Through Students' Eyes

A mU

Through Students' EyesBy involving students in collaborative action research,

school leaders gain vital information to guide school improvement.

Bill Preble and Larry Taylor

W hat would you think if your own children-

or students in your school-made thefollowing comments?

Students in this school drop out because they're pushed off to theside. They are not seen as the kids who will succeed, and becauseof that, no one even tries to help them succeed.

-12th grade student

ESL students get picked on at this school more than other kids.It depends on your religion and your culture, too. After 9-11,Muslim kids started to get picked on a lot. My friend who isMuslim came here and got smacked around because she waswearing the scarf. -1.0 th grade student

I get picked on because I walk funny.., one kid calls me "duck"and "waddle" and he quacks at me. My mom called the schooland they told him not to do it any more, but he still does whenteachers aren't watching. He bullies everybody when teachersaren't looking. -6th grade student

Students' stories can offer profound insights into schoolclimate issues that affect the quality of education. When wecouple these stories with simple descriptive statistics fromschool climate surveys, such as the percentage of students andteachers who agree with statements like "I feel safe at thisschool," we have a valuable source of information to shape

school improvement.SDYNAMWGRARHIMCS/AGEFOTOSTOCK

ASSOCIATION FOR SUPERVISION AND CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT 35

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With our colleagues at Main StreetAcademix (www.msanh.com) and ourstudents at New England College, wehave been conducting research onschool climate and helping educatorsdevelop respectful schools for nearly 10years. We have worked with hundredsof schools and thousands of teachersand student leaders across the UnitedStates to understand the positive andnegative effects of school climate and itslinks to bullying, harassment, disciplinesystems, dropout rates, teaching prac-tices, and teacher and student success.Here's what we learned from our workin one school district that used ourstudent-led action research process toguide school improvement.

The Need for Changein Sullivan CountyIn 2002, several students and theirfamilies sued Sullivan County SchoolDistrict, a Tennessee district whosestudent population is more than 96percent white. The primary lawsuitresulted from the mock lynching of ablack student by white students in thehallway of one high school. Because ofthe seriousness of these problems, theU.S. Department of Justice joinedconcemed students and their families intheir complaints against the district. Thecourts ruled in their favor, finding thatthe district had been deliberately indif-ferent to pervasive racial harassmentand violations of civil rights in itsschools.

In response to the court decision,Sullivan Countys leaders took action.As director of schools John O'Dell said,

At first we were a little defensive, but thenwe tried to put ourselves in the shoes ofthese students. I thought, what if I wereone of only a handful of white students ina school of more than 1,000 AfricanAmerican students? How would I feel,especially if someone tried to choke me?

Educators need

to think about abroader spectrumof evidence thantest scores.

"We decided that we needed to faceup to the fact that we had some prob-lems in these schools and that weneeded to address them head-on," saidJanie Barnes, the district's compliancecoordinator. "We saw it as a chance todo what was right and to ensure thatevery student was safe and free fromharassment of any kind."

As part of the final legal settlement ofthe court cases, the school board askedMain Street Academix to develop a planto assess the current racial, social, andacademic climate in each of the 30Sullivan County schools and to usethese baseline data to monitor andguide a four-year improvement plan.District leaders embraced the idea ofcollecting and using new kinds of data

to better understand what washappening in their schools andcommitted themselves to doing what-ever was needed to change the attitudesand behavior that were hurting studentsin these schools.

Revealing Blind SpotsOur work collecting and using qualita-tive and quantitative school climate datato improve schools is based on ourbelief in the power of perception toshape attitudes and behavior. Whenteachers or principals perceive theirschools to be safe and respectful places,they may be blind to problems going onright under their noses-and thereforebe unresponsive. Students repeatedlytell us, "School climate is what happenswhen grown-ups are not around." Datathat reveal and compare adult andstudent perceptions of school climateare often a real eye-opener.

One morning we went to one ofSullivan County's four high schools toshare the school's initial school climatedata with the principal. The dataconsisted of simple descriptive statis-tics-the percentage of students andteachers who agreed or disagreed with

36 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP/DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009

specific statements related to peerrespect and belonging; student-adultrelationships; the presence of racistlanguage, graffiti, or behavior; the use ofcertain pedagogical practices; and so on.

The principal invited us into hisoffice. We sat down, opened the report,and began to review his school's climatedata. After 10 minutes, we thought theman was about to explode. "This is notmy school!" he exclaimed angrily.

We turned to the next page of graphsand asked, "Is this your school?" Hepaused, looking carefully at the data,and said slowly, "Yeah, this looks morelike my school." We pointed out thatthose data showed the perceptions ofhis college-bound students, whereas thefirst graphs had shown the climateperceptions of all his students. We thenshowed him some data that revealedequally dramatic gaps between theperceptions of his school's teachers andstudents. He was shocked, but hebecame more interested in under-standing the data. We spent the nexthour discussing the very differentperceptions of school climate among thevarious stakeholder groups in hisschool.

This principal loves his students andhis school. After he calmed down, wecould see that he was thinking deeplyabout the story of school climate thatwas unfolding before him. Since thatmorning, he has been engaged andexcited about using data and workingwith student leaders to improve hisschool. He joined and helped lead ourdistrict leadership team as a key advo-cate of the student-led action researchprocess in Sullivan County.

The journey of this school adminis-trator illustrates what can happen wheneducators work with colleagues to inter-pret data collected as part of collabora-tive, student-led action research. Often,an examination of the data engenders

cognitive dissonance-the feeling ofuncomfortable tension that comes fromholding two conflicting thoughts in themind at the same time. For example, ateacher looking at the data in Figure 1(p. 39) may think, "I feel that ourstudents treat one another with respect,but I see that only 48 percent of allstudents and 34 percent of non-college-bound students agree. What's that allabout?" Reviewing such comparisonsoften results in heated discussions aboutthe meaning of the data and ultimately

leads to new ideas about what theschool needs to do to improve.

Cognitive dissonance is a powerfulmotivator. Over and over again, we haveseen dissonance lead to tension, discus-sion, and reflection and then jump-starta process of energized leadership andaction by teachers, administrators, andstudents.

It Starts with StudentsThe data that laid the foundation forchange in Sullivan County came fromstudent-led action research. Why startwith students? The growing literatureon "youth-led, participatory research"(Ozer et al., 2008) shows that it is adevelopmentally appropriate strategy forincreasing youth voice and studentengagement in improving schools(Cargo, Grams, Ottoson, Ward, &Green, 2003). Inviting young people toserve their schools and communities as

partners in action research creates anexciting sense of student ownership andcontrol. As students help ameliorate theproblems identified in the research, theylearn a great deal-and they teachadults a good deal as well.

Beginning in 2003, we have helpedSullivan County implement a collabora-tive, student-led action research processdeveloped by Main Street Academix.The process involves the following threestages:

Stage OneWe begin by creating a district-leveladult leadership team to guide theprocess. We work with principals andteachers from each school to recruit andselect diverse teams of student leadersto serve as the subjects of interviewsand focus groups. Selecting truly diversestudents for these roles-athletes,Goths, academically successful students,those who struggle academically, and soon-is a crucial part of the process.

Undergraduate and graduate students(in the case of Sullivan County, studentsfrom New England College) conductstudent interviews and focus groupswith students in grades 3-12. We usecollege students because young peoplespeak more freely and frankly abouttheir school experiences to other youngpeople. We then invite the students whowere the subjects of the interviews andfocus groups to take on new roles as


Inviting young people to serve their

schools and communities as partners

in action research creates an exciting

sense of student ownership and control.

researchers. We train these students tohelp administer schoolwide adult andstudent school climate surveys.

Students explain the purpose of thesurveys to their peers and describe howthe results will be used to better under-stand and compare student and teacherperceptions of school climate andrespect in their school. When peers leadthe data-collection process in this way,students take the surveys seriously, andwe get great data.

Stage TwoMain Street Academix compiles theresults of the surveys, interviews, andfocus groups, and we schedule a time towork with the principal and a school-level adult design team to share theseresults with the student leaders.Students review their school's data andselect the areas that they believe repre-sent the most serious problems.

Student leaders then help the adultdesign team present the school's resultsto their teachers. One especiallypowerful role the student researchersplay is to select the most potent studentand teacher quotes from the qualitativedata and to read these words aloud toteachers. These stories and quotes areoften provocative and grab the teachers'attention, making them more interestedand more willing to look deeply intotheir survey results. For example, onestudent commented,

School isn't taken seriously here becauseteachers don't care at all on a personal oreven one-on-one helpful level. Doing wellacademically is not encouraged here at all,and coming to school on a daily basis is ajoke for some students.

In each school, the teachers use thequalitative and quantitative data to sortout the most powerful issues. Theyprioritize problem areas and set goalsfor improvement. When students andteachers compare their respective goals,

"School climate

is what happenswhen grown-upsare not around."

they almost always find a lot of agree-ment on what needs to change. Itbecomes natural for them to cometogether and work toward thesecommon goals.

Stage ThreeThis is the most important stage.Teachers and students develop mean-ingful action steps to address needsindicated by the data. Students,teachers, and administrators divide intoteams to work on one particular goal.They brainstorm ideas as a team andthen review a menu of research-basedbest practices provided by Main StreetAcademix. They select a final set ofstrategies that make the most sense tothem and develop action projects andplans to address the problems revealedby their school's data. Teachers and

students work together to implementthese action projects, with studentleaders playing meaningful leadershiproles.

As people become involved inanalyzing their data, identifying theirown needs, and offering their own solu-tions to these problems, the levels ofdefensiveness and resistance lessen, andengagement in the process grows. Inhundreds of schools in which we haveimplemented this process, educatorsand students have come together,looked at data, identified commonproblems, and developed solutions thatthey were willing to work on together.

Widening the FocusThe most exciting thing about SullivanCounty's journey is the way the issues ofschool climate have quickly meldedwith issues of students' overall personaldevelopment and academic success.Sullivan County schools have doneremarkable things to reduce harassmentin their schools. They have adopted newharassment policies and disciplinaryprocesses to fight hate speech, racial andsexual harassment, and bullying of allkinds; provided antibias training for all


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teachers, administrators, bus drivers,substitute teachers, and teachers' aides;and established student unity teams tofight intolerance, bullying, and bigotryin high schools and middle schools. Butthe initiative in Sullivan County soongrew beyond bullying and harassmentto become a much more comprehensivediscussion about effective schools,respectful teaching, and studentlearning. School instructional initiativesthat resulted from the process included

* Learning how to meet the differentneeds of all learners through differenti-ated instruction.

* Using hands-on, manipulative-based mathematics instruction forlearners who struggled with abstractconcepts in mathematics.

m Establishing positive expectationsfor respectful behavior in every class-room.

m Showcasing and celebratingstudents' academic work in the hallwaysand at parent-teacher meetings.

a Catching students being good andacknowledging positive behavior ratherthan focusing solely on punishingmisbehavior.

a Developing peer-tutoring andreading-buddies programs betweenyounger and older students.

* Initiating community-basedlearning and service learning programs.

At first, some educators struggledwith the concept of building respectfulschools through empowering students.After all, weren't the kids the problem?But after some initial challenges, andafter looking carefully at their schoolclimate data, Sullivan County principalsand teachers began to routinely bringstudents into their discussions. Teacherssaw how genuinely moved and moti-vated students were when asked toserve on student leadership teams. Theysaw students building closer bonds offriendship as they worked together to

solve school climate problems. As thework went forward, many teachers andprincipals concluded that collaborativeaction research was an empoweringapproach to school improvement. Buy-in across the district grew.

The Student AchievementConnectionAfter four years, about two-thirds of theschools in Sullivan County had madesignificant, measurable improvements inschool climate. In spring 2006, we

FIUR 1. Coprsn of Stdn anTace Percetion

Percentage who "agreed"or "strongly agreed"

Non-College- All FacultyBound Students Students

I feel physically safe being whoI am at my school (free fromthreats, harassment, or violence). 46% 58% 80%

Students are willing to step forwardand help when they see othersgetting picked on or harassed. 45% 42% 55%

Girls are treated with respect byboys at this school. 41% 45% 32%

Boys are treated with respect bygirls at this school. 32% 50% 40%

I think students mostly treat oneanother with respect at this school. 34% 48% 68%

When teachers act to help studentswho are harassed, it really works. 40% 45% 81%

When principals and otheradministrators act to help kids whoare harassed, it really works. 51% 57% 75%

Students' work is displayed publiclyand celebrated by teachers. 29% 47% 82%

Teachers make it clear to allstudents what is expected to besuccessful. 70% 83% 94%

Adults in my school invite studentsto help make decisions about schoolrules and discipline procedures. 24% 31% 25%


When teachers or principals perceive their

schools to be safe and respectful places,

they may be blind to problems going

on right under their noses.

analyzed the relationship betweenschool climate and student academicperformance on Tennessee's stateachievement tests in the district'sschools. We found a greater increase inacademic achievement in the schoolsthat had made significant improvementin school climate than in those that hadnot improved school climate (Preble &Newman, 2006).

Our findings in Sullivan County areconsistent with other recent research onthe connections between school climateand learning reported by the Collabora-tive for Academic, Social, andEmotional Learning (CASEL). Its reviewof more than 700 studies indicates thatwhen school climate measures go up,students' performance on statewide testsin reading, mathematics, and writingalso goes up (CASEL, 2008; Viadero,2007).

Although the Justice Departmentended its mandate that Sullivan Countyaddress the problem of harassment andimprove school climate in 2007, theschool board voted to continue toconduct collaborative action researchand keep working to improve schoolclimate and respect. In the past year, wehave trained 28 school climate leader-ship teams made up of more than 125Sullivan County principals, teachers,and support staff to facilitate thisstudent-led, collaborative action researchprocess in the future. More than 300student leaders have been engaged inpowerful leadership roles.

In 2007-08, these school-based leader-ship teams of students and teacherscollected a third round of school climatedata to check the sustainability of theirefforts. All schools are now setting newgoals for continued improvement andhave designed a new set of improvementprojects to keep moving forward and tosustain the gains made in years past.

Deeper Than Test ScoresSullivan County's experience demon-strates that involving students andteachers in using school climate datacan be a powerful strategy for changingattitudes and behavior. One districtsuperintendent attending a recentstatewide conference expressed the needfor this kind of data:

We have tried everything we can think ofacademically to raise our test scores overthe past five or six years. Yet, while wehave made some improvement, we seemto be stuck. Until we address the schoolclimate issues that we know are going onin our schools, I don't think we will everreach our full potential as a school system.

We believe that he's right. Becausestudents learn best when they are phys-ically and emotionally safe, schoolclimate is an essential component ofschool success. When it comes to data,educators need to think about abroader spectrum of evidence than testscores. They also need data that enablethem to see deep into the heart andsoul of their schools and the lives oftheir students. M

ReferencesCollaborative for Academic, Social, and

Emotional Learning. (2008). Social andemotional learning and student benefits:Research implications for the safeschools/healthy students core elements.Chicago: Author. Available: www.casel.org/downloads/EDC_CASELSELResearchBrief.pdf

Cargo, M., Grams, G., Ottoson, J., Ward, P,& Green, L. (2003). Empowerment asfostering positive youth development andcitizenship. American journal of HealthBehavior 27 (Suppl. 1), S66-S79.

Ozer, E. J., Cantor, J. P, Cruz, G.W, Fox, B.,Hubbard, E., & Moret, L. (2008). Thediffusion of youth-led participatoryresearch in urban schools. AmericanJournal of Community Psychology, 41(3-4),278-289.

Preble, W, & Newman, A. (2006). Schoolclimate improvement means higher academicperformance in Sullivan County schools.Unpublished report.

Viadero, D. (2007). Social-skills programsfound to yield gains in academic subjects.Education Week, 27(16), 1, 15.

Bill Preble is Professor of Education atNew England College in Henniker, NewHampshire, President of Main StreetAcademix (www.msanh.com), andFounder of the Respectful SchoolsAlliance; [email protected]. WithSteven Wessler, he is coauthor of TheRespectful School: How Educators andStudents Can Conquer Hate and Harass-ment (ASCD, 2003). LarryTaylor isProfessor of Psychology at New EnglandCollege and a consultant for Main StreetAcademix; [email protected].

EL onlineTo learn more about howschools assess school climate,see "The Challenge ofAssessing School Climate" byJonathan Cohen, Terry Pick-erel, and Molly McCloskey inthis month's EL online atwww.ascd.org/portal/redirect.jsp?ProductlD= 109023.


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TITLE: School Climate Through Students’ EyesSOURCE: Educ Leadership 66 no4 D 2008/Ja 2009

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