventions is not typically effective (Reynolds, Lee, Turner, Bromhead,
& Subasic, 2017).
Achievement data from PSSA and CDT, as presented in Chapter 4, revealed little
in the way of conclusive growth or progress that could be attributed to the House system
for the majority of the cohorts in the study. The first two classes aging out of the Preston
School in the study, the cohorts identified in the data as Graduation Year 2022 and
Graduation Year 2023, continued their strong academic performance in the 2017-2018
and 2018-2019 school years using data from PSSA and CDT. From a practitioner
standpoint, these were not the cohorts who presented concern when the House system
was designed and implemented. However, they did not suffer from the implementation
of the House points token economy, and the opportunities to recognize their academic
distinctions and strengths encouraged individual students to emerge as leaders within
their Houses. This was not an opportunity offered in many avenues previously.
The cohorts in the data of more concern were the Graduating Year 2024, 2025,
and 2026 groups. Treating the PSSA separately from CDT, the 2024 group did not

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demonstrate significant improvement in average NCE over the 2018 and 2019 tests. As
has been noted, the COVID-19 pandemic that closed all Pennsylvania schools in March
2020 also resulted in cancelation of the 2020 PSSA assessments. Regardless, the notable
conclusion to be drawn from the 2024 cohort is the consistency of their performance over
the years in both ELA and Math. Despite that performance being below the 50th
percentile collectively, there is evidence from both this data and CDT data that this group
persevered over their academic years and realized small gains through their eighth grade
year. This would reflect a school climate that maintained high expectations for student
academic effort.
This cohort was the main target for improvement when the House system was
implemented. If this group could improve with the injection of a points token economy
and with more attention and rewards for academic achievement, then this system would
be a smash hit. As the PSSA data shows, however, directly connecting school climate to
summative achievement can be a frustrating approach. Similarly, isolating the cohort of
2024 in the CDT data, there is not strong evidence that gains in achievement occurred as
a result of school climate.
I do not think this is the entire story here, however. This cohort, largely known
for mediocre performance, continued to reach similar or slightly better achievement
results in both PSSA and CDT formats through their eighth grade year. This reflects
consistent or improved effort, and with more attention paid by teachers to reinforcing this
effort and building reward structures through the House system, an argument is there to
be made for this cohort learning perseverance through an academic environment made
much more difficult through the adoption of PA Core Standards and resulting

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assessments that many struggling students become reluctant to face as they progress
through eighth grade.
As both the researcher and principal throughout the study, I have personal
knowledge of the students in these cohorts. Through the analysis of the data for the
Graduation Year 2025 cohort, I recognized the diversity of this class regarding both their
academic ability and their work ethic. This cohort seems to have responded most
strongly of any in the study to the entire slate of academic interventions, including the
reward structure and competitive nature of the House system. They demonstrated
improved first test performance as measured over successive school years, and
accelerated their CDT achievement in Math more rapidly in the years of the House
system.
The cohorts of 2026 and 2027 have a troubling pattern of rather poor first test
performance from school year to school year, but have improved this starting point in the
years of the House system. These cohorts respond particularly well to House points in
the classroom, as noted in House leadership committee notes.
As researcher, I can identify some positive momentum in the academic
achievement data and can rely upon my experience as practitioner and upon the focus
group data to validate that data. As such, I can support a conclusion that the House
system has been at best a tool by which academic achievement can be supported and
accelerated with frequent use of the points system, and at worse has caused no harm to
academic achievement for cohorts or staff members who do not see great value in the
program.

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Research Question 2: What impact does a schoolwide points system
implemented within a House structure have on school climate? This question cuts a
bit straighter to the heart of the House system’s implementation. Referring back to the
research framework presented in the review of the literature, school climate reform
engages social learning theories and principles of democratic philosophies, and includes
definitions with varied characteristics, factors, and areas of focus. The review of the
literature highlighted the diverse approaches taken by researchers to develop these
definitions, with some overlap that emerges. After conducting the research related to the
implementation of the House system and its impact on school climate, there are
connections to this research base that emerge.
Measuring school climate is an exercise in gauging the quality and character of
school life, best monitored systematically through regular diagnostic measures (Olsen,
Preston, Algozzine, Algozzine, & Cusumano, 2018). The most impactful indicators of
school climate on school satisfaction include academic support, positive teacher-student
relationships, school connectedness, order and discipline, and academic satisfaction
(Zullig, Heubner, & Patton, 2011). The data sources in this study addressed these areas,
including the compilation and analysis of attendance and discipline data, and the analysis
of faculty and staff survey data regarding the impact of the House system.
The resulting data that the House leadership committee considered in their focus
group meetings, and that I used for this study, reveal that there is positive momentum
after year three of implementation of the House system at the Preston Area School.
Attendance remained strong and improved through the first two years of the program.

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The third year attendance from 2019-2020 was not included, as the school was affected
greatly by the seasonal flu, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Student discipline data demonstrated significant improvement in year three of the
House system, COVID-19 pandemic notwithstanding. By maintaining the high standards
for student conduct at Preston and implementing the House system simultaneously, the
staff demonstrated the ability to consider student experiences where social contact and
the school as community prevail as themes, similar to Ikpeze’s (2013) Expeditionary
Learning. The cultural fabric shifted under the House system to be more student-focused,
and student conduct improved. This, among all the data analyses in this project, may be
the most intriguing for the potential it holds to understand the role a House system can
have in school settings.
Struggles with the implementation of school climate reform efforts is consistent in
the research base. The disorderly nature of implementation found through much of the
research was no exception at Preston, where points rewards shifted from a complex
formula where many aspects of student responsibility were assigned points values to the
simpler mindset of intermittent reinforcement and clear rewards. This experientiallybased process brings Dewey’s (1938) urgings to promote analysis of social interactions
and learn together fully into focus, while the emergence of solutions and targets that are
agreed-upon by the diverse stakeholders in the school should benefit the staying power of
the program (Fullan & Pinchot, 2018). The House system at Preston led to collaboration
and collegiality among staff that had become muted over years of teacher leaves of
absence, transfer, and the pace of modern education.

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The Preston Area School Faculty and Staff Research Survey data squarely centers
the importance of perception on the success of a school climate reform effort like a
House system. Davis and Warner (2018) concluded that stakeholder perception of a
school’s climate, particularly teacher perception, had a significant positive correlation on
academic achievement. Elia (2015) found similar results, concluding that parents’
positive perception of their children’s middle school led to academic achievement results
that were higher than their socioeconomic status may have predicted.
Establishing the exigency and the ethos to undertake such a sprawling program
that pushes influence into every aspect of school life requires staff members to agree that
there is a problem. Staff and leadership who commit to an ethos of open and creative
collaboration about improving school climate build school climates that are considerate,
convivial, and capacious (Bragg & Manchester, 2016). Back, Polk, Keys, and McMahon
(2015) concluded that school-wide ethos and the buy-in of staff has powerful influence
on school climate, and may positively impact academic achievement. Living through the
disorderliness of implementation resulted in data that looked different based on staff
perception of years one and two as measured in September 2019 as compared to year
three data as measured in May 2020. A significant conclusion to be supported is that
once staff members agree to both the need for the reform effort and the method by which
they will tackle the effort, true collaboration emerges. The resulting collaboration allows
students to be brought back as the central focus of the effort, which is integral to a
successful school climate (Wang & Degol, 2016; Williams, 2017), and empowers
teachers and staff members to lead the effort without reliance on the principal to make the
only leadership decisions (Hoy & Hannum, 1997).

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Research Question 3: What are the benefits to a schoolwide House system as
identified? The design of the Preston House system included House points to be
awarded for student participation in community service efforts, extracurricular activities,
and other organized events and programs that we saw in decline in the school and local
community. Structuring the Preston House system to focus on concepts like service
learning and community service originated from findings presented in the review of the
literature. When school personnel prioritize service learning, values for social
interactions are heightened, appreciation for collaboration increases, and tolerance for
diversity grows (Henness, 2001; The Pennsylvania Service Learning Evaluation
Network, 1996; Thapa, Cohen, Guffey, & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2013; Cohen, 2006).
Data analysis related to efforts to reinforce community service, extracurricular
participation, and program participation demonstrates that faculty and staff perception of
the role the House system has had on these topics is generally positive, particularly for
year three of the program, 2019-2020. This data is supported by House leadership
committee focus group data. Contextually, I would have liked to have an additional
method to collect student participation data that I could have connected more closely to
the House system. The House leadership of the school has maintained that parent
signatures are required for students to receive House points via the voucher system for
participation in these extracurricular or community programs. This is a value of the staff,
that parents are continuously prompted to remain involved in the school community.
Keeping this connection retains a focus on relationship building, and helps support the
parental expectations students need to maintain positive and academic outcomes

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(Hopson, Schiller, & Lawson, 2014; Cash, Debnam, Waasdorp, Wahl, & Bradshaw,
2018).
Because of the voucher system operating in this format, where student
participation in extracurricular programs, community service, and other programs is not
automatically tabulated and requires students and parents to submit for House points, the
data is limited to these more qualitative measures to assess impact. Creating a data
presentation that would strictly measure student participation against the total number of
students in the school would not necessarily help measure impact of the House system, as
some of the reasons for implementing the House system dealt with concerns about
families becoming more reluctant to engage in the school community in the years leading
up to 2017-2018. Accentuating participation, rewarding students who do participate, and
prompting parents to become more involved with the school community created positive
energy in the school and in the local community about these programs.
This last point was largely supported in the data analysis through the survey
results of the last prompt, where faculty and staff responded with their perceptions of the
House system as it impacted the image of the Preston Area School in the community.
The Fall 2019 survey results indicated fifty percent of the staff identifying a positive or
very positive response to this pertaining to the school years of 2017-2018 and 2018-2019,
while the May 2020 survey results were slightly better, showing sixty two percent of staff
identifying a positive image of the Preston Area School in the community as a result of
the House system. The small reduction of negative responses from September 2019 to
May 2020 was noted, but is not significant due to the small n count.

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Fiscal Implications
In the introduction to this capstone, I discussed measures that had been taken to
minimize the fiscal impact of implementing the House system on the operations of the
Preston Area School. These actions included:
•

Securing support from the Preston Area School Parent Teacher Organization, or
PTO, to purchase display items around the school like House banners and to
financially support the costs of House reward trips offered periodically throughout
the school year to Houses who won points competitions.

•

Working with local businesses to secure donations of painting supplies to
decorate areas in the school for each House.

•

Working with local businesses such as restaurants and recreational facilities to
lower costs for House reward trips and activities.

•

Writing a grant that a local charitable foundation funded that allowed me to
purchase drums for each House to use to develop their distinctive rhythms and
patterns for school assemblies, purchase House T-Shirts for each student and staff
member, and provide for after-school programming and the development of a
student leadership program for the 2018-2019 school year.
Taking steps like these helped us to accelerate the growth of the House system

and increased my purchasing power. I found that, unlike academic or curricular reform
where textbooks or materials are the product to be purchased and used, the development
of the House system required significant belief in a conceptual idea by the staff, and a
faith that it could be something tangible. As Houses developed their logos, their themes,

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their crests and coats of arms, and their identities, they needed physical reminders to help
reinforce their hard work. In a modern educational context, where funds for ancillary
programs are severely limited in principals’ budgets, convincing partners to work with
the school to pay for conceptual ideas is no small feat. From an action research cycle
standpoint where I identified the fiscal shortcomings of my building budget, sought
solutions through community partnerships, found funds to fill the gaps, and added value
to the overall project and to the school climate, solving the fiscal challenges of addressing
school climate reform through a House system was a successful aspect of this project.
Future Directions for Research
The action research process to evaluating the effectiveness of a House system has
proven to be a good marriage of methodology and intervention. The action research
process requires continuous address by the researcher or research team to identify the
problem and plan, act and collect data, further develop the action plan based on that data,
and reflect on the results and begin the process again (Mertler, 2019). These action
research cycles naturally fit the approach taken at Preston to implement the House
system.
The complex topics to address included student and family demographics that
ranged from socioeconomic struggles to mental health and addiction affecting
expectations for students from home. From the school perspective, the increased number
of teachers on extended leaves of absence and the continued practice of teachers
transferring from Preston to teach closer to their homes created concerns about the ability
of faculty and staff to maintain high expectations for academics and behaviors. From a
community perspective, the local economic opportunities had dwindled and left few

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reasons for young families to come to the area, and aging local business owners whose
children were no longer at Preston and were thus less prone to support the school as they
had before. This landscape of concerning issues had placed downward pressure on
student achievement and staff morale. The decision to implement the House system was
as much about infusing energy to distract from these realities as it was about rejuvenating
academic success and improved morale.
Numerous school personnel contributed to the articles I referenced through the
literature review about reasons for implementing House systems. These reasons included
student and teacher marginalization, limited student interactions, limited relationships
between staff and students, poor behavior and a lack of a sense of belonging, isolation of
teachers in a small rural school, and a need to build collaboration and collegiality among
staff (Brennan, 2012; Buchanan, 2018; Cornwall, 2018; The Bedford School, n.d.; Vidal,
2015).
Throughout the action research process, I found both comfort and a sense of
inspiration that many other schools struggle with similar pressures regarding climate.
Many of these House systems addressed similar goals and themes through
implementation to what we sought at Preston. The steps taken at Preston were very
similar to the many House systems included in the literature review regarding the
planning stages of action research.
Future projects might reference my data and results to add a measure of validity to
school climate reform as it pertains to House systems. The data collection and analysis of
the connection between the House system and academic achievement represents the
effort of the entire school community to promote a healthy academic pressure on students

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to give their best effort and set academic achievement goals on summative and diagnostic
achievements with a tangible reward connected. The House leadership committee
developed reward trips and activities, both in-house and outside the school, that became
very appealing motivators for students to work their hardest to achieve target scores.
Future research efforts regarding school climate and implementing House systems
should consider more clear connection between the consistent application of House
points in the classroom setting to formative and benchmark assessment goals. This is an
area for improvement in the Preston system. The concerns about teacher turnover and the
frequency of long-term substitute teachers over the years at Preston were addressed by
the energy of new teachers using the points system to reinforce academic effort,
behavioral excellence, and citizenship, but the tracking system used for points did not
allow for the breaking down of points earned into these categories. This was an original
intention of the Preston staff, but quickly became too time-consuming to manage for staff
members who wanted to award as many points as possible. A future research effort
might be valuable to identify the impact on individual or small group achievement,
behavior, or citizenship by indicating the frequency with which students earn points in
these areas and the resulting data.
While there were connections in the design of the Preston House system to
Dewey’s social learning theory and Freire’s democratic philosophy of school, these
connections were more clearly executed in House leadership committee’s work to mold
and fix the system to best fit the school environment. These frameworks did not fully
blend into teaching and learning systems at Preston. A future research effort might

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consider how to connect student mentoring opportunities or student leadership
frameworks within House systems to data related to school climate.
A final recommendation for future research on implementing a House system as
an approach to school improvement lies in the statement made by Judi Hayes, the
Principal of Lake Canyon Elementary School, who concluded that, “every part of our
school culture now flows through the lens of the House system” (Cornwall, 2018). To
truly assess the impact of a House system, qualitative research would reference the most
complete list of school climate or culture indicators and analyze changes and results after
many years of the House system in place.
Recommendations for Principals and Educational Leaders
Implementing a House system in the school setting is a potentially rewarding
opportunity to infuse energy among the school staff, students, parents, and school
community. As this paper has covered, the investment in a House system can certainly
lead to benefits, both tangible and unseen. Realizing these benefits requires careful
planning and a willingness to remain flexible throughout the implementation and
execution of the system. I would suggest the following recommendations to principals or
educational leaders seeking guidance on implementing a House system.
Set priorities and values for how the school should look and feel after
implementation. In my case, this meant reflecting upon my own commitment to social
learning theories, service and experiential learning concepts, democratic principles, and
critical pedagogy.

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Assemble a House leadership committee to serve in the crucial advisory role and
ensure that the advisory group can commit a common set of priorities and values.
Throughout this study, there were many references in the research literature and in my
data analysis to the importance of an advisory group to lead school climate reform. As a
principal, I made an error when forming this group assuming that all the members had the
same priorities and values I had. This was mostly true, but a more firm foundation of
agreed-upon priorities and values from the leadership core becomes a powerful model to
take to the faculty and staff as a whole.
Prepare for a flexible approach to the token economy or points system,
particularly in a building with a large grade span, such as K-6 or 7-12. A more
homogenous set of expectations for how a points system can be executed is reasonable in
a building covering a small set of grades, regardless of age group. Just as with any token
economy, however, individual teachers and staff members will need latitude to best apply
the points system in their setting.
Spend time on marketing materials and securing community and parent
partnerships early. These practices, which included formal presentations by the principal
at parent assemblies, informal discussions at parent-teacher association meetings, and
distributing prepared flyers offering sponsorship for reward trips to local businesses were
major successes in the Preston House system that ensured staying power despite the
changes to the system under the surface.
Plan to mold the student leadership in the school around the House system. This
became the vehicle for securing student input, and empowered student council members
to become more visible and vocal leaders than in the previous traditional model. This

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will vary in buildings with different age groups, but is a practice that builds credibility in
the student body.
Balance the initial energy of the House system with the establishment of longterm goals. Making the goals public, assigning House points for reaching short-term and
long-range targets, and remaining consistent with rewards for winning Houses help build
longevity to the program. These strategies also help the principal address faculty and
staff who seem reluctant or even oppositional to the points system. Assigning House
points for positive achievement, behavior, and citizenship is always a chance for staff
member and student to build connection and reinforce affiliation with both House and
school.
Summary
School climate is a complex concept with many diverse approaches taken by
researchers and practitioners to define and address. Over the course of many years
analyzing the school climate at the Preston Area School, determining the scope of the
problem and the areas in need of change became clear. Implementing a House system as
a means of changing school climate has been a slow and arduous process for a few major
reasons.
In a very traditional school setting, where success academically and behaviorally
was the norm for many years, I found resistance to change. The underlying belief that the
same approaches to teaching and learning should continue to work despite the changing
landscape of the school community persisted. While faculty and staff recognized the
same concerning data that I did, there was not an overwhelming consensus that systemic

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change was necessary. This became apparent over the course of the first two years of the
House system implementation. General feelings were that the program was wellstructured and that the energy for students receiving awards for doing well was a nice
addition to the school. However, the need to truly immerse the school within the House
system became more apparent as the third year of implementation occurred.
The momentum gathered during the 2019-2020 school year becomes the basis for
the future of this research. Growing the House system at Preston to be a powerful vehicle
for positive academic growth is a very desirous goal of the House leadership committee.
Passive acceptance of a House system as a possible motivator for students is not a pattern
of behavior I want for my teachers. Landing at this spot would be a compromise for the
House leadership committee at a juncture of opportunity to reinvigorate and reinforce the
critical pedagogical elements that have emerged and have the potential to drive further
change.
Those faculty and staff who truly buy into to the ideal educational setting where a
House system can thrive are those who demonstrate a willingness to build students as
leaders who recognize where change is needed and possible. These educators commit to
equipping their students to become leaders who can make that identified change happen.
The teachers at the Preston Area School who view the House system as a vehicle for
reinforcing the best of academic effort, behavior, and citizenship are those who also tend
to traffic in the mindset of social learning and critical pedagogy.
Realizing academic growth for students within the CDT data has been rewarding
for teachers and students, although significant concerns about student achievement at
Preston for the intermediate grades 3-5 remain. This is an area for much more focus and

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attention beyond this project. I do feel much more confident about the collaborative
nature and willingness to seek improvement among teachers, and the House system has
been a significant part of that professional growth.
Attendance and discipline data have improved over the years of the House system
at Preston. The COVID-19 pandemic that closed schools in March 2020 certainly
impacted and in some ways tainted the data in these areas, but there were positive
changes to be recorded. The House leadership committee, as a focus group and as a
steering committee, needed this data. A House system, as I stated early in this paper, can
be considered a leap of faith, as its structure may be very fluid in the formative stages.
This research serves as a more longitudinal approach to climate reform, analyzing three
years of implementation data. The perseverance of faculty and staff to get to a point
where the House system has value in the present and for the future required patience and
flexibility. Blending the firm targets of academic achievement, attendance, and discipline
with a schoolwide approach to reinforcing and rewarding accomplishments was
laborious. Keeping an open approach to faculty and staff input, as well as student
feedback and opportunities for parent and community support, was integral to school
climate reform.
Elements of service learning and community connection within the framework of
the House system have solidified in the implementation years. The data reviewed
throughout this project supports that statement, but the establishment of a new vision for
the Preston Area School that includes the House system has reached beyond the limits of
this project. Interacting with parents at Open House, developing a student leadership
program that includes House logos and themes, and marketing the program through local

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media and school social media outlets have all been additional steps taken to build the
Preston House system as a brand. The largest implications of this work that stretches
beyond the school walls has been to mitigate the costs of operating the program at a full
level with meaningful rewards for students.
A House system is a model worth consideration for those educational leaders who
recognize the need for an infusion of energy and a change of pace to traditional school
structures. Building that House system into a brand that impact school climate, academic
achievement, and the image and partnerships of the school in the community becomes a
sustained effort that stretches beyond the initial vision. The models of House systems in
the K-12 setting indicate there is a pathway for success regardless of age level, and that
the right combination of leadership and staff commitment can lead to long-term
improvements. Impacting school climate positively is a starting point for change through
a model like a House system. Changing teaching and learning dynamics to reflect social
learning theories and critical pedagogical concepts is an attainable long-term result.

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APPENDICES

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Appendix A

Preston Area School Faculty and Staff Research Survey
You are being invited to participate in a research study titled Implementing a House
System in Elementary and Middle School: Using action research to analyze cultural and
academic change after systemic reform. This study is being done by David Jagger from
California University of Pennsylvania.

The purpose of this research study is to gather feedback regarding the House system at
the Preston Area School for the first two years of implementation, and will take you
approximately ten minutes to complete. The research project dates are from August 25,
2019 through June 1, 2020. Your participation in this study is voluntary and you can
withdraw at any time. You are free to omit any question.

We believe there is minimal risks associated with this research study. To the best of our
ability, your answers in this study will remain confidential and anonymous. We will
minimize any risks by maintaining all data on password-protected computer drives and
destroying raw data within two weeks of the completion of the research project.

Should you have any questions regarding this survey or the research project described,
you may contact David Jagger at jag8889@calu.edu or Dr. Mary Wolf, Doctoral
Capstone Committee Chair for this project, at wolf@calu.edu.

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Survey
Setting: The House system at Preston has been implemented for two school years, 201718 and 2018-19. Please indicate your opinion regarding the impact the House system has
had on the following topics by circling your response to the following survey questions
per the following scale:
5- Significant positive impact
4- Some positive impact
3- No impact
2- Some negative impact
1- Significant negative impact
1. PSSA Reading Achievement (Grades 3-8)

5

4

2.

5

3

2

1

PSSA Math Achievement (Grades 3-8)

4

3

2

1

3. CDT Reading Benchmark Assessment (Grades 3-8)

5

4

3

2

1

4. CDT Math Benchmark Assessment (Grades 3-8)

5

4

3

2

1

2

1

5. Student Attendance (Grades 3-8)

5

4

3

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6. Student Discipline (Grades 3-8)

5

4

3

2

1

3

2

1

3

2

1

2

1

2

1

2

1

7. School Spirit

5

4

8. Community Service

5

4

9. Extracurricular Participation

5

4

3

10. Attitude Toward Learning

5

4

3

11. Attitude Toward School

5

4

3

12. Image of Preston Area School in the Community

5

4

3

2

1

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13. In your opinion, how can the House system be implemented in the 2019-20
school year to increase its impact on student achievement and school culture?

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
Approved by the California University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board. This
approval is effective 09/04/19 and expires 09/03/20.

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Appendix B
September 2019 IRB Approval Letter
Institutional Review Board
California University of Pennsylvania
Morgan Hall, 310
250 University Avenue
California, PA 15419
instreviewboard@calu.edu

Melissa Sovak, Ph.D.
Dear David,
Please consider this email as official notification that your proposal titled “Implementing
a House System in Elementary and Middle School: Using action research to analyze
cultural and academic change after systemic reform” (Proposal #18-072) has been
approved by the California University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board as
amended.
The effective date of approval is 9/4/19 and the expiration date is 9/3/20. These dates
must appear on the consent form.
Please note that Federal Policy requires that you notify the IRB promptly regarding any
of the following:
(1) Any additions or changes in procedures you might wish for your study (additions or
changes must be approved by the IRB before they are implemented)
(2) Any events that affect the safety or well-being of subjects
(3) Any modifications of your study or other responses that are necessitated by any
events reported in (2).
(4) To continue your research beyond the approval expiration date of 9/3/20 you must
file additional information to be considered for continuing review. Please contact
instreviewboard@calu.edu

Please notify the Board when data collection is complete.
Regards,
Melissa Sovak, PhD.
Chair, Institutional Review Board

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Appendix C
Addendum to IRB Proposal
April 10, 2020
Due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, all Pennsylvania schools were closed for
the remainder of the academic year by order of Governor Tom Wolf on April 9, 2020.
This closure extended initial closures that began on March 13, 2020.
Regarding the approved proposal “Implementing a House System in Elementary
and Middle School: Using action research to analyze cultural and academic change after
systemic reform” (Proposal #18-072), the data collection for the 2019-2020 school year
will be truncated due to the school closure. Some data will be complete, such as CDT
testing. Some data will be missing entirely, such as the canceled PSSA testing. Some
data will be incomplete, such as attendance data and discipline data, due to the shortened
school year.
The purpose of this addendum deals with a revision to the administration of the
staff survey, designed to collect staff member impressions of the Preston House system.
Due to the COVID-19 school closures, I will not be able to administer a hard copy
survey, as proposed, at the close of this academic school year. I am seeking approval to
transition this survey to an electronic version, using a platform such as Survey Monkey,
with the same purpose, questions, data collected, and anonymity.
Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
David A. Jagger

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Appendix D
April 2020 IRB Approval Letter
Institutional Review Board
California University of Pennsylvania
Morgan Hall, 310
250 University Avenue
California, PA 15419
instreviewboard@calu.edu
Melissa Sovak, Ph.D.
Dear David,
Please consider this email as official notification that your proposal titled “Implementing
a House System in Elementary and Middle School: Using action research to analyze
cultural and academic change after systemic reform” (Proposal #18-072) has been
approved by the California University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board as
amended.
The effective date of approval is 4/10/2020 and the expiration date is 4/9/21. These dates
must appear on the consent form.
Please note that Federal Policy requires that you notify the IRB promptly regarding any
of the following:
(1) Any additions or changes in procedures you might wish for your study (additions or
changes must be approved by the IRB before they are implemented)
(2) Any events that affect the safety or well-being of subjects
(3) Any modifications of your study or other responses that are necessitated by any
events reported in (2).
(4) To continue your research beyond the approval expiration date of 4/9/21 you must
file additional information to be considered for continuing review. Please contact
instreviewboard@calu.edu
Please notify the Board when data collection is complete.
Regards,
Melissa Sovak, PhD.
Chair, Institutional Review Board

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Appendix E
Informed Consent Form for Participation in Research, House leadership committee
You are being invited to participate in a research study titled Implementing a House
System in Elementary and Middle School: Using action research to analyze cultural and
academic change after systemic reform. This study is being done by David Jagger from
California University of Pennsylvania.
The purpose of participating on the House leadership committee is to oversee
implementation of the House system for the 2019-2020 school year. This committee will
gather feedback from staff and students, consider data regarding the program’s impact on
academic achievement and school culture, and make decisions regarding the program’s
implementation based on these data. Discussions, input, and feedback from this
committee will be considered an integral part of the action research process for this
project. The research project dates are from August 25, 2019 through June 1, 2020.
Your participation in this study is voluntary and you can withdraw at any time.
We believe there is minimal risks associated with this research study. To the best of our
ability, your answers in this study will remain confidential and anonymous. We will
minimize any risks by maintaining all data on password-protected computer drives
and destroying raw data within two weeks of the completion of the research project.
Should you have any questions regarding this survey or the research project
described, you may contact David Jagger at jag8889@calu.edu or Dr. Mary Wolf,
Doctoral Capstone Committee Chair for this project, at wolf@calu.edu.
Approved by the California University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board. This
approval is effective nn/nn/nn and expires mm/mm/mm.

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I volunteer to participate in a research project conducted by Mr. David A. Jagger from
California University of Pennsylvania. I understand that the project is designed to gather
information about House System at the Preston Area School. I will be one of
approximately five members of the House Leadership Committee.
1. My participation in this project is voluntary. I understand that I will not be paid for my
participation. I may withdraw and discontinue participation at any time without penalty.
2. I understand that most committee members will find the discussions interesting and
thought-provoking. If, however, I feel uncomfortable in any way during meetings or
discussions, I have the right to decline to answer any question or to leave the meeting
without penalty.
3. Participation involves attending regular meetings with other staff members from the
Preston Area School who are part of the leadership committee for the House System.
The meetings will last approximately 20-25 minutes. Notes will be written during the
meetings. An audio recording of the meetings will not be made.
4. I understand that the researcher will not identify me by name in any reports using
information obtained from these meetings, and that my confidentiality as a participant in
this study will remain secure. Subsequent uses of records and data will be subject to
standard data use policies which protect the anonymity of individuals and institutions.
5. Other than the other members of the leadership committee, faculty and administrators
from my campus will neither be present at the meetings or discussions nor have access to
raw notes or transcripts. This precaution will prevent my individual comments from
having any negative repercussions.
6. I understand that this research study has been reviewed and approved by the
Institutional Review Board (IRB) for Studies Involving Human Subjects at the California
University of Pennsylvania. For research problems or questions regarding subjects, the
Institutional Review Board may be contacted through [information of the contact person
at IRB office of Century University].
7. I have read and understand the explanation provided to me. I have had all my questions
answered to my satisfaction, and I voluntarily agree to participate in this study.
8. I have been given a copy of this consent form.
____________________________
My Signature

________________________
My Printed Name

Date ____________________________
Signature of the Researcher ________________________
For further information, please contact: Mr. David A. Jagger, jag8889@calu.edu, 570396-5810