From trinity to unity: the merger of three school cultures into one.

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20221958

Opening a new elementary school presents many unique challenges, and it often involves students and teachers merging together to form a new school community. A complex situation that schools face as a result of a merger is the potential clashing of the established school cultures and the cultural development process at the new school. The purpose of this descriptive case study was to describe the process by which a new school's culture developed after a merger and the characteristics of the new culture, through the perspectives of teachers and administrators at X Elementary School, beginning with the first months of operation and concluding with the sixth year post-merger. The central research question that drove this study was: What is the process by which cultures from three different elementary schools merged to form a culture at a new elementary school, and what are the characteristics of the newly formed culture? The purposefully selected participants were teachers and administrators at X Elementary School, a suburban elementary school in the Northeastern United States. Data were collected and triangulated through focus groups, interviews, and examination of documents. By understanding the process by which multiple school cultures merged to create a culture at a new school, we can better understand how stakeholders can work together to establish a culture that helps support student success.