Jeff for America

I describe school climate to my kids as if I’m giving a weather report: is our school bright and sunny or dark and cloudy? In other words, do our students feel safe and supported or scared and distracted while at school? It’s a question I already had the answer to, but I wanted my students to figure it out on their own. As part of my Student Government elective, I designed a month-long, student-led project to determine our school’s climate.

It started with a review of several previously tested school climate reports and surveys, which eventually led us to create our own 50 question survey that was distributed to all of our middle school students (about 200 kids). The survey took a while to organize, since we couldn’t at first agree on which questions to include. Some students wanted to focus on peer-to-peer relationships and bullying while others wanted to focus on the role of teachers in creating school climate. In the end, we used it all and hoped none of our survey participants would get lazy and skip it altogether. The survey was, after all, anonymous and voluntary.

To hook them on the topic (since school climate isn’t necessarily on their radar), we read an article called “Bathrooms a reflection of school climate,” which discussed the symbolic role that bathrooms can play in showcasing a school’s climate. In short – dirty, stinky, dysfunctional bathrooms = dysfunctional, unkept, violent schools. To make the link real, we did some research of our own. I had the kids take a cleanliness survey of our school bathrooms before we set out to survey their classmates. It was a good exercise in understanding the connection between a school’s efforts outside the classroom to inside the classroom. As expected, our bathrooms are like marble palaces. Our administrators actually openly discuss the importance of keeping them clean and well maintained. I would agree that it plays an important role in what kind of school we are. At our school, the bathroom isn’t a place to vandalize, hang out or make trouble. Some reports find that bullying most often takes place in the school bathroom – a place where teachers and staff usually steer clear – so it was important for them to consider making our survey.

In the end, the survey took about 5 weeks to implement – from start to finish. After tallying the data and creating some nifty graphs, this is what we found:

It has proven to be helpful for some of my student leaders to look more carefully at the state of our school. From here, we’re supposed to start addressing some of the problems we see are evident from the survey results. Looking at some of the key questions (green, red and teal) we see a pretty rosy picture. I can’t explain how good it felt to see our students actually feel safe and supported at our school. And while everything is not so perfect, (it seems many students experience bullying, yet no one seems to be a bully) it is a place I am lucky to call work, and my students are lucky to call school.

The next phase of the project is taking a field trip to a not-so-rosy school and administering the same survey to a few classes. I want my students to understand the disparity in public schools and the potential they have to succeed in a school like ours. Maybe it will open some eyes and snap some of them out of their apathy and strangely placed sense of entitlement.

My favorite part of the survey was showing the graphs to my student government kids. Within moments, Monica shouted, “I need some sunglasses…our school is soooooo bright and sunny.”

- Jeff