When considering all of the factors that lead to successful educational outcomes, it's critical to understand the importance of school bonding. Of course, finance and construction are related, since any major building project in your district is likely to require school bonding. But we're talking about the emotional and social type of bonding that exists between the students and the school where they spend so many of their waking hours.
Still, both kinds of bonding are intertwined. The construction of a new school and other major building projects presents the chance to enhance that connection, one that social scientists deem a vital indicator for positive youth outcomes. Here, we'll look at what this connection is, and how you can use your building project to make it stronger.
The far-reaching benefits of strong school bonding
In the field of psychology, “school bonding” refers to the connections students have with the place where they learn, the people who teach them, and that institution's ideals, values, and beliefs. By extension, it's the level to which students feel cared for and respected.
The benefits of strong school bonding are wide-ranging and well-documented. The improvements come in the classroom, with higher GPAs, and in social lives, with school bonding linked to greater self-efficacy and self-esteem.
In the name of prevention and improvement
While school bonding is linked to positive student outcomes, it has also been found to correlate with the prevention of problematic behaviors like substance use, risky sexual activity, truancy, bullying, and fighting.
Research has also found there to be much room for improving the school connections that have such proven benefit. Only 50 percent of students feel connected and engaged at school.
On the whole, girls feel those connections more than boys, while the levels of school bonding decrease as students get older. Add it all up, and there are a lot of students who could be more engaged.
A rare opportunity
It's not hard to understand that students' level of connection to their school has an influence on how well they do – both in the classroom and in other aspects of life. The greater challenge is figuring out what to do with that reality.
By way of necessity, major building projects bring people together, and that doesn't just mean the adults. Planning a new school brings an opportunity to engage students outside the confines of everyday academics. In fact, those non-academic avenues are important channels for improving performance, especially for low-achieving students.
These extracurriculars include the arts, athletics and school improvement projects, but there are rarer opportunities for more student-teacher face time. The kind of major building project that comes around perhaps once in an administrator's career can present just such an occasion.
Real-world experience
Consider the student body a resource as you plan your building. Involving students in the design and planning process gives them a chance to learn about and influence a real-world project that directly affects them.
Survey them and find out what resources they'd like to see in a new school. Maybe let them help name the school. Or, you might involve them in selecting the carpet or (at your own risk) the color scheme.
In addition to including students in the planning process, you might consider designing your new building in a way that facilitates bond-strengthening programming. Considering how important it is to foster connections outside the academic structure, that could mean planning for spaces where students and teachers can interact beyond the classroom. The effects of such careful planning can be exceptionally enduring and pervasive, because, your entire school population will be affected by the building you're designing for decades to come.
And once that building is constructed, make sure to leverage the energy and sense of ownership that a bright new facility can inject into a student population. That means making sure to mark the occasion with a celebration, because, for the students, school pride is about more than feeling good about the place they spend most of their time. It's about real, observable success – in academics and in life.
