{"id":3978,"date":"2013-03-06T19:10:42","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T00:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/?p=3978"},"modified":"2013-03-07T07:24:40","modified_gmt":"2013-03-07T12:24:40","slug":"the-climate-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/2013\/03\/the-climate-report\/","title":{"rendered":"The Climate Report"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When the Hartford Board of Education sat down this Tuesday, March 5th, to conduct a special meeting they planned on spending most of their time discussing the contract approval of Parent Academy, an initiative committed to improving Hartford\u2019s communities. The meeting was considered special because it was held in addition to the Board\u2019s monthly meetings, primarily to discuss Parent Academy. However, roughly fifteen minutes after the event commenced at Hartford\u2019s Public High School, it was clear that the Board had additional serious issues to address.<\/p>\n

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Board members discuss Achieve Hartford! while the audience follows along.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to a new survey developed by the American Institute of Research and administered in HPS by \u201cAchieve Hartford!\u201d, \u00a0the social climate amongst Hartford Schools was something that deserved attention. \u00a0The study, in it\u2019s second year, was reporting annual findings. While parents and school administrators believe that school climate has improved over the last year, the Board found the students perception of school climate to be unsettling. In comparison to the 2012 survey, peer climate Board member Richard Wareing, who was visibly upset over the reports findings, immediately asked the Achieve Hartford! team, \u201cWhy do so many youngsters feel that school is not a good place to be?\u201d No one in the school\u2019s packed library had an answer.<\/p>\n

Although many questions over school safety remained unanswered during the meeting, one thing that all the board members could agree on was the obvious disconnect between student and adults\u2019 perceptions on school safety. \u00a0There were two categories designed to measure the social climate, peer climate and respectful climate. Peer climate referred to the students\u2019 perception of their day-to-day interactions amongst each other, while respectful climate was through the eyes of the adults (staff and parents). One specific example came from surveys covering grades 3-5. It was found that 43% of students saw an improvement in peer climate, a 4% increase since 2012. At the same time 82% of adults saw interactions amongst students to have improved, a 6% increase since last year. A 2% difference may not initially seem significant, but if that trend increases for a period as short as 5 years, a 10% disparity between the actual social climate and perceived social climate will have emerged.<\/p>\n

In discussing possible explanations for the differing views of students and adults, Board member Richard Wareing offered, \u201cIn terms of school safety, the data suggests that the further you get away from the hallways, the better it looks. \u00a0I\u2019m curious to see what the adults are basing their perception on.\u201d \u00a0But that wasn\u2019t the only thing the board was curious about; they also wanted an explanation for inflated percentages of survey participation in several public schools throughout the state.<\/p>\n

While no one completely undermined the contributions of Achieve Hartford! in their quest to restore the Hartford Public system to health, several questions were raised over the validity of the surveys they conducted. \u00a0Several Board members agreed to one glaring weakness of the surveys: inaccurate participation rates. \u00a0For example, Achieve Hartford! reported that Hooker Environmental Sciences Magnet school\u2019s 3-4 grade participation percentage was raised ten points, from 96 to 106 percent. \u00a0But how is that possible? \u00a0Chairman of the Board, Matthew Poland, wanted to know how 106 percent of the student body could have participated in the survey? \u00a0\u00a0In their response to the Chairmen\u2019s concern over the legitimacy of the study, the Achieve Hartford! team suggested that the inflated participation rates were due in part to both unfinished and retaken surveys, a flaw resulting from keeping the surveys so anonymous.<\/p>\n

Many students, parents, and media members appeared engaged by the presentation. This second adaption of the American Institute of Research\u2019s study, despite some flaws, was one that under correct guidance, had potential to become a powerful tool in the belt of Hartford educational reformers. Board Chairman Matthew Poland described the study as, \u201ca very telling one, and it tells that work has to be done to understand what is happening within our hallways and why it isn\u2019t a good place to be with your peers.\u201d Members of Achieve Hartford! demonstrated how it can be used by a high school senate to dig deeper into the climate of a given school by placing reason to the alleged findings. The team continued to say that the ultimate mission of the survey would be to illustrate how parent involvement has increased as a means of engagement rather than through their perceptions. \u201cAlmost in the sense of customer satisfaction,\u201d added one member. Although the findings of the survey produced many different reactions amongst the board members and the community, all the participants of the meeting walked away with the shared enthusiasm that through the involvement of Achieve Hartford!, the Hartford Public School system can and will develop better relations amongst the networks of students, parents, and teachers- it\u2019s just a matter of time.<\/p>\n

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Stephen Goniprow ’14 and Robert Ugolik ’15 are full-time students at Trinity College in Hartford, CT that have taken an interest in the local movement for educational reformation.<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the Hartford Board of Education sat down this Tuesday, March 5th, to conduct a special meeting they planned on spending most of their time discussing the contract approval of Parent Academy, an initiative committed to improving Hartford\u2019s communities. The meeting was considered special because it was held in addition to the Board\u2019s monthly meetings, … Continue reading The Climate Report<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3978"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3978"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3999,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3978\/revisions\/3999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}