REL Mid-Atlantic is partnering with the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) to help strengthen the quality and usefulness of its school climate and safety data and improve how that data is shared with schools. The partnership will also build state, regional, and local leaders’ capacity to interpret insights from data and use them to guide strategies that foster supportive learning environments for students and staff.
Partnership organization: Pennsylvania Department of Education
Current Projects
REL Mid-Atlantic and PDE assessed the psychometric properties of Pennsylvania’s school climate survey for elementary, middle, and high school students and staff, which was updated based on recommendations from a prior REL analyses. This project also looked at different approaches to scoring and reporting survey results, and helped PDE modify its computer programs that analyze school climate data and provide score reports to schools.
To better understand the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and school climate, REL staff also assessed changes in student and staff perceptions of school climate for middle and high schools before and during the pandemic, examining the association between the percentage of remote and hybrid instruction during the 2020–2021 school year and school climate in the 2021–2022 school year.
This project helped PDE strengthen its ability to help districts and schools generate and use school climate data to identify needs and guide improvements.
Completed Projects
PDE collects statewide school climate survey data to understand how students and staff experience their learning environments. PDE revised its elementary school climate student survey based on findings from a REL Mid-Atlantic study that validated the survey but found one domain—safe and respectful school climate—did not meet the reliability threshold. REL staff will now reassess the validity and reliability of the survey with the updated domain.
Validating the survey can help support wider adoption by giving education leaders confidence in the tool and a reliable way to gather insights about students’ experiences.
REL Mid-Atlantic provided PDE with research-based support to build (1) a logic model to connect initiatives that foster supportive learning environments with measurable outcomes, (2) accessible materials on evidence-based practices for fostering supportive learning environments for students and staff and (3) a toolkit to support social emotional wellness leads in assessing, planning, and measuring social-emotional initiatives to create more supportive learning environments for students and staff.
REL Mid-Atlantic helped inform PDE as it explored developing a clear and evidence-based statewide strategy to improve how Safe Schools data are reported and used to strengthen school climate and support student and staff wellness.