Trust Matters

Make your school soar by escalating trust between teachers, students, and families

Trust is an essential element in all healthy relationships, and the relationships that exist in your school are no different. How can your school leaders or teachers cultivate trust? How can your institution maintain trust once it is established? These are the questions addressed and answered in Trust Matters: Leadership for Successful Schools, 2nd Edition. The book delves into the helpful research that has been conducted on the topic of trust in school. Although rich with research data, Trust Matters also contains practical advice and strategies ready to be implemented. This second edition expands upon the role of trust between teachers and students, teachers and administrators, and schools and families.

Trust Matters: Leadership for Successful Schools also covers a range of sub-topics relevant to trust in school. All chapters in the text have questions for reflection and discussion. Engaging chapters such as "Teachers Trust One Another" and "Fostering Trust with Students" have thought-provoking trust-building questions and activities you can use in the classroom or in faculty meetings. This valuable resource:

• Examines ways to cultivate trust
• Shares techniques and practices that help maintain trust
• Advises leaders of ways to include families in the school's circle of trust
• Addresses the by-products of betrayed trust and how to restore it

With suspicion being the new norm within schools today, Trust Matters is the book your school needs to help it rise above. It shows just how much trust matters in all school relationships—administrator to teacher; teacher to student; school to family—and in all successful institutions.

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xvii

Chapter 1 A Matter of Trust 1

Meaning Well 1

Doing Well 6

Trust and Schools 8

Trust Matters 12

Key Points about a Matter of Trust 14

Questions for Reflection and Discussion 14

Chapter 2 Defining Trust 17

What Is Trust? 19

Differentiated Trust 39

Trust and Hierarchy 40

Putting It into Action 43

Key Points about Defining Trust 44

Questions for Reflection and Discussion 45

Chapter 3 Fostering Trust 47

Initial Trust 48

Factors That Influence Developing Trust 53

Authentic and Optimal Trust 64

Putting It into Action 66

Key Points about Fostering Trust 69

Questions for Reflection and Discussion 70

Chapter 4 Betrayal 71

What Is Betrayal? 72

The Keep-the-Peace Principal 79

A Debilitating Culture of Distrust 85

Putting It into Action 94

Key Points about Betrayal 95

Questions for Reflection and Discussion 96

Chapter 5 Revenge 97

The Dynamics of Revenge 97

The Overzealous Reformer 102

A Culture of Control 110

Rules That Facilitate 117

Putting It into Action 119

Key Points about Revenge 120

Questions for Reflection and Discussion 121

Chapter 6 Teachers Trusting One Another 123

Building a Professional Learning Community at Brookside 125

Faculty Trust and the Five Facets 128

The Payoffs of Faculty Trust 140

Putting It into Action 150

Key Points about Teachers Trusting One Another 151

Questions for Reflection and Discussion 152

Chapter 7 Cultivating Trust with Students 153

Teachers’ Trust in Students 154

Students’ Trust in Teachers 160

Earning Student Trust 167

Understanding Teacher Aggression 179

Putting It into Action 183

Key Points about Cultivating Trust with Students 184

Questions for Reflection and Discussion 184

Chapter 8 Building Bridges of Trust with Families 187

The Facets of Family-School Trust 189

Trust and Family Engagement 203

Fostering Trust with Families 214

Putting It into Action 217

Key Points about Building Bridges of Trust with Families 219

Questions for Reflection and Discussion 219

Chapter 9 Restoring Broken Trust 221

Trust Repair 222

Factors That Facilitate Restoring Trust 229

Creating a Context for Trust Repair 238

Whole-School Conversations about Trust 243

Putting It into Action 247

Key Points about Restoring Broken Trust 248

Questions for Reflection and Discussion 249

Chapter 10 Becoming a Trustworthy Leader 251

Trustworthy School Leadership 254

Productive Schools 264

Putting It into Action 266

Key Points about Becoming a Trustworthy Leader 268

Questions for Reflection and Discussion 269

Appendixes

A. Measures of Trust in Schools 271

B. Additional Resources 285

References 289

About the Author 303

Index 305

MEGAN TSCHANNEN-MORAN is a professor of educational policy, planning, and leadership at the College of William and Mary’s School of Education. She has written several pieces on trust, including the successful first edition of Trust Matters, and is considered a leading scholar on the subject of trust in educational settings. She is the coauthor of Evocative Coaching: Transforming Schools One Conversation at a Time.

An honest guide for educational leaders

This second edition of Trust Matters takes the first practical, hands-on guide for educators and inserts new research and insights. This book is a knowledgeable, professional reference addressing the critical role of trust among teachers, students, schools, and families. This edition of Trust Matters takes a purposeful approach to profiling the difficulty leaders in education face in earning and maintaining trust. Author and leading scholar Megan Tschannen-Moran uses exhaustive research to outline why trust is important now more than ever as we find ourselves in a changing world where suspicion, fear, and skepticism tend to erode educational relationships. This book offers updated advice about how to build and maintain trust to secure the healthy functioning of educational organizations.

“Successful leadership in schools depends upon trust: trust in the principal by teachers and trust in the school by its community. And no one has done a better job of explaining this critical dynamic than Megan Tschannen-Moran. This book is a must-read for all current and aspiring school leaders.”
—DR. STEPHEN JACOBSON, UB distinguished professor, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

“Very few things are more fundamental to the impact of school leaders’ work than trusting relationships with and among staff, parents, and students. Based on the best available evidence, and written in a highly accessible fashion, this book provides both comprehensive and remarkably practical guidelines for building, recovering, and sustaining the trust leaders need to provide their students with a great education. Do everyone you work with a favor—read it!”
—KENNETH LEITHWOOD, professor emeritus, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada

“Trust matters to everyone involved in the social enterprise of schooling because it is both central and elusive among students, teachers, leaders, parents, and community members. Megan Tschannen-Moran, prominent scholar, translates her research in this area and makes it accessible to educators for immediate use with a style that is clear, sensitive, and insightful.”
—PAMELA D. TUCKER, professor, University of Virginia, Charlottesville

“This second edition is even more insightful than the first. Drawing upon a wider range of evidence and placing the need for trust and trustworthiness right in the centre of the school improvement agenda, Tschannen-Moran’s book is a must-read for all educators who care about raising standards.”
—CHRISTOPHER DAY, professor of education, University of Nottingham