Rethinking the Start of School: How Leaders Can Set the Tone for a Year of Belonging, Clarity, and Calm

Do you ever forget your first August as a school administrator? Frantically running around, putting out fires that seemed to multiply by the hour—last-minute schedule changes, technology glitches, and the overwhelming feeling of always being one step behind. Sound familiar?

What I’ve discovered over the years, and what I’ve witnessed in countless schools since, is that those chaotic first weeks don’t have to be inevitable. In fact, they’re often the result of approaching the start of school as merely a logistical exercise rather than the foundational community-building opportunity it actually represents.

The research is clear: the behavioral expectations implemented in the first three weeks will set teachers and students up for success with the next thirty-three weeks of school. But I’d take that a step further—the intentional practices we establish in those crucial opening weeks don’t just impact behavior; they shape the entire culture and climate of our school communities.

The Hidden Cost of Reactive School Openings

Most schools approach the beginning of the year in reactive mode. We’re so focused on getting everyone where they need to be, with the right materials, at the right time, that we miss the deeper opportunity to establish the relational foundation that will carry us through the year.

When a leader decides on a singular focus for a year, or even across multiple years, it provides clarity for the staff. Yet too often, our “focus” during those opening weeks becomes surviving rather than thriving—managing logistics instead of building community.

This reactive approach has real consequences. Teachers feel overwhelmed and unsupported. Students sense the chaos and respond with increased anxiety or behavioral issues. Families receive mixed messages about what to expect. And leaders find themselves constantly putting out fires instead of proactively building the culture they envision.

Shifting from Reactive to Restorative Leadership

The schools that truly thrive understand something fundamental: the start of school isn’t just about distributing schedules and reviewing rules. It’s about creating the conditions for belonging, establishing clear expectations, and modeling the calm confidence that will anchor the community through whatever challenges arise.

Being proactive also means setting the tone for our school environment. We ensure that everyone knows what to expect when engaging in restorative conversations, and we continuously revisit these practices throughout the year. This mindset shift—from reactive management to proactive community building—transforms everything.

The Three Pillars of Intentional School Openings

In working with schools across the country, I’ve seen three essential elements that distinguish schools with calm, connected openings from those that struggle through those first crucial weeks:

Belonging Before Business 2. Clarity Before Complexity 3. Calm Before Chaos

Let’s explore how each of these pillars can transform your school’s approach to the beginning of the year.

Pillar 1: Belonging Before Business

Making sure pupils feel seen, understood, and safe is a crucial starting point for supporting attendance, especially for more vulnerable students who may have fewer protective factors than others. This isn’t just true for students—it applies to every member of your school community, including staff and families.

Creating Welcome Rituals That Matter

The schools that get this right understand that belonging isn’t created through a single orientation session or welcome assembly. It’s built through intentional, repeated practices that send the message: “You matter here. You belong here. We’re glad you’re part of our community.”

One effective approach is starting every staff meeting in August with what educators call “Connection Before Content“—a brief moment for teachers to share something meaningful with their colleagues before diving into logistics. At times, teams ask which cat meme best represents how you feel today or other times they share what is causing them the most struggle and some strategies to manage these challenges. This simple practice sets the tone that relationships come first, even in the midst of busy preparations.

The Power of Student Voice from Day One

Invite students to formulate schoolwide norms for respect, acceptance, and inclusion. Give students opportunities to share feelings and experiences from the summer and the pandemic. When we invite students into the conversation about what kind of community they want to be part of, we’re not just gathering input—we’re demonstrating that their voices matter.

Through the norm-setting process, students discuss the values (love, kindness, honesty, etc.) that are important to them in a relationship. This approach moves us beyond the traditional model of adults dictating rules to young people, toward a collaborative process of community building.

Family Engagement from the Start

Too often, we think of family engagement as something that happens after we’ve established our school routines. But the most effective schools understand that family engagement requires a commitment from school leaders and educators to: Create and sustain partnerships that are ongoing, mutual, built on trust and respect.

This means moving beyond the traditional “back-to-school night” format toward more meaningful opportunities for families to connect with the school community. Consider these approaches:

Personal Welcome Calls: Before school starts, have teachers or administrators call each family personally—not to share logistical information, but simply to express excitement about having their child in the school community.
Home Visits or Community Connections: Research points to numerous benefits when teachers visit the homes of their students, including increased connection between teachers and parents, more parental engagement in a child’s academics, increased trust and communication, and better student behavior.
Culturally Responsive Outreach: Learn basic greetings in a variety of languages. Forge connections and draw upon local cultural organizations that are relevant to families.

Pillar 2: Clarity Before Complexity

One of the biggest mistakes schools make is overwhelming everyone—staff, students, and families—with too much information too quickly. When we prioritize clarity over quantity, we create the conditions for success rather than confusion.

The One Priority Principle

School leaders support morale by focusing on one-single priority. When a leader decides on a singular focus for a year, or even across multiple years, it provides clarity for the staff. This principle is especially crucial during those opening weeks.

Instead of trying to launch multiple initiatives simultaneously, identify your one core focus for building community and culture. This might be:

Implementing restorative practices across the school
Strengthening social-emotional learning integration
Building more inclusive and equitable classroom practices
Enhancing family-school partnerships

Whatever your focus, communicate it clearly and consistently, and ensure that all of your opening-week activities align with and support this priority.

Transparent Expectations for Everyone

Make academic and behavioral expectations clear, explaining their purpose. But clarity isn’t just about rules and procedures—it’s about helping everyone understand their role in creating the kind of community you’re building together.

For students, this means co-creating agreements about how they want to treat each other and learn together. For staff, it means being explicit about how their daily practices contribute to the larger vision. For families, it means clearly communicating how they can support their children’s learning and contribute to the school community.

Building Routines That Support Relationships

When informed by the mission of the school or classroom, over time routines become the norm. The key is ensuring that your routines serve your community-building goals, not just your operational efficiency.

Consider morning arrival routines that prioritize connection over crowd control. Think about transition procedures that build in opportunities for positive interaction. Design meeting structures that always begin with relationship-building before moving to business items.

Pillar 3: Calm Before Chaos

Leadership tone matters, especially during those opening weeks when everyone is looking for cues about what to expect. The principals and administrators who create the most positive school openings understand that their own presence and demeanor sets the emotional tone for the entire community.

Modeling the Calm You Want to See

Trust the judgment of your teachers. Teachers are professionals. Treat them like professionals. Respect their experiences, and respect their expertise. When leaders approach the opening of school with confidence rather than anxiety, with trust rather than micromanagement, they create space for everyone else to do their best work.

The Art of Proactive Communication

Managers stop by to make sure teachers are working. Leaders stop by to encourage teachers in their work. During those opening weeks, your presence in classrooms and common areas should feel supportive, not supervisory.

Instead of waiting for problems to arise, proactively check in with teachers about how they’re feeling and what support they need. Create opportunities for informal connection and recognition. Never miss an opportunity to brag about your colleagues to the visitors in the building—and preferably do so in front of the colleagues.

Supporting Staff Well-being from Day One

Before you improve team morale, gauge your own motivation. You can’t inspire others if you’re dragging your feet into the office every day. But once you’ve attended to your own well-being, there are concrete ways to support your staff during those potentially overwhelming opening weeks:

Create Retreat Spaces: Promote wellness programs such as stress management workshops or providing healthy snacks in common areas. Encourage staff members to take short breaks throughout the day.
Distribute Leadership: Create meaningful opportunities for teachers to build expertise and leadership beyond their classroom by involving them in decision-making and leadership opportunities.
Build Connection: Host regular meetings and encourage faculty and staff to build relationships so everyone on your team feels they have someone to turn to for help.

Implementing Restorative Practices from Day One

One of the most powerful ways to embody all three pillars—belonging, clarity, and calm—is through the intentional implementation of restorative practices from the very beginning of the school year.

Restorative practices are designed to proactively build community, improve relationships, and help students amend harm when conflict occurs. But their power lies not just in their reactive applications; it’s in their ability to create the conditions where conflicts are less likely to occur in the first place.

Community-Building Circles as Foundation

Structured discussions can build connections and strengthen relationships. These discussions are facilitated to create a safe, supportive, and equitable space where all voices are heard and valued. Proactive circles help people practice empathy, communication, and active listening.

Starting the year with community-building circles sends several important messages:

Every voice matters in this community
We solve problems by talking together, not by avoiding each other
Adults and young people can learn from each other
Relationships are the foundation of everything else we do

Setting Community Agreements Together

Circles can be used in many ways, including: Building community. Setting classroom expectations. Instead of presenting students with a list of predetermined rules, invite them into the process of creating community agreements that reflect shared values.

This isn’t about lowering standards or letting students do whatever they want. It’s about creating authentic buy-in by helping students understand the “why” behind expectations and giving them agency in shaping the community they want to be part of.

Supporting Families as True Partners

The difference here is that, unlike parental involvement, parent engagement establishes collaboration between school staff and families centered on student learning. It’s about building a partnership and cultivating relationships with families supporting a student.

Moving Beyond Traditional Communication

Many schools think they’re engaging families when they’re actually just informing them. True partnership requires moving beyond one-way communication toward genuine dialogue and collaboration.

We educators often say we “communicate regularly” with families. But are we communicating on their terms or ours? In our language or theirs? Is communication a one-way street, or are we fostering ongoing two-way communication?

Consider these strategies for more meaningful engagement:

Multiple Communication Channels: Use multiple channels, such as emails, texts, and apps, to accommodate families’ varying preferences and needs
Language Accessibility: Translation Features: Built-in translation tools can help overcome language barriers
Family Voice in Decision-Making: Understanding how families are experiencing your school—and how to best involve them in decision-making and feedback—will ensure you’re on the right track with your efforts

Creating Multiple Pathways for Engagement

Not all parents have time to visit school in the middle of the day or to attend meetings on school nights. Although some parents may want to be involved in projects or committees, they may lack the time, resources, or social capital to engage.

This means creating flexible options that meet families where they are:

Virtual Participation Options: Online workshops, virtual classroom visits, digital resource sharing
Community-Based Engagement: Meeting families in community centers, libraries, or other accessible locations
Asynchronous Communication: Opportunities for families to provide input and feedback on their own timeline

Measuring Success: What to Look For

How do you know if your intentional approach to school opening is working? While it may take time to see long-term impacts, there are some early indicators that can help you gauge your progress:

Climate and Culture Indicators

Decreased Behavioral Referrals: Schools that increased use of restorative practices saw a decrease in schoolwide misbehavior, substance abuse, and student mental health challenges, as well as improved school climate and student achievement
Improved Attendance: Both student and staff attendance in those crucial opening weeks
Positive Feedback: Comments from students, staff, and families about feeling welcomed and supported

Relationship Quality Measures

Student Surveys: Regular check-ins about students’ sense of belonging and connection to school
Staff Morale: Teacher morale is the heartbeat of a school, a concept that has a far-reaching impact on the total school program. When teacher morale is high, teachers have more patience, are happier, and are generally more enthusiastic during the day
Family Engagement: Not just attendance at events, but quality of interactions and feedback

Overcoming Common Obstacles

Let’s be honest—implementing a more intentional approach to school openings isn’t always easy. Here are some common challenges and strategies for addressing them:

“We Don’t Have Time for All This Relationship Stuff”

This concern usually comes from a place of genuine overwhelm, but it’s based on a false choice. The schools that invest time in relationship-building at the beginning of the year actually save time throughout the year because they spend less time managing conflicts, re-teaching expectations, and dealing with behavioral issues.

It’s more important to have students master each behavioral expectation you present than to speed through as much content as you can. The same principle applies to community building—it’s better to establish a strong foundation than to rush through surface-level activities.

“Our Staff Isn’t Ready for This”

Research suggests that professional development may be more effective if provided to teachers who opt in to restorative practices training. Staff buy-in may also be achieved via proactive discussions, early trainings, and psychological incentives.

Start where people are. Identify the staff members who are already interested in building stronger relationships with students and families, and invite them to lead the way. Create opportunities for voluntary participation before making anything mandatory.

“Families Don’t Want to Be Involved”

This assumption often stems from measuring engagement by traditional metrics—attendance at school events, volunteering in classrooms, participation in parent-teacher organizations. But hard-to-reach families were not opposed to engaging with schools; it was just that the schools’ approaches to engagement were getting in the way.

The solution isn’t to give up on family engagement, but to rethink how you’re approaching it. A healthy engagement strategy begins with listening to your families—their ideas, communication preferences, and what they know works best for their children—to develop a more genuine and trusting partnership.

Moving Forward: Your Next Steps

Transforming your approach to school openings doesn’t happen overnight, but you can start making meaningful changes right now. Here’s how to begin:

Immediate Actions (This Week)

Reflect on Your Current Practices: What messages are your current opening-of-school procedures sending to students, staff, and families?
Identify Your Core Values: What kind of community do you want to build? What would it look like if everyone in your school felt they truly belonged?
Start Small: Choose one practice—perhaps a daily greeting routine or a weekly community-building circle—and commit to implementing it consistently.

Short-term Planning (Next Month)

Engage Your Team: Have conversations with staff about what a more intentional school opening might look like
Survey Your Community: Ask students, staff, and families about their experiences and what would help them feel more connected to the school
Plan Professional Development: Identify training opportunities around restorative practices, community building, or family engagement

Long-term Vision (This School Year)

Develop Systems: Create structures and practices that will sustain a positive culture throughout the year
Measure Progress: Establish ways to assess how your community-building efforts are impacting climate, relationships, and outcomes
Plan for Sustainability: Think about how to embed these practices so deeply in your school culture that they’ll continue even when leadership changes

The Ripple Effect of Intentional Leadership

When we approach the start of school with intention—prioritizing belonging before business, clarity before complexity, and calm before chaos—we create ripple effects that extend far beyond those opening weeks.

Students who feel seen and valued from day one are more likely to take academic risks, support their peers, and see themselves as valued members of the community. Staff who feel trusted and supported are more likely to innovate in their teaching, collaborate with colleagues, and stay in the profession. Families who feel welcomed and heard are more likely to support their children’s learning and advocate for the school in the broader community.

Your Community is Waiting

The beginning of each school year offers us a precious opportunity—a chance to reset, to recommit to our values, and to build the kind of educational community where every person can thrive. It’s not about having perfect systems or eliminating all challenges. It’s about creating the conditions where we can face whatever comes our way together, with clarity about our purpose and confidence in our collective ability to support each other’s growth.

Your school community—students, staff, and families—is waiting for the kind of leadership that prioritizes relationships alongside results, that sees the humanity in everyone who walks through your doors, and that understands that the work of education is fundamentally the work of building community.

The choice is yours: Will you approach this year’s opening as a logistical exercise to get through, or as a community-building opportunity to lean into? Your decision will shape not just those crucial first weeks, but the entire trajectory of your school year.

The research is clear, the strategies are available, and your community is ready. The question isn’t whether you can create a more intentional, restorative approach to school openings—it’s whether you will.

What’s one practice you could implement this week to help someone in your school community feel more connected and valued? Start there, and let the transformation begin.

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Bridget Johnson, Founder, Deans' Roundtable

Bridget Johnson, a former associate executive director, has worked in education for much of her career, primarily in independent schools and nonprofits. As a former dean of students and director of special programs, she has helped schools expand their offerings while maintaining their core values. Bridget now works as the founder of the Deans’ Roundtable and an independent consultant helping educational institutions implement data-driven strategies that support their unique missions.

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