

How students feel about their schools—their perception of the safety, inclusiveness, rigor, and collaboration in the learning environment—is an increasingly important part of conversations about school quality and improvement. A wide variety of research suggests that positive school climates support students’ academic engagement, growth, and success and make schools more joyful and functional places to work.
For these reasons, measures of school climate have become central to school accountability systems across the country. These measures typically rely on student, teacher, and parent survey responses, which are then aggregated and averaged to characterize the climate of the school as a whole. But what are we missing when we focus on the “average” student experience? How do students’ perceptions of school climate vary? And could a clearer picture of this variation inform efforts to develop more inclusive and equitable learning environments, within schools and across the system?
Building on the Research Alliance’s longstanding work with the NYC Department of Education on its annual School Survey, this report uses survey data from 2015 through 2019 to begin to answer these questions. We start by examining the extent to which students within the same school have similar perceptions of the school’s climate. This part of the analysis focuses on the variation among individual students’ responses to questions about different dimensions of school climate (e.g., trust between students and teachers, peer support, safety, cultural awareness, classroom behavior, academic rigor and support, etc.). To further illustrate this variation, we then zero in on the Student-Teacher Trust measure, exploring how students’ perceptions differ by race/ethnicity, gender, and grade level—looking at differences system-wide and within individual schools.
Drawing on survey responses from more than 70,000 students across 628 middle and high schools, we found:
Taken together, our findings suggest the need to pay more attention to the various ways in which students experience their school climate, including a better understanding of racial inequities, both within and across schools. Responding to this need, the NYC DOE has begun sharing disaggregated data, allowing stakeholders to see how different subgroups (e.g., young men and women, students of different racial/ethnic groups, English learners, students with disabilities) perceive the learning environment in individual schools. This is a promising and important first step in understanding how to better serve all students.
Looking ahead, researchers should continue working toward a clearer and more nuanced grasp of the factors that shape students’ perceptions of school climate. There is also a need for more evidence about strategies that effectively enhance students’ experiences and engagement in school. We hope to contribute in both areas.