Using Data to Improve School Climate: Insights from Three California Schools

Across the United States, there is an increased interest in improving school climate, reflecting a deepening understanding of the foundational role that school climate can play in supporting students’ well-being, learning, and development. School climate is constructed from norms, expectations, and interpersonal relationships that come together to shape the experiences of students and educators in school.

Research from the science of learning and development (SoLD), which synthesizes insights from many fields, reveals that secure relationships and children’s feelings of safety and support are foundational for effective learning and development. When positive school climates are in place, schools can support students’ physical, psychological, cognitive, social, and emotional development and reduce stress and anxiety that can impair students’ learning. Numerous studies link positive school climate to a range of student and teacher outcomes, including increased academic achievement and attendance, higher graduation rates, improved behavior, and lower rates of teacher attrition. This deepened understanding of school climate underlies educational priorities in the Every Student Succeeds Act, which introduced a more holistic approach to assessment and permits states to include data about school supports—including school climate—in their accountability systems. Currently, 14 states incorporate school climate surveys in their accountability or reporting systems, including California, which requires districts to report on local climate surveys as part of their Local Control and Accountability Plans and the California School Dashboard.

Though policymakers and researchers agree on the importance of positive school climates for learning and development, the field lacks a comprehensive understanding of how schools use climate data to inform improvement. This study addresses this gap by examining the processes used by three California middle schools to interpret and use climate data to inform practice and policy. These geographically diverse schools employ innovative data practices and use distinct districtwide climate surveys. Additionally, they operate in districts that systematically support climate data use, allowing for an examination of district-level conditions that enable data use at the school level.

Key Findings

• Setting goals and priorities from climate data enabled these schools to improve the experiences of students. Schools in this study used climate data to develop their goals and priorities. This is evident in their School Plans for Student Achievement as well as in additional school climate goals, developed by each school in the study, which are a driving force behind the practices and policies they employed to improve discipline policy and student engagement and to make school environments welcoming and inclusive. School staff reported that the use of school climate data helped to increase student engagement, attendance, and leadership and to support collaboration among educators. Staff perceptions of climate improvement were bolstered by on-site data sources such as school-developed surveys, incident reporting, and tracking of student participation in enrichment activities.
   
• School climate data supported changes to these schools’ discipline systems. All three schools in this study utilized climate data to inform strategies to improve their discipline systems. These strategies included revisions to incident reporting systems, professional development for teachers focused on restorative classroom management and relationship building, and changes to schoolwide behavioral expectations. This suggests that school climate data were especially important for informing school efforts to improve disciplinary systems.
   
• Using multiple data sources, including site-specific data sources, helped schools better understand their school climate and inform strategic planning. Each of the schools in this study supplemented large-scale districtwide climate surveys with additional data sources, such as student focus groups, student engagement data, behavior referral data, and site-specific surveys, to inform their climate improvement strategies. Drawing on varied sources of data allowed schools to develop a more comprehensive and holistic understanding of their environments.
   
• Collaboration among school leaders, teachers, and students improved buy-in, demonstrated administrator interest in educator and student perspectives, and created leadership opportunities for students. In addition to the explicit purpose of making data-informed decisions, many of the processes that schools used to engage with their data are designed to include teacher and student perspectives. This sends a clear message to educators and students that their perspectives matter to school leadership; fosters student and teacher investment in school climate improvement; and provides opportunities to develop student leadership.
   
• Survey design and management influenced school engagement with climate data. Findings suggest that schools can better engage and use climate data when surveys are accessible, short, and engaging; surveys are scheduled with ample time to analyze and act upon them in the same school year; climate reports disaggregate for student groups; schools set aside structured time to examine and discuss survey results with students and staff; district- and school-level personnel have ownership over the process; and schools have external support to bolster their capacity.

Implications

Findings from this study elevate key considerations that inform how states, districts, and schools can support the effective use of climate data.

• States can encourage or require local educational agencies (LEAs) to administer school climate surveys and integrate disaggregated results into reporting and continuous improvement systems. California has established some essential building blocks that allow schools in the state to learn from school climate data. Starting in 2024, the state requires LEAs to administer school climate surveys annually (before that it was every 2 years) and to report results as part of their Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs) and the California School Dashboard. Other states can consider implementing similar policies so that districts and schools have the baseline infrastructure systems in place to support climate improvement. Additionally, states can support disaggregated data use by requiring LEAs to draw on disaggregated climate outcomes in their strategic plans and to report on disaggregated climate outcomes on public data dashboards.
   
• Districts can structure data collection timing to increase utility. Findings from this study suggest that data use was limited by the schedule for collecting survey data. Districts can maximize the usefulness of school climate data by modifying the schedule for data collection to ensure that schools receive climate survey results on a timeline that leaves them sufficient time to analyze their data and use it to inform strategic planning and climate improvement practices.
   
• Investments in professional learning and collaboration time can build the capacity of schools to use their climate data. Meaningful engagement with school climate data is time-intensive, skilled work that requires staff capacity. States, districts, and schools can use resources strategically to build staff capacity. States can consider investments that support district and school capacity for using climate data. Districts can provide professional learning opportunities focused on data analysis and using data to inform school climate practices and policies. Lastly, districts and schools can promote policies and systems that encourage greater collaboration among staff in schools, such as revised calendars and schedules and compensation for staff who participate in school-based climate teams.
   
• States and districts can support the engagement of students, staff, and families in school climate data use. Schools in this study reported that including staff and students in school climate work created opportunities for shared leadership and increased the overall investment of school community members in efforts to improve school climate. Districts can support the engagement of students, staff, and families by developing school climate work structures and teams that encourage the participation of various school constituents. Additionally, states and districts can support schools by communicating the benefits of engaging members of the school community in their data use processes and encouraging school leaders to adopt practices for sharing climate data with students, staff, and families.
   
• District- and school-level tools to assess school climate can be designed and utilized in complementary ways. Districtwide surveys and school-developed measures are intended for different purposes and are therefore most effectively utilized at different stages of the school improvement process. While large-scale surveys work well to diagnose problem areas at schools, they may not be ideal tools for schools to assess the effectiveness of newly implemented strategies and interventions. Typically, large-scale climate surveys measure perceptions of school climate, while school-developed tools assess the presence of and students’ exposure to various school practices. States and districts can support schools through communication about when to use different data sources and how to develop practical, school-level climate measures that meet their specific needs and allow them to evaluate and improve upon the climate interventions they have put into place.

Using Data to Improve School Climate Insights From Three California Schools by Sarah Klevan, Melanie Leung-Gagné, and Tomoko M. Nakajima is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

This research was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Core operating support for LPI is provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Heising-Simons Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Raikes Foundation, Sandler Foundation, Skyline Foundation, and MacKenzie Scott. We are grateful to them for their generous support. The ideas voiced here are those of the authors and not those of our funders.