School Climate

Samantha Clay
Blog 2 – School Climate

School climate, which is the quality of school life, has been a topic of interest to me over the past few years.  With the CCRPI and the School Climate Star Ratings, this has been more of a focus for schools due to these accountability measures set forth by the GA DOE with the anonymous, statewide survey instruments that identify safety and health issues that have a negative impact on student achievement and school climate.  In 2011, Georgia was the first state in the nation to include school climate as an early indicator in its academic accountability system.  A body of recent research has shown that positive and sustained school climate promotes students' academic achievement and teacher retention, which itself enhances student success.  While completing my Ed.S. in Curriculum and Instruction, I conducted research in an attempt to link academic improvement with the implementation of a social-emotional learning (SEL) component and used the Student Health Survey 2.0 to measure students’ perceptions of school climate.  Schools can use climate data to promote meaningful engagement with all stakeholders and to enhance the social and emotional dispositions that contribute to success in school and in life.  In the future, if I become a school leader on day, I’d like to go beyond just using the student, staff and parent surveys provided by the GA DOE to measure school climate.  I’d like to utilize focus groups, observe staff and students, conduct interviews, host community meetings, and extend my action research in addition to those student, staff, and parent surveys.  The Center for Social and Emotional Education's (CSEE) Comprehensive School Climate Inventory might also be an instrument that I’d like to utilize.  As a school leader, I think it is very important to stay knowledgeable of the factors that shape school climate: safety, relationships, teaching and learning, and the institutional environment.  School climate data can be used to make adjustments where necessary in order to create positive learning environments and help focus on specific social-emotional competencies students still need to be exposed to in order to support the whole child and guide school improvement efforts.  I think it is valuable to look at school climate from the perspectives of students, staff and parents to determine if discrepancies exist and so that focus groups can be created to address areas of concern.  It is critical that school leaders include all stakeholders when using this data to focus on school improvement.  Building these partnerships with various stakeholders puts leaders in a position to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) from all perspectives and be accountable for more than just academic achievement when defining school success.  I think that school leaders must ensure the school climate sets the tone for academic achievement. 

http://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Curriculum-and-Instruction/GSHS-II/Pages/Georgia-Student-Health-Survey-II.aspx