This post was written by Carol Cox, retired human resource Senior VP at PetsMart.
Dr. Gestson and I met several times and reviewed human resource issues which included the need to find out if the changes at CBHS were having an effect on the students and what was important to them. Many businesses use attitude surveys to measure employee attitudes and concerns and we decided to use this approach.
We asked Dr. Antony Peloso, a professor of economics in the ASU School of Business to join us in developing a school climate survey. The survey was administered to the students during their advisory class. Survey Monkey was used to gather the information.
The survey covered the following areas:
- teacher academic support
- teacher personal support
- peer academic support
- peer personal support
- academic competence
- school and classroom satisfaction
- teacher support
- consistency and clarity of rules and expectations
- student commitment/achievement orientation
- students’ input in decision making (school)
- instructional innovation/relevance
- support for cultural pluralism
- student perceptions of teacher efficacy and the safety climate
Examples of the results include:
- my teacher cares about how much I learn
- my teacher wants me to do my best school work
- in this class, other students care about my feelings
- I feel safe at school and I want to learn
The results obtained were excellent. They validated that the climate (“culture”) changes were real at Camelback High School.
The survey is now in its third year and continues to point out opportunities and concerns that are workable.