School culture, as defined in this study, consists of norms, beliefs, and values that provide teachers with a sense of continuity against change generated by students, parents and reform movements. The first six norms of school culture, which appear to be interdependent and work together to create an effective school culture for change, are collegiality, experimentation, high expectations, trust and confidence, tangible support, and referring to a knowledge base. The remaining six norms, which demonstrate effective teacher interaction with each other and their administrators, are appreciation and recognition, caring and humor, involvement in decision-making, protection of what is important, traditions, and open communication. The population sample was drawn from two elementary schools within the same county of a rural mid-Atlantic state that were in the process of making a change to whole language instruction. Norms for which significant differences were found included: collegiality, experimentation, expectation, trust and confidence, reaching out to the knowledge base, caring, celebrating, and humor, protecting what's important, involvement in decision-making, and honest, open communication. The major conclusions were that the presence of these norms tends to encourage teacher change and that the norms increase as teacher change progresses. The School Culture Survey is appended. (Contains 32 references.) (LH)