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pdfNational Center for Education Statistics
School Climate Surveys
Pilot Test
Attachment 4
SCLS Platform Instructions and Guide
Table of Contents
Platform Instructions................................................................................................................................P-1
Technical and Administrative Guide ........................................................................................................TA-1
Platform Instructions
P-1
SCLS Platform Instructions
English Instructions
Spanish Instructions - Student Version
Spanish Instructions - Parent Version
Mark One Re sponse.
Se le cciona solo uno.
Se le ccione solo uno.
Ple ase Check All that Apply.
Por favor marca todas las que aplican.
Por favor marque todas las que aplican.
How strongly do you agre e or disagree with the following statements? Mark
One Re sponse.
¿Qué tan de acuerdo o e n de sacuerdo e stas con las siguie ntes frases? Marca una re spue sta.
¿Qué tan de acuerdo o e n de sacuerdo e sta con las siguie nte s frases? Marque una re spue sta.
How much of a proble m are the following at this school? Mark One Re sponse.
¿Qué tanto proble ma son los siguie ntes en e sta e scuela? Marca una re spue sta
¿Qué tanto proble ma son los siguie ntes en e sta e scuela? Marque una respuesta
How ofte n do the following occur? Mark One Re sponse.
¿Con que fre cue ncia sucede lo siguie nte ? Marca una re spuesta.
NA (Stude nt ve rsion only)
You have opte d out of the surve y. This use rname is no longe r valid.
Tú has e le gido no participar e n e sta e ncuesta. Este nombre de usuario ya no e s válido.
Uste d ha e le gido no participar e n e sta encuesta. Este nombre de usuario ya no e s válido.
Ple ase click the “Log Out” button to e xit the surve y.
Por favor has click e n “ce rrar sesión” para salir de la e ncue sta.
Por favor haga click e n “ce rrar sesión” para salir de la e ncue sta.
The surve y has closed.
La e ncue sta se ha cerrado.
La e ncue sta se ha cerrado.
The surve y has not started ye t.
La e ncue sta no ha comenzado todavía.
La e ncue sta no ha comenzado todavía.
If you unde rstand this information and are willing to take this surve y, ple ase
se le ct “Yes, I am ready to be gin.” If you are not willing to take the surve y,
ple ase select “No I do not want to participate .”
Si e ntie nde s e sta información y e stás dispue sto a tomar e sta e ncuesta, por favor se lecciona "Sí, e stoy listo
para comenzar." Si no e stás dispue sto a participar e n la e ncuesta, por favor sele cciona "No, yo no quie ro
participar."
Si uste d e ntie nde esta información y e stá dispue sto a tomar esta encuesta, por favor sele ccione "Sí, e stoy
listo para come nzar." Si uste d no e stá dispue sto a participar en la e ncuesta, por favor se leccione "No, yo no
quie ro participar."
Ple ase make note of the PIN be low. It will allow you to log back into the surve y Por favor, toma nota de l PIN a continuación. Esto pe rmitirá que pue das volve r a iniciar la se sión e n la
if the se ssion time s out or you ne e d to stop and come back late r. The se ssion
e ncue sta si la se sión se ha cerrado automáticamente o si ne ce sitas parar y volve r más tarde. La se sión se
ce rrara automáticamente si e sta inactiva durante más de XX minutos.
will time out if le ft idle for more that xx minute s.
Por favor, tome nota de l PIN a continuación. Esto pe rmitirá que pue da volve r a iniciar la se sión e n la
e ncue sta si la se sión se ha cerrado automáticamente o si ne ce sita parar y volve r más tarde. La se sión se
ce rrara automáticamente si e sta inactiva durante más de XX minutos.
PIN:XXXX
PIN: XXXX
PIN:XXXX
For your se curity, we will not be able to re set the PIN if lost or forgotte n.
Por tu se guridad, no pode mos re stablecer tu PIN e n caso de pé rdida u olvido.
Por su se guridad, no pode mos re stablecer su PIN e n caso de pé rdida u olvido.
Thank you! You have successfully submitte d your surve y. If you wish, you
¡Gracias! Tu e ncue sta se ha e nviado correctamente. Si de seas, pue des volver a re visar tus re spuestas hasta
may go back to re vie w your re sponses up to the last point you logge d in. If you e l último punto que iniciaste la se sión. Si no de se as re visar las re spuestas, podrás cerrar la se sión de la
do not want to re vie w your re sponses, you may log out the surve y at this time . e ncue sta e n e ste momento.
¡Gracias! Su e ncuesta se ha e nviado correctamente. Si uste d de sea, pue de volver a re visar sus respuestas
hasta e l último punto que inicio la se sión. Si uste d no de se a revisar las respuestas, usted podrá ce rrar la
se sión de la e ncue sta e n e ste momento.
Thank you. You are logge d out of the School Climate Survey. When you re turn
to the surve y use the PIN you we re give n whe n you starte d the survey. When
you re -e nter the survey, you will be take n to the point in the surve y whe re you
logge d off. To prote ct your confide ntiality, you will be unable to go back to
pre vious que stions to re view your re sponses.
Gracias. Has cerrado la sesión de la Encue sta sobre e l clima e scolar. Cuando re greses a la e ncuesta usa e l
PIN que se te proporciono al principio de la e ncue sta. Cuando e ntres de nue vo a la e ncuesta te lle vara al
lugar donde saliste de la e ncuesta. Para proteger tu confide ncialidad no podrás volve r a pre guntas
ante riores para re visar tus re spue stas.
Gracias. Ha ce rrado la se sión de la Encue sta sobre e l clima e scolar. Cuando re grese a la e ncuesta use el PIN
que se le proporciono al principio de la e ncue sta. Cuando e ntre de nue vo a la e ncuesta le lle vara al lugar
donde salió de la e ncue sta. Para proteger su confide ncialidad no podrá volve r a pre guntas anteriores para
re visar sus respue stas.
Which of the following grade groupings be st de scribes the grade that you are
curre ntly in?
1. 5th to 8th grade
2. 9th to 12th grade
¿Cuál de las siguie nte s agrupaciones de años de scribe mejor e l grado que actualmente cursas?
1. 5o al 8o grado
2. 9o al 12o grado
N/A (Stude nt ve rsion only)
We lcome back to the School Climate survey. Ple ase e nter your PIN be low.
Bie nve nido a la Encue sta sobre el clima e scolar. Por favor ingre sa tu PIN a continuación. Cuando e ntres de
Whe n you re -e nter the survey, you will be take n to the point in the surve y
nue vo a la e ncue sta te lle vara al lugar donde saliste de la e ncuesta. Para proteger tu confide ncialidad no
whe re you logge d off. To prote ct your confide ntiality, you will be unable to go podrás volve r a pre guntas anteriores para re visar tus re spue stas.
back to pre vious que stions to re vie w your re sponses.
Bie nve nido a la Encue sta sobre el clima e scolar. Por favor ingre se su PIN a continuación. Cuando e ntre de
nue vo a la e ncue sta le lle vara al lugar donde salió de la e ncue sta. Para prote ger su confide ncialidad no podrá
volve r a pre guntas anteriores para revisar sus respue stas.
Ungrade d (this te rm re fers to a stude nt not be ing in a traditional school grade )
N/A (Stude nt ve rsion only)
sin grado e scolar (e ste termino se refie re a un e studiante que no e sta en un grado e scolar tradicional)
Throughout the surve y, "at this school" means activitie s happe ning in school
N/A (Pare nt ve rsion only)
buildings, on school grounds, on school buse s, and at place s that hold schoolsponsore d e vents or activitie s. Unle ss othe rwise specifie d, this re fers to normal
school hours or to time s whe n school activitie s/events we re in se ssion.
The School Climate Surve y (SCLS) is be ing administered by [district or school
Durante la e ncue sta “e n e sta e scuela” se re fiera a actividade s que pasan e n los e dificios de la e scuela, e n las
instalacione s de la e scuela, e n los buse s de la e scuela, y otros lugare s e n donde se dan actividades y e ve ntos
patrocinados por la e scuela. A me nos que se especifique lo contrario, e sto se refie re a las horas normale s de
la e scue la o para ocasione s e n que las actividade s de la e scue la /e ve ntos e sté n e n se sión.
La Encue sta sobre e l clima e scolar (SCLS, por sus siglas e n inglé s) se e stá administrado por [district or school La Encue sta sobre e l clima e scolar (SCLS, por sus siglas e n inglé s) se e stá administrado por [district or school
name] . Your re sponses are important to he lp in unde rstanding the e nvironment name] . Sus re spue stas son importantes para ayudar a entender e l ambiente de e sta e scuela y las condicione s name] . Sus re spue stas son importantes para ayudar a entender e l ambiente de e sta e scuela y las condicione s
of this school and the conditions for te aching and le arning.
de la e nse ñanza y e l apre ndizaje .
de la e nse ñanza y e l apre ndizaje .
To start the surve y, ple ase type in your use rname below.
Para e mpezar la e ncuesta, por favor ingre sa tu nombre de usuario a continuación.
Para e mpezar la e ncuesta, por favor ingre se su nombre de usuario a continuación.
P-2
SCLS Platform Instructions
English Instructions
Spanish Instructions - Student Version
Spanish Instructions - Parent Version
Informe d Consent
conse ntimento informado
conse ntimento informado
What is this survey about?
The S c hool Climate S urvey asks questions about how c onnected you are to your sc hool, about
other students in your sc hool, and about sc hool staff. The survey is also being given to other
students like you. This is not a test. There are no wrong answers. The survey should take about
60 minutes to c omplete.
¿De qué se trata esta enc uesta?
La Enc uesta sobre clima esc olar hac e preguntas sobre la c onexión que tienes c on tu esc uela, sobre los estudiantes
que asisten a tu esc uela, y sobre el personal de la esc uela. La enc uesta también se está dando a otros estudiantes
c omo tú. Esta no es una prueba. No existen respuestas inc orrectas. Debería tomar alrededor de 60 minutos
c ompletar la enc uesta.
N/A (Stude nt ve rsion only)
Do you have to take the survey?
This survey is voluntary. If you or your parents don't want you to take this survey, you c an
let your sc hool know and you don't have to take the survey. You do not have to answer any
questions you do not want to answer, and you c an stop taking the survey at any time. We
hope you will do your best to answer as many questions as you c an. Please be honest when
answering eac h question.
¿Tienes que tomar la enc uesta?
Esta enc uesta es voluntaria.. S i tu o tus padres no quieren tomar esta enc uesta, pueden informarle a la esc uela y no
tienes que tomar la enc uesta. No tienes que responder a ninguna pregunta que no quieras responder, y puedes
dejar de tomar la enc uesta en c ualquier momento. Esperamos que hagas tu mejor esfuerzo por responder todas las
preguntas que puedas. Por favor se sinc eró al responder c ada pregunta.
What if your parents don't want you to c omplete this survey?
If your parents don't want you to take this survey, they c an let your sc hool know.
¿Qué suc ede si tus padres no quieren que hagas esta enc uesta?
S i tus padres no quieren que hagas en esta enc uesta, ellos pueden informar a la esc uela sobre su dec isión.
¿Quién verá tus respuestas?
Who will see your answers?
[For a ll students, for the 2015 Pilot Test a nd the 2016 National Benchmark Study]
[For a ll students, for the 2015 Pilot Test a nd the 2016 National Benchmark Study]
Las experienc ias de los estudiantes son fundamentales para c omprender el c lima de la esc uela, y la mejor manera
de entender esas experienc ias es preguntarles a los propios estudiantes. Aparte de mejorar tu c lima esc olar, la
The experiences of students are critical to understanding school climate, and the best way to
informac ión que nos proporc iones será utilizada por el Centro Nac ional para Estadístic as de la Educ ac ión (NCES
understand those experiences is to ask students themselves. Apart from improving your school
por sus siglas en ingles) para mejorar la enc uesta que deben ser c ontestados por estudiantes c omo tú en el futuro.
c limate, the information that you provide will be used by the National Center for Education
Los datos proporc ionados a NCES sólo podrán ser utilizados c on fines estadístic os y no pueden ser divulgados o
S tatistic s (NCES) to improve questionnaires to be answered by students like yourself in the future. utilizados de forma identific able para c ualquier otro fin, exc epto c uando sea requerido por la ley (Educ ation
Data provided to NCES may be used only for statistical purposes and may not be disclosed or used S c ienc es Reform Ac t (ES RA) of 2002, 20 U.S .C., § 9573).
in identifiable form for any other purpose, except as required by law (Education Sciences Reform
[Version A of Confidentiality pledge offered to students when links to student rec ords are not preserved]:
Los datos proporc ionados también pueden ser utilizados por tu esc uela y el distrito para entender mejor el c lima
ac tual en tu esc uela. Las únic as personas que verán tus respuestas a preguntas individuales son personal
[Version A of Confidentiality pledge offered to students when links to student records a re not preserved]:
autorizado en tu esc uela y el distrito (20 U.S .C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Parte 99). Tus respuestas serán c ombinadas c on
The data you provide may also be used by your school and distric t to better understand the
las respuestas de otros estudiantes en tu esc uela y el distrito y se usaran para c rear informes sobre el c lima de tu
c urrent c limate in your school. The only people who will see your answers to individual questions esc uela. Estos informes no identificaran a ninguna persona o sus respuestas.
Ac t (ESRA) of 2002, 20 U.S.C., § 9573).
are authorized personnel at your school and distric t (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99). Your
answers will be combined with the answers of other students at your school and distric t and used
to c reate records about the climate of your school. These reports will not identify any person or
their responses.
[Version B of Confidentiality pledge offered to students when links to student rec ords are preserved]:
Los datos proporc ionados también pueden ser utilizados por tu esc uela y el distrito para entender mejor el c lima
ac tual en tu esc uela. Las únic as personas que verán tus respuestas a preguntas individuales son personal
autorizado en tu esc uela y el distrito (20 U.S .C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Parte 99). Tus respuestas serán c ombinadas c on
las respuestas de otros estudiantes en tu esc uela y el distrito y se usaran para c rear informes sobre el c lima de tu
esc uela. Aunque estos informes no identific aran a ninguna persona o sus respuestas, tus datos podrán ser
c ombinados c on otros datos tuyos para ayudar a tu esc uela mejorar el c lima de tu esc uela.
[Version B of Confidentiality pledge offered to students when links to student records are preserved]:
The data you provide may also be used by your school and distric t to better understand the
c urrent c limate in your school. The only people who will see your answers to individual questions
are authorized personnel at your school and distric t (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99). Your
¿A quién puedes hac erle preguntas?
answers will be combined with the answers of other students at your school and distric t and used S i tienes preguntas, puedes ir c on tu maestro/a o a otros adultos en tu esc uela.
to c reate records about the climate of your school. Although these reports will not identify any
person or their responses, your data may be c ombined with other data about you to help your
El Americ an Institutes for Researc h está recopilando los datos de la prueba piloto para el Centro Nac ional para
sc hool to improve the climate of your school.
Estadístic as de la Educ ac ión (NCES por sus siglas en Inglés) del Departamento de Educ ac ión de los Estados
Unidos. Esta enc uesta debe tomar un promedio de 60 minutos para c ompletar, revisar y rec opilar esta
Who should you ask if you have any questions?
informac ión. De ac uerdo ley de S implific ac ión de Trámites Administrativos de 1995, ninguna persona tiene que
If you have questions you c an ask your teac her or other adults at your sc hool.
responder a la rec olección de informac ión a meno s que esta tenga un número valido de OMB. El número de c ontrol
de OMB para la rec olección de informac ión es 1850-0803 (expirac ión 09/30/2016)
Americ an Institutes for Researc h (AIR) is c ollecting the pilot test data for the National Center
for Educ ation S tatistic s (NCES ) of U.S . Department of Educ ation. This survey is estimated to
S i entiendes esta informac ión y estás dispuesto a tomar esta enc uesta, por favor seleccione "Sí, estoy listo para
take an average of 60 minutes, inc luding time for reviewing instruc tions and c ompleting and
c omenzar." Si no estás dispuesto a partic ipar en la enc uesta, por favor seleccione "No, yo no quiero partic ipar."
reviewing the c ollection of information. Ac c ording to the Paperwork Reduc tion Act of 1995, no
persons are required to respond to a c ollection of information unless suc h c ollection displays a
valid OMB c ontrol number. The valid OMB c ontrol number for this information c ollec tion is
1850-0803 (expires 09/30/2016).”
If you understand this information and are willing to take this survey, please select "Yes, I am
ready to begin". If you are not willing to take the survey, please select "No I do not want to
partic ipate."
P-3
SCLS Platform Instructions
English Instructions
What is this survey about?
The S c hool Climate S urvey asks parents about the environment of the sc hools their c hildren
attend. We want to know your opinions about the c limate, inc luding the safety, disc ipline,
and environment for learning for your c hild's sc hool. The survey should take about 30
minutes to c omplete.
Spanish Instructions - Student Version
NA (Pare nt ve rsion only)
Spanish Instructions - Parent Version
¿De qué se trata e sta e ncuesta?
La Encue sta sobre clima e scolar pre gunta a los padre s de familia sobre las e scuelas a las que asisten sus
hijos. Que remos conocer sus opinione s sobre el clima, incluso sobre la seguridad, disciplina y e l ambie nte de
apre ndizaje de la e scuela de su hijo/a. De be ría de tomar alrededor de 30 minutos comple tar la e ncuesta.
Do you have to take the survey?
This survey is voluntary. You do not have to answer any questions you do not want to
answer, and you c an stop taking the survey at any time without penalty.
¿Tie ne que tomar la e ncuesta?
Esta e ncuesta es voluntaria. No tie ne que re sponder a ninguna pre gunta a la que no de see re sponder y puede
de jar de tomar la e ncuesta en cualquie r momento, sin pe nalización.
Who will see your answers?
¿Quié n ve rá sus respuestas?
[For the 2015 Pilot Test a nd the 2016 Na tional Benchmark Study]
The experiences of students, staff and parents are c ritic al to understanding sc hool climate, and the
best way to understand those experiences is to ask all members of the sc hool community. Apart
from improving your c hild’s school c limate, the information you provide will be used by the
National Center for Educ ation S tatistic s (NCES) to improve questionnaires to be answered by
people like yourself in the future. NCES will receive individual-level responses from partic ipating
sc hools and distric ts without the names or other direc t personal identifiers of the
respondents. Data provided to NCES may be used only for statistic al purposes and may not be
disc losed or used in identifiable form for any other purpose, except as required by law (Educ ation
S c iences Reform Ac t (ESRA) of 2002, 20 U.S .C., § 9573).
[For the 2015 Pilot Te st and the 2016 National Be nchmark Study]
Las e xpe rie ncias de los e studiantes, personal y padre s son fundamentales para comprender el clima de la
e scuela, y la me jor manera de entender e sas experiencias es pre guntarles a los miembros de la comunidad
e scolar. Aparte de mejorar e l clima e scolar para su hijo, la información que nos proporcione será utilizada por e l
Ce ntro Nacional para Estadísticas de la Educación (NCES por sus siglas en ingle s) para mejorar las e ncuestas
que de be n ser contestados por pe rsonas como usted e n el futuro. NCES re cibirá respuestas a nive l individual de
las e scuelas y los distritos participantes sin los nombres u otros ide ntificadores pe rsonales de los encuestados.
Los datos proporcionados a NCES sólo podrán ser utilizados con fine s estadísticos y no pue de n ser divulgados o
utilizados de forma ide ntificable para cualquier otro fin, e xcepto cuando sea re querido por la le y (Education
Scie nces Re form Act (ESRA) of 2002, 20 U.S.C., § 9573).
The results of this survey are confidential. The data you provide may also be used by your c hild’s
sc hool and distric t to better understand the c urrent c limate in the sc hool. The only people who will
see your answers to individual questions are authorized personnel at your c hild’s school and
distric t. Your answers will be c ombined with the answers of other respondents in your c hild’s
sc hool and distric t and used to c reate reports about the c limate of the school. These reports will
not identify any person or their responses.
Are there risks or benefits assoc iated with taking this survey?
There are no antic ipated or known risks involved in partic ipating in this survey. The
information that you provide will help inform our understanding of c onditions for working
and learning in your c hild's sc hool.
Who should you ask if you have any questions?
If you have questions you c an speak with the sc hool princ ipal or survey administrator at the
c ontac t information that ac c ompanied your survey invitation.
Americ an Institutes for Researc h (AIR) is c ollecting the pilot test data for the National Center
for Educ ation S tatistic s (NCES ) of the U.S . Department of Educ ation. This survey is estimated
to take an average of 30 minutes, inc luding time for reviewing instruc tions and c ompleting and
reviewing the c ollection of information. Ac c ording to the Paperwork Reduc tion Act of 1995, no
persons are required to respond to a c ollection of information unless suc h c ollection displays a
valid OMB c ontrol number. The valid OMB c ontrol number for this information c ollec tion is
1850-0803 (expires 09/30/2016).”
If you understand this information and are willing to take this survey, please select "Yes, I am
ready to begin". If you are not willing to take the survey, please select "No I do not want to
partic ipate."
Los resultados de esta encuesta son confidenciales. Los datos proporcionados también pueden ser utilizados por la
e scuela y e l distrito de su hijo para entender me jor el clima actual e n la e scuela. Las únicas pe rsonas que verán
sus re spuestas a pre guntas individuale s son pe rsonal autorizado en la e scuela y e l distrito de su hijo. Sus
re spuestas serán combinadas con las respuestas de otros participantes e n la e scuela y e l distrito de su hijo y se
usaran para crear informes sobre e l clima de la e scuela. Estos informes no ide ntificaran a ninguna pe rsona o sus
re spuestas.
¿Existe n rie sgos o be neficios relacionados con tomar esta encuesta?
No e xiste n rie sgos pre vistos o conocidos relacionados con su participación e n e sta e ncuesta. La información
que uste d proporcione ayudará a mejorar nue stro conocimiento sobre las condicione s de trabajo y de
apre ndizaje e n la e scuela a la que asiste su hijo/a.
¿A quié n de be pre guntar si tie ne alguna pregunta?
Si tie ne pre guntas, pue de hablar con e l dire ctor de la e scuela o con e l administrador de la e ncuesta
comunicándose con e llos me diante la información de contacto incluida e n su invitación para participar e n la
e ncue sta.
El Ame rican Institutes for Re search e stá recopilando los datos de la prue ba piloto para e l Ce ntro Nacional
para Estadísticas de la Educación (NCES por sus siglas e n Inglé s) de l De partamento de Educación de los
Estados Unidos. Esta e ncue sta de be tomar un prome dio de 30 minutos para comple tar, re visar y re copilar
e sta información. De acuerdo le y de Simplificación de Trámite s Administrativos de 1995, ninguna pe rsona
tie ne que re sponder a la re colección de información a me nos que esta tenga un núme ro valido de OMB. El
núme ro de control de OMB para la re cole cción de información e s 1850-0803 (e xpiración 09/30/2016).
Si uste d e ntie nde esta información y e stá dispue sto a tomar e sta e ncuesta, por favor seleccione "Sí, e stoy
listo para come nzar." Si uste d no e stá dispue sto a participar en la e ncuesta, por favor se leccione "No, yo no
quie ro participar."
P-4
SCLS Platform Instructions
English Instructions
What is this surve y about?
The School Climate Surve y asks instructional and non-instructional staff like you
about the e nvironment of the schools whe re you work. We want to know your
opinions about the school climate , and the e nvironment for te aching and le arning for
staff and stude nts in your school. The surve y should take about 60 minute s to
comple te .
Spanish Instructions - Student Version
N/A (Instructional and Noninstructional staff ve rsions only)
Spanish Instructions - Parent Version
N/A (Instructional and Noninstructional staff ve rsions only)
Do you have to take the survey?
This surve y is voluntary. You do not have to answe r any que stions you do not want
to answe r, and you can stop taking the surve y at any time without pe nalty.
Who will se e your answe rs?
[For the 2015 Pilot Test and the 2016 National Benchmark Study]
The e xpe riences of students, staff and parents are critical to unde rstanding school
climate , and the best way to unde rstand those experiences is to ask all me mbers of the
school community. Apart from improving your school climate, the information you
provide will be use d by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to improve
que stionnaires to be answe red by pe ople like yourself in the future . NCES will re ceive
individual-le ve l re sponses from participating schools and districts without the names or
othe r dire ct personal ide ntifie rs of the respondents. Data provide d to NCES may be
use d only for statistical purposes and may not be disclosed or used in ide ntifiable form
for any othe r purpose, e xcept as required by law (Education Sciences Re form Act (ESRA)
of 2002, 20 U.S.C., § 9573).
The re sults of this survey are confidential. The data you provide may also be used by
your school and district to be tter unde rstand the current climate in your school. The
only pe ople who will se e your answe rs to individual que stions are authorized pe rsonnel
at your school and district. Your answe rs will be combined with the answe rs of othe r
re spondents in your school and district and used to create reports about the climate of
your school. The se reports will not ide ntify any pe rson or the ir responses.
Are the re risks or be nefits associated with taking this surve y?
The re are no anticipated or known risks involve d in participating in this surve y. The
information that you provide will he lp inform our unde rstanding of conditions for
working and le arning in your school.
Who should you ask if you have any que stions?
If you have que stions you can speak with your school surve y administrator.
Ame rican Institutes for Re search (AIR) is colle cting the pilot te st data for the National
Ce nte r for Education Statistics (NCES) of the U.S. De partment of Education. This
surve y is e stimated to take an average of 60 minute s, including time for re vie wing
instructions and comple ting and re vie wing the colle ction of information. According to
the Pape rwork Re duction Act of 1995, no pe rsons are re quire d to re spond to a
colle ction of information unle ss such colle ction displays a valid OMB control numbe r.
The valid OMB control numbe r for this information colle ction is 1850-0803 (e xpire s
09/30/2016).”
If you unde rstand this information and are willing to take this surve y, ple ase select
"Ye s, I am re ady to be gin". If you are not willing to take the survey, ple ase select "No I
do not want to participate ."
P-5
SCLS Platform Instructions
English Instructions
Spanish Instructions - Student Version
Spanish Instructions - Parent Version
YES, I AM READY TO BEGIN
Sí, e stoy listo para comenzar
Sí, e stoy listo para comenzar
NO, I DO NOT WANT TO PARTICIPATE
No, yo no quie ro participar
No, yo no quie ro participar
CONTINUE
CONTINUAR
CONTINUAR
CLEAR
BORRAR
BORRAR
NEXT
SIGUIENTE
SIGUIENTE
BACK
ATRÁS
ATRÁS
LOG IN
INICIAR SESIÓN
INICIAR SESIÓN
If you have any que stions about the SCLS, ple ase contact Te st Admin at (555)
555-5555.
Si tie ne s alguna pre gunta sobre la SCLS, comunícate con Te st Admin a (555) 555-5555.
Si tie ne alguna pre gunta sobre la SCLS, comuníquese con Te st Admin a (555) 555-5555.
Use rname
Nombre de usuario
Nombre de usuario
You have alre ady completed the survey.
Encue sta completada
Encue sta completada
Logge d out
SESIÓN CERRADA
SESIÓN CERRADA
You have chosen to not participate in the School Climate Surve y.
Ele giste no participar e n la Encue sta sobre e l clima e scolar.
Uste d e ligió no participar e n la Encue sta sobre e l clima e scolar.
Your opinions are important to us. If you would like to participate in the SCLS, Tus opinione s son importante s para nosotros. Si te gustaría participar e n la SCLS, por favor haz clic e n e l
ple ase click the "BACK" button to re turn to your pre vious re sponse. Othe rwise , botón "ATRÁS" para re gresar a tu re spuesta anterior. De lo contario, haz clic e n e l botón "CERRAR LA
ple ase click the "LOG OUT" button to e xit the surve y. Thank you for your time . SESIÓN" para salir de la e ncue sta. Gracias por tu tie mpo.
Sus opinione s son importante s para nosotros. Si le gustaría participar e n la SCLS, por favor haga clic e n e l
botón "ATRÁS" para re gresar a su re spue sta anterior. De lo contario, haga clic e n e l botón "CERRAR LA
SESIÓN" para salir de la e ncue sta. Gracias por su tie mpo.
SURVEY COMPLETED
ENCUESTA COMPLETADA
ENCUESTA COMPLETADA
Invalid use rname or PIN.
Nombre de usuario o PIN no válido.
Nombre de usuario o PIN no válido.
Ple ase fill out this fie ld.
Por favor lle na e sta casilla
I he re by certify that I have carefully re ad and will coope rate fully with the SCLS N/A (Administrators only)
proce dure s on confide ntiality. I will ke e p comple tely confide ntial all information
arising from surve ys concerning individual re sponde nts to which I may gain
access. I will not discuss, disclose, disseminate, or provide access to survey data
and ide ntifie rs. I will de vote my be st efforts to e nsure that there is compliance
with the re quire d procedure s by pe rsonnel whom I supe rvise. I give my pe rsonal
ple dge that I shall abide by this assurance of confide ntiality.
Por favor lle ne e sta casilla
N/A (Administrators only)
[che ckbox] I have re ad and agree to the Ple dge of Confide ntiality.
P-6
Technical and Administrative Guide
TA-1
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ...........................................................................................................................TA-4
2. Technical Guide .....................................................................................................................TA-5
2.1 SCLS Platform Installation ................................................................................ TA-5
2.1.1 Installation and Configuration ....................................................................... TA-5
2.1.2 URL and E-mail Setup.................................................................................. TA-12
2.2 SCLS Administration ...................................................................................... TA-13
2.2.1 Authentication ........................................................................................... TA-14
2.2.2 Education Agency ....................................................................................... TA-15
2.2.3 Dashboard ................................................................................................. TA-16
2.2.4 Informed Consent....................................................................................... TA-16
2.2.5 Editing Education Agency Information ......................................................... TA-17
2.2.6 Data Collection........................................................................................... TA-18
2.2.7 Respondent Usernames .............................................................................. TA-19
2.2.8 Reports ...................................................................................................... TA-30
2.2.9 Survey Results ............................................................................................ TA-39
3. Recommended Adminstration Practices...............................................................................TA-40
3.1 Preparing for the Survey Administration ......................................................... TA-41
3.2 Setting Administration Window...................................................................... TA-44
3.3 Test Run Prior to Administration of Student Surveys........................................ TA-44
3.4 During Administration ................................................................................... TA-45
3.5 After Administration...................................................................................... TA-48
4. Instructions for in-School Administration of the Student Survey .........................................TA-48
5. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) ....................................................................................TA-50
6. SCLS Reports.......................................................................................................................TA-52
6.1 Item Frequency Reports................................................................................. TA-52
6.2 Understanding the SCLS scales ....................................................................... TA-53
6.2.1 Presentation of Scale Scores........................................................................ TA-54
6.2.2 Subgroup Reporting.................................................................................... TA-55
Appendix A ..............................................................................................................................TA-59
Appendix A.1...................................................................................................... TA-60
Appendix A.2...................................................................................................... TA-65
Appendix B ..............................................................................................................................TA-73
Appendix C ..............................................................................................................................TA-76
TA-2
Appendix D ..............................................................................................................................TA-77
Appendix E ..............................................................................................................................TA-78
Appendix F ..............................................................................................................................TA-79
Appendix G..............................................................................................................................TA-80
Appendix G.1...................................................................................................... TA-81
Appendix G.2...................................................................................................... TA-82
TA-3
1. Introduction
Welcome to the School Climate Surveys (SCLS)!
The SCLS offers a platform that includes a suite of survey instruments being developed for
schools, districts, and states by the U.S. Department of Education. Through the SCLS, schools
nationwide will have access to survey instruments and a survey platform that enables the collection
and reporting of school climate data across stakeholders at the state or local level. The surveys can
be used to produce school-, district-, and state-level scores on various indicators of school climate
from the perspectives of students, instructional staff, noninstructional staff and principals, and
parents and guardians. The U.S. Department of Education will also provide benchmark data in
2016, collected from a nationally representative sample of schools
across the United States, to facilitate comparisons of school climate
The SCLS platform
scores at the local and national levels.
surveys students,
their parents,
instructional staff,
and noninstructional staff,
to provide a broad
picture of the school
climate experiences
of students in
grades 5-12.
The SCLS platform allows education leaders to seek the viewpoints of
multiple respondent groups. A multi-perspective approach is
important because each of the stakeholders experiences school climate
differently. The SCLS includes four surveys. The “student survey,” is
intended for students in grades 5-12. The “teacher and instructional
staff survey,” seeks input from teachers and other staff who provide
instruction to students in grades 5-12. The “principal and
noninstructional staff survey,” was developed for noninstructional
staff (e.g., administrators, counselors, coaches, librarians) who
provide services to students in grades 5-12. The final instrument, the
“parent survey,” is for parents and guardians of students in grades 512. Combined, these four surveys measure school climate from the perspective of diverse groups of
stakeholders.
For more information on the background and purpose of the SCLS, see Appendix A.
Features of the SCLS Platform
The U.S. Department of Education’s primary goal in the development of the SCLS platform is to
provide a no-cost, user-friendly, high-functioning platform that schools, school districts, and states
throughout the United States can use to administer the suite of SCLS surveys. To achieve these
goals, the SCLS platform
•
•
•
•
does not require education agencies to incur licensing fees or other costs;
can be installed and administered using a “basic 1 ” network infrastructure;
minimizes risks to data confidentiality; and
allows for the decentralized storage of data, accessible only to authorized users within the
education agency that is administering the data collection.
The SCLS is also designed to minimize the effort required to conduct the survey, analyze the data,
and produce reports on the results. The SCLS platform allows administrators to create linkages to
external data sources for the student survey, and future versions of the platform will allow survey
administrators to customize the survey with additional questions.
1
Please see minimum requirements in section 2.1.
TA-4
2. Technical Guide
This technical guide section explains how to use the SCLS platform, from installation to report
generation. The administrator should get to know this section well in order to troubleshoot any
problems that may arise during live administrations. The administrator may want to consider
sharing this section with other personnel and/or training them in the technical aspects of the
platform.
2.1 SCLS Platform Installation
This subsection provides instructions on how to download and configure the SCLS platform
package; and setup the URL and e-mail. The following lists the minimum requirements for a server
to install and run the platform.
•
Windows (XP or later), Linux, or Mac OS X
•
At least 512MB of RAM, 1GB recommended
•
At least 1GB of free hard disk space, depending on the number of total respondents
•
A static IP and URL to bind the website to
•
A high speed internet connection
2.1.1 Installation and Configuration
To download and install VirtualBox:
1. Download VirtualBox 4.3.20 and the extension pack for your operating system from
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads.
TA-5
2. Install VirtualBox and the extension pack.
NOTE
For step-by-step installation instructions, refer to
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch02.html.
To download the SCLS package:
1. Download the VirtualBox image of the SCLS platform from
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4pz89ouiycceonk/SCLS_1.2-disk1.vdi?dl=0.
TEMPORARY URL NEEDS TO BE REPLACED
To configure the virtual machine:
1. Open Oracle VM VirtualBox and click on the "New" button on the main tool bar.
2. Enter a descriptive name for the new virtual machine in the “Name” text box, select “Linux”
from the “Type” drop-down box, and select “Ubuntu (64 bit)” from the “Version” drop-down
box. Then click on the “Next” button.
TA-6
3. For the memory size, specify at least 512MB or more depending on your server’s specifications.
Then click on the “Next” button.
4. Select "Use an existing virtual hard drive file" option button. Click on the folder icon button, and
open the downloaded SCLS VirtualBox image. Then click on the “Create” button. The new
virtual machine should now appear on the left side of the window.
TA-7
5. Make sure the SCLS virtual machine is selected on the left, then click on the “Settings” button
on the main tool bar.
6. Select "Network" on the left side, click on the “Advanced” expand icon, and click on the “Port
Forwarding” button.
TA-8
7. Click on the add icon to add a new record. Under the “Name” column, enter a descriptive name.
Under “Host Port”, enter “80” or specify a different port. Under “Guest Port”, enter “80”. Then
click on the “OK” button.
8. Click on the “OK” button.
TA-9
9. Make sure the SCLS virtual machine is selected on the left, then click on the "Start" button on
the main tool bar. The machine will take a few seconds to boot up.
TA-10
10. On the log in screen, click on the “SCLS Admin” button, then enter “OsunXiboGyP4x” for the
password.
11. To access the MySQL database server, click on the “gsql” icon located on the desktop. Enter the
following to log in:
Host: localhost
Port number: 3306
Database name: poll_test
Username: root
password: PpkzDcnj
TA-11
2.1.2 URL and E-mail Setup
To setup the URL and e-mail:
1. Log into your hosting provider’s web portal and navigate to the DNS section. Create a new A
record with your domain name (without “www”) and the static IP address of the computer
hosting the SCLS virtual machine.
2. To make the domain accessible with “www” at the beginning as well, create a CNAME record
with “www” and “@”.
3. To configure your server to send mail, create MX records containing information about your
mail service providers.
4. On the computer hosting the SCLS virtual machine, download and install Apache from
http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi, or Internet Information Services (IIS).
5. To run the web site on a port other than 80, log into the SCLS virtual machine and open the
“Apache2-Config” file located on the desktop. Enter “OsunXiboGyP4x” for the password to
open the file in gedit. Edit any instance of 80 to your new port number. Save the file.
6. Open the “Mail Config” file located on the desktop. Enter “OsunXiboGyP4x” for the password
to open the file in gedit. Set “relay host =” to your mail service provider’s relay host (for
example: smtp.gmail.com). Set “myhostname =” to your domain name. Then add the following
lines to the file:
# enable SASL authentication
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes # disallow
TA-12
methods that allow anonymous authentication. smtp_sasl_security_options =
noanonymous # where to find sasl_passwd smtp_sasl_password_maps =
hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd # Enable STARTTLS encryption smtp_use_tls =
yes # where to find CA certificates smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/ssl/certs/cacertificates.crt
Open /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd and add your credentials to the first line
in the following format:
[mail.isp.example] username:password
7. To stop the SCLS virtual machine, right click the name on the left, select “Close”, then select
“Power Off”.
To restart, make sure the SCLS virtual machine is selected on the left, then click on the "Start"
button on the main tool bar.
2.2 SCLS Administration
This subsection covers how to administer the suite of School Climate Surveys to students, parents,
teachers/instructional staff, and noninstructional staff.
TA-13
ICON BUTTON
KEY
The icon button key shows the icon buttons used throughout this
technical guide.
Save
Delete
Information
Expand
Collapse
Refresh
2.2.1 Authentication
To log into the data management platform:
1. Open the SCLS website from a browser.
2. From the homepage, click on the “>> ADMINISTRATOR LOG IN” link from the toolbar
on the home page.
Alternatively, enter “sclsadmin” in the “Username” text box and click on the “LOG IN”
button.
3. Enter “sclsadmin” in the “Username” text box.
4. If you are logging in for the first time, enter the temporary password “2@Password” in the
“Password” text box. Otherwise, enter the new password you selected.
5. Click on the “LOG IN” button.
To change the password:
1. Enter a new password in the “New Password” text box.
NOTE
Passwords must be between 8 and 14 characters in length, contain 1 uppercase English
character, 1 lowercase English character, 1 numeric character, and 1 special character.
2. Enter the same new password in the “Retype New Password” text box.
3. To reveal the hidden passwords, check the “Show Password” check box.
4. Click on the “SAVE” button.
TA-14
To reset the password or have forgotten your password:
1. Click on the “>> ADMINISTRATOR LOG IN” link from the toolbar on the home page.
2. Enter “sclsadmin” in the “Username” text box.
3. Click on the “Reset Password” link.
4. An e-mail with a URL to reset the password will be sent to the e-mail address of the survey
administrator that was specified on the Education Agency page. Click on the URL, or copy
and paste the URL to a browser address bar.
5. Follow the instructions “To change the password” in this guide.
To log out:
1. Click on the “LOG OUT” link from the toolbar.
NOTE
You will be automatically logged out and redirected to the home page after 10 minutes
of inactivity.
2.2.2 Education Agency
To enter the edu cation agency information:
1. Select the level of the education agency from the “Level” drop-down box.
2 . If the education agency is at the state level, select the state from the “State” drop-down box.
At the district level, enter the education agency’s seven digit NCES district ID in the “NCES
ID” text box. If you do not know the ID, click on the “Find Your District ID” link to be
redirected to the NCES Public School District Locator.
At the school level, enter the education agency’s twelve digit NCES school ID in the
“NCES ID” text box. If you do not know the ID, click on the “Find Your School ID” link to
be redirected to the NCES Public School Locator.
3. Under the Education Agency subsection, the name of the education agency is automatically
pre-filled. To modify the name of the education agency, enter another name in the “Name”
text box.
4. Under the Survey Administrator subsection, enter the name of the survey administrator in
the “Name” text box.
5. Enter the e-mail address of the survey administrator in the “E-mail” text box.
6. Enter the phone number of the survey administrator in the “Phone” text boxes.
7. Click on the “SAVE” button to save information about the education agency.
TA-15
2.2.3 Dashboard
Once the education agency information has been saved, the dashboard allows administrators to:
• add additional language to the informed consent for all respondent groups;
•
edit information about your education agency and survey administrator;
•
create, edit, and delete data collections;
•
generate, export, and disseminate respondent usernames for data collections that have not closed
yet;
•
produce real-time survey status reports and survey results reports immediately after each data
collection;
•
and export and import survey results immediately after each data collection.
TA-16
2.2.4 Informed Consent
To add additional language to the informed consent:
1. Click on the “INFORMED CONSENT” link on the toolbar of the dashboard.
2. Select the respondent group from the “Respondent Group” drop-down box.
3. Enter additional language in the text area.
4. To bold text, highlight the text and click on the bold button.
5. To italicize text, highlight the text and click on the italicize button.
6. To underline text, highlight the text and click on the underline button.
7. To switch between English and Español for student and parent respondent groups, click on
the “English” and “Español” links.
8. Additional confidentiality language can also be added for all respondent groups.
9. Click on the “SAVE” button.
TA-17
2.2.5 Editing Education Agency Information
To edit the education agency information:
1. In the Education Agency subsection, click on the “Edit” menu button.
2. Edit the education agency and/or survey administrator information.
NOTE
At the district and school levels, if the NCES ID is changed, any data collections and
usernames generated will be deleted when the “SAVE” button is clicked.
3. Click on the “SAVE” button.
2.2.6 Data Collection
To create a new data collection on the top blank row:
1. In the Data Collection subsection, click on the “Create” or “Edit” menu button.
NOTE
If no data collections have been created, the “Create” menu button is shown.
Otherwise, the “Edit” menu button is shown.
2. Click on the “START DATE” text box/date selector. Then enter the start date of the data
collection or select the start date from the date selector.
TA-18
NOTE
The start date must be today’s date or later.
Refer to section 3.2 Setting Administration Window for guidelines to consider when
setting the data collection start and end date.
3. Click on the “END DATE” text box/date selector. Then enter the end date of the data
collection or select the end date from the date selector.
NOTE
The end date cannot be earlier than the start date. A data collection will close on the end
date at 11:59PM.
4. Select the respondent group from the “RESPONDENT GROUP” drop-down box. A
unique data collection name is created based on the start date, end date, and respondent
group.
5. Click on the save icon button.
NOTE
Once a data collection has been created, the status is marked as “Started” if the start date
is today’s date; or “Not Started” if the start date is after today’s date. The data collection
will be marked as “Closed” when the end date has already occurred.
Multiple data collections can be created, however, the start date, end date and respondent
group must be unique.
To edit a data collection:
1. Edit the start date and/or end date of a data collection.
2. Click on the save icon button of the data collection to save the changes.
To delete a data collection:
1. Click on the delete icon button of the data collection to be deleted.
2.2.7 Respondent Usernames
The Respondent Usernames subsection includes the following functionality:
•
Generate – Create randomly generated usernames for a data collection
•
Export – Download the list of usernames generated for a data collection into a single CSV file
or multiple files
•
Disseminate – Import usernames and e-mail addresses for a data collection; and disseminate via
e-mail
TA-19
This subsection also provides the status of each data collection that has not closed yet, and tracks
whether usernames have been generated, exported, and disseminated.
To generate usernames:
1. In the Respondent Usernames subsection, click on the “Generate” menu button.
Alternatively, click on the “GENERATE” link from the toolbar on any Respondent
Usernames page.
2. Select the data collection from the “Data Collection” drop-down box.
3. At the state or district level, check at least one school level to include.
4. At the state or district level, click on the “SHOW SCHOOLS” button.
5. The school name, NCES School ID, and school level will be automatically pre-filled.
To edit the school name at the state or district level, enter another name in the “SCHOOL
NAME” text box.
TA-20
To change the school level at the state or district level, select another school level from the
“SCHOOL LEVEL” drop-down box.
6. Enter “1” or greater in the “NUMBER OF RESPONDENTS” text box for at least one
school.
7. To navigate between the pages of schools, click on the “Previous” or “Next” links.
8. Click on the “GENERATE” button to generate and export usernames.
NOTE
Respondent usernames are 8 or 9 characters long, and are made up of lower case letters and
numbers. Student usernames begin with the letter “s”; teachers/noninstructional staff begin
with “t”; noninstructional staff begin with “n”; principals begin with “np”; and parents begin
with “p”. One principal username is generated for each noninstructional data collection.
It may take 10 seconds to generate 500 usernames, and 90 seconds to generate 5,000
usernames. On the dashboard, the Generated and Exported columns will be marked with
check marks once all usernames for the data collection have been generated and exported.
By default, usernames are exported into a single CSV file for each data collection.
To add a school on the bottom blank row (state and district levels only):
1. Enter the NCES school ID into “NCES SCHOOL ID” auto-completer text box. If you do
not know the ID, click on the “Find NCES School ID” link to be redirected to the NCES
Public School Locator.
TA-21
NOTE
At the state level, the first two digits of the NCES school ID must match the American
National Standards Institute (ANSI) Code of the state education agency. At the district
level, the first seven digits of the NCES school ID must match the NCES ID of the district.
2. Select a school from the “NCES SCHOOL ID” auto-completer list, or enter another NCES
school ID.
3. If a school was selected from the “NCES SCHOOL ID” auto-completer list, the school
name and school level will be pre-filled. Otherwise, the school name will be blank and
school level will be unselected.
NOTE
The pre-filled school level is calculated from the school’s corresponding low and high
grade span values from the NCES Common Core of Data (CCD): Primary (low grade =
PK–03; high grade = PK–08); Middle (low grade = 04–07; high grade = 04–09); High (low
grade = 07–12; high grade = 12 only); Other (any other configuration not falling within the
above three categories, including Ungraded).
4. To edit or specify the school name, enter the name in the “SCHOOL NAME” text box.
5. To change or specify the school level, select a level from the “SCHOOL LEVEL” drop-
down box.
6. Click on the save icon button.
To delete a school (state and district levels only):
1. Click on the delete icon button of the school to be deleted.
To export usernames to a CSV file:
1. Under the Respondent Usernames subsection, click on the “Export” menu button.
Alternatively, click on the “EXPORT” link from the toolbar on any Respondent Usernames
page.
TA-22
2. Select the data collection from the “Data Collection” drop-down box.
3. To generate multiple export files by school, check the “Multiple Files” check box.
4. Click on the “EXPORT” button.
To create an e-mail import CSV file using a text editor:
1. Open the exported usernames CSV file in a text-editor like Notepad, WordPad, or
TextEdit.
TA-23
2. Delete the first row of column headers.
3. After each username, enter “,” and the e-mail address.
TA-24
4. Delete any rows that do not have an e-mail assigned to a username.
5. When saving the file, enter a file name, followed by “.csv”, and select “All Files” from the
“Save as type” drop-down box.
6. Click on the “Save” button.
To create an e-mail import CSV file using Microsoft Excel:
1. Open the exported usernames CSV file in a Microsoft Excel.
NOTE
The NCES ID will be shown in scientific notation.
TA-25
2. To convert the NCES ID to a text column, select column C (NCES_ID), right click, and
select “Format Cells…”.
From the Format Cells window, select “Custom” for the “Category” and “0” for the
“Type”. Then click on the “OK” button.
TA-26
3. Delete the first row of column headers.
4. Enter the e-mail addresses in column E.
5.
Delete any rows that do not have an e-mail assigned to a username.
TA-27
6. When saving the file, enter a file name and select “CSV (Comma delimited)” from the
“Save as type” drop-down box.
7. Click on the “Save” button.
To Import an e-mail CSV file:
1.
Under the Respondent Usernames subsection, click on the “Import E-mails” option
from the “Disseminate” menu.
Alternatively, click on the “IMPORT E-MAILS” option under the “DISSEMINATE”
menu from the toolbar on any Respondent Usernames page.
2. Select the data collection from the “Data Collection” drop-down box.
3. Click on the “Browse…” button to open the File Upload window.
4. Select the e-mail CSV file to import and click on the “Open” button.
5. Click on the “IMPORT FILE” button.
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To disseminate usernames via e-mail:
1. Under the Respondent Usernames subsection, click on the “Import E-mails” option from
the “Disseminate” menu.
Alternatively, click on the “E-MAIL USERNAMES” option under the “DISSEMINATE”
menu from the toolbar on any Respondent Usernames page.
2. Select the data collection from the “Data Collection” drop-down box.
3. The “Send to new recipients only” check box is checked by default. Uncheck to send
follow-up or reminder e-mails to recipients who previously received e-mails.
4. Enter the e-mail subject in the “Subject” text box.
5.
Modify the e-mail message in the “Message” text area, including replacing “{Please insert
the link to your survey}”.
6. Click on the “SEND” button.
NOTE
On the dashboard, the Disseminated column will be marked with a check mark once all
usernames for the data collection have been disseminated via e-mail.
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To refresh the data collection table after usernames have been generated, exported, disseminated:
1. Click on the refresh icon button.
2.2.8 Reports
Once a data collection has started, survey status reports real-time reports can be viewed and
exported. The survey submission rate report shows the number of usernames generated, the number
of incomplete surveys, the number of unused usernames, the overall submission rate, and case
dispositions. Refer to subsection 3.4 During Administration to learn how the survey submission
rate report can be used to provide continued communication during administration and optimize
response rates. The case disposition status report displays the disposition status (e.g., complete,
partial, and unused) for all usernames generated in each open data collection.
To view the submission rate report:
1. Under the Reports subsection, click on the “Submission Rate” option from the “Survey
Status Reports” menu.
Alternatively, click on the “SUBMISSION RATE” option under the “SURVEY STATUS
REPORTS” menu from the toolbar on any Reports page.
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2. To show detailed data for all data collections at the state or district level, click on the
expand icon button on the header row.
To show detailed data for a single data collection at the state or district level, click on the
expand icon button for that data collection.
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NOTE
The definition of each column header is as follows:
Total Usernames Generated: For each survey being administered (i.e., student, parent,
instructional staff, or noninstructional staff), the number of log-in credentials that have been
generated will be shown. Depending on the survey administration level, the total number of
log-in credentials can be displayed at the school, district, or state level.
Number of Submitted Surveys: Cases that are assigned a disposition status of “submitted”
include those where a respondent has logged in to the survey, consented to participate, and
responded to all survey items, thereby completing the survey. Submissions also include
finalized cases that do not meet the SCLS definition of a completed interview, including
those where a respondent has declined to participate at the consent page and those where a
respondent viewed all survey items and proceeded to the “thank you” screen, but did not
provide valid responses to a sufficient number of items to be classified as a completed
interview. This number will provide survey administrators with a count of the number of
respondents who have finalized their survey.
The sum of the total number of unused log-in credentials; the total number of log-ins, not yet
submitted; and the total number of survey submissions will equal the total number of log-in
credentials generated.
Number of Incomplete Surveys: Once a log-in credential is used to log in to a survey, the
case will be assigned a disposition status of “logged in, not submitted.” This status will
include cases typically considered “partial completes.” Cases assigned this status may
include those where respondents have logged in to the survey but not yet consented to
participate, where respondents have consented to participate but not yet responded to any
survey items, and where respondents have responded to survey items, but have not yet
viewed the final “thank you” screen and completed the survey. This number will provide
survey administrators with a count of the number of respondents who have started, but not
yet finalized the survey.
Number of Unused Usernames: Log-in credentials that have been assigned but not used to
access the survey will be displayed in the survey status report. This will provide
administrators with an estimate of the number of respondents who have not yet attempted to
take the survey.
Survey Submission Rate: To provide survey administrators with an estimate of the
percentage of respondents who have finalized the survey, the survey status tool will also
compute and display a survey submission rate. 2 The survey submission rate is calculated
as
100 * (S / C),
where S = the total number of survey submissions and C = the total number of log-in
credentials generated for the survey.
To hide detailed data for a single data collection at the state or district level, click on the
collapse icon button on the header row.
2
Submission rates will not be calculated by respondent subgroups, as survey log-in and submission status
will not be linked to survey data containing demographic information.
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3. To export the case disposition details, click on a link on the completion rate table, then
click on the “EXCEL”, “CSV”, or “PDF menu option.
4. To refresh the report with the latest data, click on the “REFRESH” button.
To view and export the case disposition status report:
1. Under the Reports subsection, click on the “Case Disposition” option from the “Survey
Status Reports” menu.
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Alternatively, click on the “CASE DISPOSITION” option under the “SURVEY STATUS
REPORTS” menu from the toolbar on any Reports page.
2. Click on the data collection from the “Data Collection” drop-down box.
3. To filter by case disposition status, select a status from the “Status” drop-down box.
NOTE
Status can be “Unused,” “Partial,” and “Complete.” “Unused” usernames have never been
used to log into the system. “Partial” usernames have been used to log in and begin the
survey, but have not been used to complete and submit the survey. “Complete” usernames
have been used to complete and submit the survey. Refusals are included in the “Complete”
usernames.
4. To navigate between the pages of cases, click on the “Previous” or “Next” links.
5. To export the report, click on the “Excel”, “CSV”, or “PDF” option from the “Export”
menu.
Once a data collection has closed, aggregated survey result reports, including graphical
displays of item-level frequencies and scale scores (not available during pilot testing), can be
viewed and exported. Refer to subsection 6.2 for information on how to interpret the SCLS
scales.
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To view and export the item frequency report:
1. Under the Reports subsection, click on the “Item Frequency” option from the “Survey
Results Reports” menu.
Alternatively, click on the “ITEM FREQUENCY” option under the “SURVEY RESULTS
REPORTS” menu from the toolbar on any Reports page.
2. To filter by district at the state level, select a district from the “District” drop-down box.
3. To filter by school at the state or district level, select a school from the “School” drop-
down box.
4. Click on the “GENERATE REPORT” button.
5. To show detailed data for a topical area, click on the expand icon button.
To show detailed data for all survey items within a topical area, click on the expand icon
button on the header row.
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To show detailed data for a single survey item within a topical area, click on the expand
icon button for the survey item.
6. To hide detailed data for a topical area, click on the collapse icon button.
To hide detailed data for all survey items within a topical area, click on the collapse icon
button on the header row.
To hide detailed data for a single survey item within a topical area, click on the collapse
icon button for the survey item.
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7. To view data for a domain, click on a domain header.
8. To export the report, click on the “Excel”, “CSV”, or “PDF” option from the “Export”
menu.
NOTE
The export feature is available when valid data have been collected.
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To view and export the scale score report:
1. Under the Reports subsection, click on the “Scale Score” option from the “Survey Results
Reports” menu.
Alternatively, click on the “SCALE SCORE” option under the “SURVEY RESULTS
REPORTS” menu from the toolbar on any Reports page.
2. Select the data collection from the “Data Collection” drop-down box.
3. Select the domain from the “Domain” drop-down box.
4. Select the topical area from the “Topical Area” drop-down box.
5. To filter by district at the state level, select the district from the “District” drop-down box.
6. To filter by school at the state level, select the school from the “School” drop-down box.
7. To filter by grade, check a “Grade” checkbox.
8. To filter by gender, select the gender from the “Gender” drop-down-box.
9. To filter by race/ethnicity, select the race/ethnicity from the “Race/Ethnicity” drop-downbox.
10. Click on the “GENERATE REPORT” button.
11. To export the report, click on the “Excel”, “CSV”, or “PDF” option from the
“Export” menu.
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2.2.9 Survey Results
Respondent-level survey results can be exported and imported to allow schools to provide data to
districts, and districts to states. The export data will contain the original system-generated
usernames for student respondents only to allow data to be linked to student records external to the
platform. The original usernames for parents, instructional staff, and noninstructional staff are
replaced with new usernames to prevent any linkages.
To export survey results to a CSV file:
1. Under the Survey Results subsection, click on the “Export” button.
Alternatively, click on the “EXPORT SURVEY RESULTS” link from the toolbar on any
Survey Results page.
2. Select the data collection from the “Data Collection” drop-down box.
3. Click on the “EXPORT” button.
NOTE
Response Values: “Strongly Agree” = 4; “Agree” = 3; “Disagree” = 2; “Strongly Disagree”
= 1; Item not reached or not applicable = -1; Item reached but not answered = “” (blank).
Variable Name: A unique identifying code is used for each item.
Timestamps: “START_DATETIME” “END_DATETIME,” “TIMEOUT_DATETIME,”
“LOG_OUT_DATETIME,” and “REENTRY_DATETIME.” Their values indicate,
respectively, the time when respondent started the survey, time when the respondent
completed the survey, time when respondent is timed out of the survey, time when
respondent logs out of the survey, and time when the respondent re-enters the survey.
To import a survey results CSV file:
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1. Under the Survey Results subsection, click on the “Import” button.
Alternatively, click on the “IMPORT SURVEY RESULTS” link from the toolbar on any
Survey Results page.
2. Select the data collection from the “Data Collection” drop-down box.
3. Click on the “Browse…” button to open the File Upload window.
4. Select the survey results CSV file to import and click on the “Open” button.
Click on the “IMPORT” button.
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3. Recommended Administration Practices
The recommended practices for the SCLS administration provide education agencies with an
overview of issues that they should be knowledgeable about prior to launching an SCLS
administration. The final released SCLS platform will include the national benchmark data
collected in 2016 for education agencies to compare their scales scores with. If the SCLS are
administrated at a state or district level, participating schools can also compare their own scores
with the overall state or district scale scores. This guide covers these issues and focuses on the
different survey populations, as needed. These recommendations are as follows:
3.1 Preparing for the Survey Administration
Determine the location and/or methods for administrating student, instructional staff,
noninstructional staff, and parent surveys.
• Student
a. The school’s own technology capacity plays a large part in considering whether
computer lab, media centers, or classrooms (with laptops/tablets) are options for
administering the survey. If multiple options are available, consider which venue
in your school affords the most privacy to each student.
b. While acquiring parental consent is necessary, please use the standard practice of
the state/district/school to acquire parental consent for any surveys or testing. The
paper versions of the student questionnaires are available in both English and
Spanish for parents to review. It is recommended that the paper version be sent
along with start-of-school orientation documents, if possible. As references, two
sample parental consent forms are included in Appendix G.
o If your state law does or school system policies do NOT require parents to
“opt in” for surveys of their child, you can provide them the Parent
Consent Form I found in Appendix G.1.
o If your state law or school system policies do require parents to “opt in”
for surveys of their child, you will need to provide them the Parent
Consent Form II found in Appendix G.2.
• Instructional and noninstructional staff
a. If your school does not provide instructional and noninstructional staff access to
computers in their classrooms or offices, consider creating a sign-up sheet for the
available computers for staff to rotate through.
b. The conclusions of staff meetings provide an opportune time to both explain the
surveys to staff and to have them complete them. Consider setting aside time
and/or computers during the meeting for staff to use to complete the survey.
• Parent
a. In-person explanations may be more effective at increasing parent response rates
than letters and e-mails. If a significant number of parents do not have e-mail
addresses or computer access, then letters and in-person explanations become even
more important. In such an instance, consider making the SCLS a cornerstone of
the orientation and parent-teacher conferences. Allocate more computers for SCLS
participation during these meetings and have plenty of print versions on hand for
those who request them.
o Orientation is ideal for describing the surveys to parents.
o Consider setting aside a room with computers for parents to use while they
are waiting to start their conference or after they are finished with their
conference.
•
The importance of standardized procedures:
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a. Whether your aim is to compare your school climate results to nationally
representative, state, or district data, or to establish your own trend data, applying
standardized procedures is critical to producing reliable data. Accurate measurement of
the discrepancies between two populations, or the change over time in a single
population cannot be achieved if the measurement itself is changed.
b. In the context of the SCLS, this means maintaining uniform procedures for
administering the survey to students, including the selection of proctors, using the
proctor scripts (see Appendix F), and applying strict protocols to ensure privacy. Doing
so requires a little training to familiarize the administrators and proctors with the
scripts, procedures, and use of the FAQs (see section 5 FAQs) guide to answer the
students’ questions.
•
The logistics of administering the SCLS:
a. The SCLS platform has been developed to be usable at varying levels, from entire
states to individual schools. Depending on the size and complexity of the population
and the education institution, the logistics of the administration may require different
divisions of labor.
b. For state-level administrations, consider the following configuration:
o “State Survey Administrator”: The person leading the SCLS administration
at the state level. This person controls the generation and dissemination of
username credentials for all respondents, monitors the live response rates of
each respondent group, and orchestrates the activities of the District and
School Survey Coordinators.
o “District Survey Coordinators”: The people managing the SCLS
administration at the district level. They act as liaisons between the State
Survey Administrator and the School Survey Coordinators.
o “School Survey Coordinators”: The people managing the SCLS
administration at the school level. They answer respondents’ questions about
the SCLS, remind all respondents to answer their surveys, and reserve space
for students to take the surveys.
o “Proctors”: The people administering the in-school student surveys. They
prepare the rooms for the students, read the Proctor Scripts to the students, take
note of absentees, and provide support to students having trouble with the
survey.
o Depending on the size and complexity of the district, either the District Survey
Coordinators or the School Survey Coordinators are tasked with recruiting
proctors and with organizing and conducting their training.
c. For district level administrations, consider the following configuration:
o “District Survey Administrator”: The person leading the SCLS
administration at the district level. This person controls the generation and
dissemination of username credentials for all respondents, monitors the live
response rates of each respondent group, and orchestrates the activities of the
District and School Survey Coordinators.
o “School Survey Coordinator”: The people managing the SCLS
administration at the school level. These people answer respondents’ questions
about the SCLS, remind all respondents to answer their surveys, reserve space
for students to take surveys, etc.
o “Proctors”: The people administering the in-school student surveys. These
people prepare the rooms for the students, read the Proctor Scripts to the
students, take note of absentees, and provide support to students having trouble
with the survey.
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d. For school level administrations, consider the following configuration:
o “School Survey Administrator”: The person leading the SCLS administration
at the school. This person controls the generation and dissemination of
username credentials for all respondents, and monitors the live response rates
of each respondent group. The person also answers respondents’ questions
about the SCLS, reminds all respondents to answer their surveys, reserves
space for students to take surveys, etc. This person also recruits Proctors, and
organizes and conducts the Proctor Training.
o “Proctors”: The people administering the in-school student surveys. These
people prepare the rooms for the students, read the Proctor Scripts to the
students, take note of absentees, and provide support to students having trouble
with the survey.
•
Selecting proctors for the student survey:
a. The student surveys need classroom proctors, and therefore require an administrator or
coordinator to select the proctors and furnish them with the usernames and scripts.
Depending on the size and complexity of your administration, this task can either be
accomplished by a district-level coordinator or it may need to be devolved to schoollevel coordinators.
b. Eligible proctors may include teachers, student-teachers, noninstructional staff, school
counselors, school nurses, or outside consultants. If teachers or student-teachers are
used, please consider having them proctor for classes of students that they do not teach.
Despite overt privacy procedures, students may not be as open to providing honest
responses in the vicinity of their regular class teacher.
•
Training Proctors:
a. Training the proctors is critical to ensuring that the students finish the survey within a
single class period. Provide the proctors with the Proctor Script (see Appendix F) hold
an in-person or virtual meeting to review the materials and field any questions the
proctors may have.
b. All individuals involved in administering the SCLS, including the survey proctors,
should sign the Confidentiality Pledge (see Appendix E). This reinforces the
commitment to confidentiality and the signed form can be shown to parents to address
privacy concerns.
•
Information on collecting data from a universe of respondents:
a. It is recommended that data be collected from all eligible respondents at a school to
obtain a full picture of the school climate.
b. Response rate: Achieving high response rates are very important for obtaining valid
and unbiased data. Education agencies should make a decision regarding the minimal
response rates of a school for it to be included in reporting.
•
Overcoming the challenges around communicating with parents:
a. Parents’ opinions about a school’s climate are very important. However, obtaining
interest and support from parents can be challenging. Parents may not have the
technology to access the survey or have enough technical skills to answer the online
survey. Parents may also be too busy to respond to the survey. Given these challenges,
we recommend reaching out to parents early, informing them about the goal of the
survey and providing opportunities to ask questions. Schools may need to get creative
in getting parents interested in the survey. It is important to note that the parent survey
is short and it can be answered on any mobile device such as tablets or smart phones.
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3.2 Setting Administration Window
Setting the dates of the administration involves early planning. The dates of the data collection
window can affect participation rates, the perceptions of certain school climate factors, and future
administrations. Consider the following guidelines:
• Validity
a. The national benchmark survey will be conducted between February and the end of
April, 2016. If you are principally interested in comparing your survey results to those
of the nation, you should set your data collection window to the same time frame. If
your state or district is principally interested in comparing school scores across the
state or district, your state or district should administrate surveys to all participating
schools during the same time frame.
b. If you intend to use the SCLS to establish trend data, repeated administrations should
be conducted cyclically, during the same 2-week to 1-month window, annually or
biannually. This prevents conflation of cyclical factors with structural factors.
c. School Year Schedule
o The SCLS should be administered no later than April, if possible. Later
administrations face the challenge of competing for time with standardized
tests, increasingly busy school schedules, and higher absentee rates (an
especially acute problem when surveying 12th grade students).
d. Other Considerations
o Holidays. It is best to avoid conducting the SCLS after long school breaks,
especially after the winter holiday and spring break. In general, surveys should
not be conducted on the day immediately before or after a holiday because
absentee rates may spike.
o Days of the Week. If possible, avoid administering the SCLS on Mondays and
Fridays as they often have unusually low attendance rates. This is particularly
prevalent on Fridays before a Monday holiday.
o Adjusting the Dates of the Data Collection Window. If the submission rates 3
are low, the SCLS platform allows the survey administrator to extend the data
collection window period. This is a particularly attractive feature when
encountering high numbers of respondents whose status is “logged-in, not
submitted.” This group of people has shown interest by logging in, and may be
convinced to finish the survey if reminded and given a little more time.
3.3 Test Run Prior to Administration of Student Surveys
It is useful to do a test-run of the platform and logistics chain to make sure that the platform has
been installed properly and the system works. It is also useful for familiarizing yourself and the
administrators with the process. For efficiency, consider folding this test-run into the training of
district- and/or school-level administrators.
• Set the Data Collection start and end date.
• Generate one username for each respondent group.
• Use the usernames to login and answer the first few questions.
• Check the “Survey Status Reports” ---> “Case Disposition” section to make sure it is
showing your username as “Partial.”
• Complete the rest of the survey.
• Check the “Survey Status Reports” ---> “Case Disposition” section to make sure it is
showing your username as “Completed.”
3
The number of cases submitted over the number of usernames generated.
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•
After the data collection end date, check the “Survey Status Reports” section to make sure
it reflects question-level data.
Two or three days before the survey, the administrator should distribute the following materials to
each proctor:
• Classroom number(s) and period(s) of their administrations;
• Class roster (to keep track of absentees);
• Student usernames;
• Proctor Instructions; and
• Proctor Script (see Appendix F).
3.4 During Administration
Guidelines to continued communication during administration:
• The SCLS platform does not allow the survey coordinator to see which individuals have
completed the survey. However, it does tell the user how many of the usernames generated
for each survey have been logged in and how many of those have completed the survey
(see subsection 2.2.8 Reports of the Technical Guide). The survey administrator can then
use the submission rates to motivate non-respondents to participate. For example, the
submission rates can be included in the reminders sent to participants. We recommend
displaying the numbers in visual formats (e.g., pie graphs) for added effect. If you are
conducting the survey in multiple schools, you can imbue a competition aspect by
publicizing the completion rates of each school. The same concept can be applied to a
whole district or state, depending on the size of your administration.
Monitoring submission rates:
• Achieving a high response rate is important to avoid nonresponse bias. Nonresponse bias
occurs when the views expressed by those who respond do not reflect the views of nonrespondents. For example, a possible SCLS manifestation of nonresponse bias could
involve the most dedicated staff members eschewing the survey to cater to students’
immediate needs. Such staff members are likely to have very strong staff-student
relationships, but if they do not complete the survey, the overall results may be skewed
towards weaker relationships.
• Please note that since the SCLS does not allow pre-loading of respondent data, the survey
administrators can generate usernames of any number 4 and later assign them to eligible
respondents within or outside of the system. Given this feature, the SCLS system will
display submission rates. These rates will be the same as the response rates if the number
of usernames generated is the same as the number of eligible respondents. In cases where
extra usernames are generated, submission rates can only be used as an approximation of
response rates.
Nonresponse intervention options:
• Reminder emails and/or letters that can be sent to respondent groups to increase
participation.
• Who sends the reminders to which respondent groups is best determined by relationship
immediacy. As such, teachers are the best contact points for reaching out to parents,
principals are best suited to influencing instructional and noninstructional staff to respond,
and district leaders are best suited to achieving full participation from principals.
4
Extra usernames will be generated if an administrator sets the number of usernames in the system higher
than the actual number of eligible respondents.
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Lackluster response rates are most acute in parent surveys of school climate. Consider the
following strategies to optimize parents’ response rates:
• Emphasize the value/actionability of the data gathered and ensure confidentiality. The
usernames are not connected to any particular individual. The parents’ input is valuable
because they are the only adult stakeholders in the school system who are not directly part
of that school system.
• Teacher-parent conferences provide an opportune venue for parents to complete the survey.
The teachers give feedback on the child’s progress to the parents, and the parents can then
provide feedback to the school about its climate. We recommend designating a room with
computers for parents to fill out the survey while they are waiting for their turn with the
teacher or when they are finished with their conference.
a. Be careful about soliciting parent input during other school-sponsored events, like
PTA meetings. Such programs draw a narrower band of parents who are likely to
be far more involved in their child’s school than the average parent, leading to an
over-representation of a subset of the population.
Nonresponse Bias:
• When the response rate is below 80 percent, a nonresponse bias analysis is recommended
to determine whether or not the respondents to your study are representative of the
population in your school, district, or state and to assess the potential magnitude of
nonresponse bias. The analysis will help evaluate whether the data or reports based on the
data are biased by the missing respondents.
• SCLS administrators can use the frequency distributions of the demographic variables
(grade [student only], race/ethnicity, and sex) that are included in the reports and compare
them to another data source that has the frequencies of these demographic variables for the
total population. The non-response bias worksheet with embedded formulas is included in
the SCLS package and can be used to carry out basic analysis. A worksheet for student
survey will look like this:
Student Characteristic
Grade
5th Grade
6th Grade
7th Grade
8th Grade
9th Grade
10th Grade
11th Grade
12th Grade
Ungraded
Gender
Male
Female
Race/Ethnicity
American Indian or Alaska Native
Asian
Black/African-American
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
Hispanic
Two or more races
White
Percent of
respondents
Percent of
students
Estimated
bias
Relative
bias
12.5
11.9
12.5
13.8
12.5
11.3
11.9
12.5
1.3
12.0
12.0
12.0
12.0
12.0
12.0
12.0
12.0
4.0
0.5
-0.1
0.5
1.8
0.5
-0.7
-0.1
0.5
-2.7
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.0
-0.1
0.0
0.0
-2.1
50.0
50.0
45.0
55.0
5.0
-5.0
0.1
-0.1
10.0
5.0
15.0
5.0
20.0
5.0
40.0
2.0
7.0
15.0
5.0
20.0
1.0
50.0
8.0
-2.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
4.0
-10.0
0.8
-0.4
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.8
-0.3
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•
•
The “Percent of respondents” column indicates the characteristics of the respondents to the
survey. The “Percent of students” is extant information from the administrative data of the
school or school system. The SCLS administrator should enter the demographic
characteristics included at the end of item frequency report into the second column, labeled
“Percent of respondents” and comparable data from the administrator’s records should be
entered into the third column, labeled “Percent of students” in the example (this should
also be used for the other categories of respondents). The “estimated bias” column
indicates, in percentage point terms, differences between respondent and overall student
population differences. The “relative bias column” indicates how large the bias is relative
to the estimates from the “percent of respondents” column.
In those cases in which the administrator has elected to preserve the identity of the students
for the purpose of linking to data from their record systems, student survey responses can
also be linked to external data sources to conduct more detailed bias analysis using
additional student data to measure bias within the responding population as compared to
the full population. Additionally, if the data are being collected at the district or state level,
the administrator can add additional school and district data for additional analyses. If
these additional data are used, the administrator would add the additional variables to the
first column labeled [Student] characteristic, and drag the formulas in the fourth and fifth
columns to the row corresponding to the end of the list of characteristics.
The bias is computed by subtracting each value in the “Percent of [students]” column from
the comparable value in the “Percent of respondents” column. The relative bias is the bias
estimate for each row divided by “Percent of respondents”. For any group of respondents,
if the estimated bias is larger than 1 percentage point (greater than 1.0 or less then -1.0), the
survey data should be used with caution. Administrators should also be cautious if the
relative bias is larger than 0.3 or less than -0.3. We can provide assistance to schools and
districts in the pilot with their nonresponse bias analysis if needed.
Providing support to parent, instructional staff, and noninstructional staff:
• The SCLS package sent to all non-student respondents should include the FAQs provided
in Section 7.
• If the FAQs do not provide the answer respondents’ queries can be routed to survey
administrators or appropriate personnel:
a. Questions and/or comments about Survey Questions
o Contact [NCES, affiliation, email, telephone]
b. Questions about logging-in (username not working, resetting usernames, using
PIN, etc…)
o Contact [Survey Administrator, affiliation, email, telephone]
c. Questions about Survey functionality and user-interface (navigation, time-outs,
Spanish/English toggle feature, etc…)
o Contact [AIR 5 , affiliation, email, telephone]
d. Questions about Survey technological requirements (hardware and software
required updates, access via Mac/Windows/Linux, access via different browsers,
etc…)
o Contact [AIR5 , affiliation, email, telephone]
5
For the pilot test and the national benchmark study only. Thereafter, the SCLS administrators will need to
rely on this User Guide. This User Guide will be updated to address common queries encountered during
the pilot test and the national benchmark study.
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3.5 After Administration
Results
The SCLS platform automatically produces a report upon completion of each survey. 6 However, if
you wish to apply further analysis of the data, you may export the data into an excel file and then
manipulate it as needed.
Storage of the Data
The education agency that conducts the SCLS is responsible for storing the data in a secure
manner. Any materials that directly or indirectly identify respondents should be kept in a locked
compartment in a locked room when not in use. For the pilot, AIR will receive data from local
educational agencies after direct identifiers are removed from the data. The data will be password
protected and kept on a secure server.
Deletion of the Data
The SCLS platform can be used for multiple cycles without deleting prior data collections. The
platform’s tools have been streamlined to allow sorting according to each administration. Keeping
the data makes multi-administration comparison easier by establishing trend lines. However, the
data are ultimately the responsibility of the education agency that collected them, and deleting or
preserving them is the discretion of that agency.
4. Instructions for in-School Administration of the Student Survey
The instructions for in-school administration of the student survey guides school staff, including
survey administrators, in effectively and consistently administering the SCLS. The topics include:
• Scheduling resources (e.g., time in computer labs)
a. The student survey portion of the SCLS has been designed to be completed in a
single, 50-60 minute class period. This includes the proctor reading the script to
students, the students logging in, and the student completing the survey. Thus, the
school survey administrator should be able to follow the standard computer
lab/media center reservation procedures at his/her respective school.
• Accommodations for students (e.g., magnifying devices, bilingual dictionary, extended
time, small group administration)
a. The SCLS surveys are 508 compliant 7 and are provided in both English and
Spanish for students. For any additional accommodations, schools can choose to
provide them as they usually do for student testing.
• Absent students (i.e., preparing for make-up administration time)
a. For student surveys it is important to fold make-up dates into the data collection
window, especially for large school-, district-, and state-level administrations.
Absentees are inevitable, and a large enough number of them could introduce a
non-response bias. Have at least one make-up day set aside for school-level
surveys, and consider setting aside multiple dates for larger administrations.
• Setting the ground rules of the administration
a. Students should be instructed to take a seat at a computer terminal of their choice
that has a voluntary assent form and a username card to use to log-into the survey.
They should be reminded to stay quiet throughout the survey to avoid distracting
6
During the pilot study, only the survey submission reports and item frequency reports are available in the
system. Scale scores will be provided to participating schools/districts only after the pilot data have been
analyzed.
7
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended in 1998, requires that all Federal information
that is accessible electronically must be accessible for those with disabilities.
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•
•
•
•
fellow classmates. If they have a problem logging into the survey, they should
raise their hands. If they have a question about the meaning of language used in the
survey, they should do their best to figure out the intent—in order to ensure
privacy, the proctor cannot answer such questions.
b. When the above has been stated, the proctor should begin reading the Proctor
Script (see Appendix F).
Assigning log-in credentials and ensuring all students can log in to the survey platform
a. It should be evident to the students if the proctor can connect a username to a
student or not. If the linkage to other student data is not planned, we recommend
placing a username at each computer before the students arrive, and then allowing
them to choose where they sit. If you prefer assigned seating, we recommend
having students pick up a username from a stack as they walk into the room. If the
linkage to other student data is planned, usernames will need to be handed out after
students’ names are verified. Use the standard administration procedures and
conduct the surveys in settings that ensure students’ privacy.
b. The proctor should be free to move around the room until every student has
successfully logged in and reached the welcome page. If a student has trouble, ask
him/her to try the username again, paying careful attention to special characters
and capitalization. If the problem persists, provide the student with a new
username, make note of the problematic username and pass it on to the survey
administrator. Once a student logs in, the system will generate a PIN for re-entry to
their survey. The PIN cannot be recovered by the survey administrators. Please
instruct students to write down their PINs in case they need to re-enter the survey.
Accessing the survey in Spanish
a. The SCLS platform has a bilingual toggle feature for student and parent surveys.
Students can click on the “English/Español” links on top of the item to select the
language.
Answering students’ questions
a. The proctor should help students log-in. Once students are logged in, the proctor
should not try to come up with answers to any questions about wording of any
items in the survey in order to maintain privacy and standardized protocols. In case
of questions, please tell students to try their best to respond based on their best
guess. Also note the items and the questions students have and pass the
information to NCES through the survey administrators.
Closing out when the survey period ends
a. It is best not to allow students to leave the class or surf the web upon finishing the
survey as this may incentivize them to rush through it too quickly. Either ask them
to sit quietly or give them an activity that will not disturb others (e.g., a reading
assignment).
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5. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The FAQs will provide both education agency staff and technical assistance staff with a list of
potential questions and answers for general questions about the SCLS, as well as technical issues
and survey administration issues. The list of FAQs will be initially developed based on the
experience of the SCLS team in administering school-based surveys via an online platform, and
will be updated after the pilot study and the national benchmarking study.
Q: How long will the surveys take?
A: The surveys range in time. The student, instructional, and noninstructional staff surveys take
about 30 minutes to complete and the parent survey takes about 15 minutes. 8
Q: Can I modify/remove questions I don’t want?
A: Modifying or removing survey questions will potentially affect the psychometric properties of
the SCLS scales, thereby posing significant risks to the comparability of results across
education agencies and to national benchmarks. Specifically, the questions to be offered in the
SCLS are intended to produce psychometrically validated scales, and it is crucial for the
statistical validity of those scales that all questions remain in the survey. As a result, schools
and districts will not be able to alter the questions that are currently part of the SCLS.
Q: Can I add additional questions?
A: In the released version, after the pilot study, the platform will allow education agencies to add
questions in the same multiple-choice format to the end of the surveys. The platform will not
provide any reporting on these additional questions. However, education agencies can export
the data files and perform additional analysis and reporting outside of the system.
Q: If there is a problem setting up the survey platform in the pilot study, who can I contact?
A: There is an SCLS Help Desk that will be available should you have any problems setting up
the survey platform. You may contact the SCLS Help Desk at 1-844-849-5252, or send an
email to schoolclimate@air.org.
Q: Who will be responsible for the data collected? Where are the data stored?
A: Depending on the level of the survey administration, either your individual school, local school
district, or state will be responsible for the data collected. These data collected will be stored on
the respective school, district, or state servers.
Q: Do we need to obtain any additional approval for administrating the survey?
A: It is the responsibility of the education agency who is adminstering the SCLS to check if
additional approval is required by the state or locality.
Q: What questions do the surveys ask?
A: The surveys cover a wide range of topics related to school climate, including questions
concerning school engagement, school safety, and school environment. The survey does not
ask about the personal experiences of individuals, but rather, asks about the perceptions of
levels of safety, engagement, and environment at the school.
8
The pilot study versions of the questionnaires are longer. Items that do not perform well in the pilot study
will be removed from the released SCLS platform. In the pilot study, It will take around one hour to
administer and complete the student, instructional staff, and noninstrutional staff surveys. The parent
survey takes around half an hour to complete.
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Q: Are the paper versions of the questionnaires available?
A: Print versions of the questionnaires are available for review, but SCLS are designed to be
responded to online.
Q: Who should respond to the surveys?
A: The surveys were designed with all relevant stakeholders in mind. As a result, all school staff,
along with all students and parents/guardians of students enrolled at the school should respond
to the surveys.
Q: When is the best time to administer the surveys?
A: While local needs and context may vary, it is recommended that the surveys be administered
sometime during the spring.
Q: How frequently can the surveys be administered?
A: There is no limitation to the frequency of survey administration in a given school year.
However, to ensure consistency of data, the surveys should be administered during the same
cyclical time frame each year.
Q: Can we administer just one or some of the four surveys?
A: You can. However, SCLS is designed to be a suite of surveys to establish a baseline of school
climate across all relevant stakeholders. We recommend the administration of the surveys to all
respondent groups in order to obtain the most comprehensive picture of the school’s climate.
Q: What kind of information does the survey platform provide during live administrations?
A: The SCLS platform provides access to real-time submission rates at the school level. These
submission rates are determined based on the number of respondents in each population who
have logged into the survey and the education agencies’ reports of the number of expected
respondents in each population (i.e., the number of respondent access codes generated). The
platform also allows administrators to identify the usernames that have not been used, have
started the survey and have completed the survey.
Q: What are the accommodations for students with disability or ELL?
A: The SCLS platform is 508 compliant and has been programmed so that the survey can be
completed in either English or Spanish. However, it is beyond the scope of this project to
directly accommodate additional student needs, such as translation into languages other than
English and Spanish.
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6. SCLS Reports
6.1 Item Frequency Reports
For each item in the SCLS surveys, means and frequency distributions are displayed graphically.
The graphical displays include the item wording, response options, percentage of valid responses
for each response option, and mean of the responses, displayed both numerically and using a
vertical bar (see figure 1). Frequency distributions are available for each item, including
demongraphic items (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender), with a sufficient number and variability of
responses. The crosstabs of some demongraphic variables are also available. Items are clustered by
domain and topical area, and displayed within topical areas in survey order. To protect the
confidentiality of respondents, and to provide meaningful data, frequency distributions will not be
shown for an item with fewer than 10 respondents. When the display graph symbol (“+”) for a
suppressed item is clicked, “Item not shown due to disclosure risk” is displayed.
To protect respondent confidentiality, reporting responses by respondent subgroups (e.g.,
race/ethnicity, grade) will not be permitted for item-level frequency distributions. For district-level
administrations, reporting responses by school will be available. This subgroup function will
enable districts to examine results at the school level and states to examine results at the school and
district levels when they host the associated data in the SCLS platform.
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Figure 1. SCLS item frequency display
6.2 Understanding the SCLS scales 9
This section will provide education agencies with information on how to interpret the SCLS scales.
SCLS measure three domains -Engagement, Safety and Environment - and 13 topical areas. For the
student, instructional staff, and noninstructional staff surveys, the aim is to measure most of the
topical areas with scales; these topical area scale scores may be consolidated into the domain scores
(Engagement, Environment, and Safety). For each of the topical areas that will be measured with a
scale, The pilot version of the questionnaires include 7-10 items for the student, instructional staff,
and noninstructional staff surveys, with the aim of ending up with 5-6 items per topical area in the
final SCLS instruments. Due to the small number of items included in the emergency readiness and
management topical area, we will omit this topical area as a scale score. For the parent survey, the
aim is to create domain scales, given the limited survey items.
For each construct in the SCLS surveys, scale score reports in the released SCLS system after the
pilot study will be available for each respondent group immediately after the close of data
9
The scale reports are not available in the pilot test because the data collected from the pilot test will be
used to create scales. The reports will be available in the released platform after the pilot.
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collection. For each respondent group, individual topical area scores of all completed surveys will
be aggregated at the education agency level and graphically presented.
6.2.1 Presentation of Scale Scores
Graphical displays of scale scores are available for each topical area (and domain, where
appropriate). The use of theta scores to represent construct measurements can be thought of as
similar to SAT scores, where the raw value is meaningful in its relation to a comparison point. The
graphical presentation of these theta scores can show the average theta score and the comparison
point (e.g., the national top third from the benchmarking study to be conducted in 2016) for a
respondent group, as shown in the example in figure 2. It displays tertile information from the
national distribution and school score to provide such national comparison information.
Figure 2. SCLS scale report: Bar display with national information, exact score
SCLS Scale Results Report
Data Collection: 03/30/16-05/25/16: Students
SCLS Scale Score: Emotional Safety
Report Date: May 22, 2016 18:06:41
Note: Thirds are displayed to provide context for the distribution. The line shows the exact score of a school.
In the event that there are very few respondents overall or in a subgroup (for example, if there is
only one respondent of a certain race/ethnicity), reporting might result in indirect disclosure of a
respondent’s identity. To minimize the risk of disclosure to respondents while providing as much
usable information as possible, scale scores for any respondent group or subgroup with fewer than
3 respondents will be suppressed. 10 For groups with 3 to fewer than 10 respondents, average scale
10
In place of the graph, the following text will be displayed: “Score not shown due to disclosure risk.”
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scores (or ranges) will not be displayed. Instead, the national tertile in which the average is
associated will be displayed as the result, as shown in figure 3.
Figure 3. SCLS scale report: Bar display with national information, range
SCLS Scale Results Report
Data Collection: 03/30/16-05/25/16: Students
SCLS Scale Score: Emotional Safety
Report Date: May 22, 2016 18:06:41
Note: Thirds are displayed to provide context for the distribution. Shading indicates that a schoo'sl score is in
the range of that tertile.
6.2.2 Subgroup Reporting
Users have the option of displaying scale score results by selected subgroups. For the student
surveys, the available subgroups are grade, gender, and race/ethnicity. Reporting levels can be
selected and modified by users from within the reporting dashboard using drop-down lists. A
separate drop-down list for each demographic variable available for subgroup reporting appears at
the top of the reporting page (figure 4), and users may choose any combination of subgroups.
Figure 4. SCLS drop-down lists
For example, a user who wants to produce a report for White Hispanic students would select the
option for “White” from the race drop-down list and “Hispanic” from the ethnicity drop-down list,
and a user who wants to produce a report for female White Hispanic students would select
“Female” from the gender drop-down list in addition to the race and ethnicity options.
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In order to present subgroup results in a meaningful and easily interpretable way (and without
overwhelming the user with information), each category within the subgroup will be presented in a
simple bar graph that shows the percentage of respondents in the category that fall into each tertile,
based on the national distribution. Figure 5 provides an example of the distribution of male
respondents based on tertiles from the national distribution.
Figure 5. SCLS scale report: Bar display with percentage of respondents in low, middle, and
high national tertile groups, one category
Emotional Safety Score
60%
48%
50%
37%
40%
30%
20%
Males in School X
15%
10%
0%
Low (150-250)
Middle(251-497)
High(498-750)
National Tertiles
Users will also have the option of requesting subgroup reporting for multiple categories (as shown
in figure 6), or for the same category/categories across schools (as shown in figure 7).
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Figure 6. SCLS scale report: Bar display with percentage of respondents in low, middle, and
high national tertile groups, two categories
SCLS Scale Results Report
Data Collection: 03/30/16-05/25/16: Students
SCLS Scale Score: Emotional Safety
Report Date: May 22, 2016 18:06:41
Emotional Safety Score
60%
50%
40%
30%
Males in School X
20%
Females in School X
10%
0%
Low (150-250)
Middle(251-497)
High(498-750)
National Tertiles
As with the overall scale scores, for any category with fewer than 3 respondents, results are not
shown and suppression text appears below (or to the side of) the graph that reads “Results are not
shown for due to disclosure risk.” In the event that a category within a subgroup
had between 3 and 9 respondents, the percentage distribution is not shown, and additional
suppression text appears below (or to the side of) the graph that presents information about that
groups placement in comparison to the national average (above or below). For example, if there are
between 3 and 9 Asian students in a graph showing race/ethnicity results, the additional
suppression text might read “The average scale for Asian students is above the national average.
More detailed results are not presented due to disclosure risk.”
“District” and “school” are available as categories for reporting, and all schools or districts that
have associated data in the data table are presented as reporting options in the drop-down list. For a
single school that is hosting the SCLS, no school or district options is presented. 11 Similarly, for a
single district, only school-level options is available. This reporting function enables districts to
examine results at the school level and states to examine results at the school and district levels
when they host the associated data in the SCLS platform. Multiple schools may also be chosen to
produce comparison reports. Figure 7 provides an example of a comparison (subgroup) report for
multiple schools.
11
While the drop-down lists will be displayed, no choices will appear when clicked.
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Figure 7. SCLS scale report: Bar display with percentage of respondents in low, middle, and
high national tertile groups, two schools
SCLS Scale Results Report
Data Collection: 03/30/16-05/25/16: Students
SCLS Scale Score: Emotional Safety
Emotional Safety Score
70%
60%
50%
40%
Males in School X
30%
20%
Males in School Y
10%
0%
Low (150-250) Middle(251-497) High(498-750)
National Tertiles
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Appendix A
What SCLS Measure
Appendix A.1 – SCLS Research Base (content)
Appendix A.2 – SCLS Research Base (references)
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Appendix A.1
SCLS Research Base (content)
Three domains – Engagement, Safety and Environment, and their associated topical areas form the
SCLS model of school climate (figure 8). Each of these domains and topical areas are measured in
each of the four survey instruments. Some of these domains and topical areas are closely related to
one another and include similar concepts—SCLS takes a panoramic approach in order to fully map
the composition and influences of a school’s climate. The remainder of this section provides a brief
description of each domain and topical area and demonstrates its connection to the broader
construct of school climate.
Figure 8. SCLS model of school climate
Domain:
Engagement
Domain:
Safety
Domain:
Environment
Topics:
Topics:
Topics:
Cultural and linguistic
competence
Emotional safety
Physical environment
Physical safety
Instructional
environment
Relationships
Bullying/
cyberbullying
Substance abuse
School participation
Emergency readiness/
management
Physical health
Mental health
Discipline
Engagement
Engagement includes several components of “school connectedness,” such as the amount of effort
students expend in the work of learning, their sense of belonging, and their emotional involvement
with the school (Marks 2000). The amount of effort students devote to schoolwork is critical to
their academic success because grades encapsulate not just mastery of content, but also labor
invested (e.g., homework assignments, class participation, and extra-credit assignments)
(Willingham, Pollock, and Lewis 2002). The rapport built between students and the important
people in their lives at school establishes an important foundation for students’ perceptions of
academia. As Blum (2005b, p. 4) observed, “people connect with people before they connect with
institutions”—thus, positive relationships with instructors can contribute significantly to how much
students value instruction. Data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988
(NELS:88) also lend significant credence to the power of teacher-student relationships: they show
that positive student beliefs about how much their teachers support their efforts to succeed in
school are related to a reduction in the probability of students dropping out (Croninger and Lee
2001).
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In the SCLS, engagement constitutes three topical areas: cultural and linguistic competence,
relationships, and participation.
Cultural and Linguistic Competence
Cultural and linguistic competence involves the degree to which students and families from diverse
backgrounds feel welcome and connected to their school. When teachers seek to engage in
unbiased instruction and to learn about their students, they can better respond to their students’
needs (Gay 2010; Richards, Brown, and Forde 2004; Villegas and Lucas 2002). Ruus et al. (2007)
found that the school value system and students’ perceptions of teacher attitudes were significantly
associated with students’ optimistic acceptance of life, psychological and physical well-being, and
academic success.
Relationships
Positive relationships between students, adults, and peers are characterized by affirmative social
interactions, leading to a nurturing environment of trust and support. When coupled with a
consistent emphasis on academic performance, a strong sense of support and school community
has been positively associated with improved academic achievement (Lee et al. 1990). The quality
of relationships is also important to faculty job satisfaction. A qualitative study by Hargreaves
(2000) found that teachers cite their relationships with their students as one of the most important
aspects of their work. In addition, teachers say that their job satisfaction is also contingent on their
relationships with parents (Shann 1998).
School Participation
Participation encompasses all of students’ efforts in the school context, ranging from class
participation to extracurricular activities. Parents and staff also participate in school in various
ways, such as through collective decision making and student instruction. Strong
interconnectedness between staff, students, families, and school—as demonstrated by student
participation in self-directed or cooperative activities—can contribute to a positive climate (Cohen
2006; Cohen et al. 2009). Meaningful participation at school cultivates students’ self-efficacy,
decision-making and leadership skills, and personal talents and strengths (Jennings 2003; Holland
and Andre 1987).
Safety
Emotional and physical safety are fundamental characteristics of high-quality schools; in these
schools, students feel a sense of belonging and are free to focus on learning (Dwyer and Osher
2000). Conversely, unsafe schools are associated with student and teacher victimization, increased
truancy, lower levels of school attachment, decreased graduation rates, and increased disciplinary
problems (Arseneault et al. 2006; Astor, Guerra, and Van Acker 2010; Bowen and Bowen 1999;
Chen 2007; Henrich et al. 2004; Juvonen, Nishina, and Graham 2000; Neild, Furstenberg Jr., and
Stoner-Eby 2002; Mayer and Furlong 2010). Current research also suggests that the perception of
physical and emotional safety is directly related to academic achievement (Glew et al. 2005; Osher
and Kendziora 2010; Ripski and Gregory 2009). The positive effects of safe schools influence
school staff as well. Gregory and colleagues found that cumulative daily stress—forged by
disrespectful behavior and obscene remarks from students—has serious implications on teachers’
mental health (Gregory, Cornell, and Fan 2012); such abuse is directly linked to, and may be an
important cause of, their premature retirement (Bauer et al. 2006).
In the SCLS, the safety domain includes five topics: emotional safety, physical safety, bullying,
substance abuse, and emergency readiness and management.
Emotional Safety
Emotional safety is the actual and perceived experience of feeling safe to express emotions and the
confidence to take appropriate academic risks (Blum 2005a; Osher and Kendziora 2010). This
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aspect of safety contributes to a school’s climate of mutual respect, trust, and equitable treatment
among all members of the school community. Perceptions of respect, trust, and fairness are linked
with school interconnectedness (i.e., a sense of community) (Blum 2005a; Resnick et al. 1997;
Chapman et al. 2011). The experience of interconnectedness bonds students to schools, enhances
well-being, and reduces risky and antisocial behavior (Battistich and Hom 1997; Frey et al. 2009;
Libbey, Ireland, and Resnick 2002; McGraw et al. 2008).
Physical Safety
Physical safety is predicated on protecting students from being victims of or witnesses to violence.
There is a long history of research on the importance of safety to individuals’ social and emotional
growth, including Abraham Maslow’s (1954) hierarchy of needs, wherein safety and security are
ranked second only to basic physiological needs. In order for students to focus on and learn about
abstract concepts, they must be free from worry about their physical safety. In schools where
students reported higher levels of safety, a higher percentage of students passed standardized tests,
even after controlling for free- or reduced-price lunch status (Milam, Furr-Holden, and Leaf 2010).
Bullying
Bullying constitutes unwanted and aggressive actions directed from one person to another; the
definition of bullying also involves a real or perceived power imbalance between the two parties,
with the actions being repeated or having the potential to be repeated (Olweus 1997). Cyberbullying is a recent permutation, wherein electronic devices—such as cell phones, computers, and
tablets—are used to target the victim. Bullying undermines perceptions of safety (Sampson 2009,
p. 1), and student-student and student-teacher relationships (Swearer et al. 2010), making bullying
prevention important for fostering a positive school climate (Cohen and Freiberg 2013; Thapa et al.
2013).
Substance Abuse
Substance abuse is a harmful pattern of using substances such as alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, or
prescription drugs. This behavior carries the risk of directly causing or aggravating physical and
mental health issues, impeding the cognitive growth necessary for academic success, and
fomenting substance dependence. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance
Abuse (2001), “it is estimated that each year substance abuse costs schools at least $41 billion in
truancy, special education, and disciplinary problems; disruption; teacher turnover; and property
damage.” 12
Emergency Readiness and Management
Emergency readiness entails a school’s preparedness to respond to a crisis or to an emergency such
as a natural disaster, a violent incident, or an act of terrorism (National Child Traumatic Stress
Network 2013). According to the U.S. Department of Education (2013), emergency readiness
includes prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery. Fostering a positive school
climate can help prevent emergencies—because it can reduce the incidence of behaviors that
contribute to crises (e.g., violence, bullying, harassment, substance abuse)—and help students
respond to and recover from emergencies (U.S. Department of Education 2013). Additionally,
Cornell and colleagues found that having a threat assessment program was associated with having a
more positive and supportive school climate (Cornell et al. 2009).
Environment
Positive school environments are characterized by appropriate and well-maintained facilities; wellmanaged classrooms with high levels of engagement, rigor, productivity, and inclusion; a range of
available school-based health supports; clear, fair disciplinary policies; and explicit policies and
12
This is equivalent to $54.2 billion in 2014 dollars.
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procedures governing various school practices (Hamre and Pianta 2005; Welsh 2001). In addition
to the resources and beneficial normative experiences provided to students through support staff,
positive school environments also afford faculty varied and diverse opportunities to meet students’
physical and mental health needs during the regular and extended school day (Hoagwood and
Erwin 1997; Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee 2008; Stevens et al. 2008; Telford
et al. 2012). A significant body of research suggests that different characteristics of the school
environment (including elements of order, facilities, school rules, and discipline) influence student,
adult, and school outcomes, both directly and indirectly (Buckley, Schneider, and Shang 2005;
Gottfredson et al. 2005; LeBlanc et al. 2007; Lo et al. 2011; Payne 2008; Payne, Gottfredson, and
Gottfredson 2003; Planty and DeVoe 2005; Roque and Paternoster 2011; Tillyer, Wilcox, and
Gialopsos 2010; Wang and Dishion 2011).
In the SCLS, the environment domain consists of five topical areas: physical environment,
instructional environment, physical health, mental health, and discipline.
Physical Environment
A school’s physical environment encompasses the physical appearance and functioning of the
building, including lighting (artificial and natural), thermal comfort, air quality and ventilation,
acoustics and noise control, size and configuration of rooms, permanent versus portable rooms,
safety measures (cameras, signage, metal detectors, etc.), location, and neighborhood surrounding
it (Earthman 2004; National School Boards Association 1996; O’Sullivan 2006; Planty and DeVoe
2005; Schneider 2002). The condition of school facilities is highly correlated with teacher retention
(Buckley, Schneider, and Shang 2005), as well as student health and academic achievement
(Earthman and Lemasters 2011; Uline and Tschannen-Moran 2008). Studies show that children are
more susceptible to environmental disease than are adults, increasing the importance of
maintaining clean facilities (Jasper, Thanh-Tam, and Bartram 2012).
Instructional Environment
The instructional environment refers to the interconnectedness of the academic, social, and
emotional aspects of learning as they relate to student achievement (Bronfenbrenner 1979; Ma et
al. 2009), including such things as the quality of instruction, the quality and availability of
materials and resources, the level of expectations for academic achievement, a shared sense of
responsibility, student engagement and connection with the curriculum, positive classroom
management strategies, and a focus on building strong teacher-student relationships (LadsonBillings 1995; Cohen 2006). Extensive research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD) and others has linked positive instructional environments to higher
student test scores and graduation rates, higher reading scores, and lower dropout rates (Haahr et al.
2005; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development 2009).
Physical Health
In the SCLS, physical health refers to the physical well-being of a school community and its
members. Poor health obstructs children’s education by driving excessive absenteeism, impeding
completion of homework, and inhibiting teacher-student relationship growth (Needham, Crosnoe,
and Muller 2004). Given the amount of time that students spend on school grounds, school health
programs have the potential to be one of the most efficient means to prevent or reduce health risk
behaviors and serious health problems among students (Centers for Disease Control 2011).
Mental Health
Mental health is more than just being psychologically well; it includes emotional and social wellbeing and is affected by many different factors (mentalhealth.gov). Mentally healthy students
attend school ready to learn, are actively engaged in school activities, form supportive and caring
relationships with adults and peers, apply problem-solving skills in a nonaggressive manner, and
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contribute to positive school culture (Freeman 2011; National Research Council and Institute of
Medicine 2009).
Discipline
School discipline is defined as the rules and strategies applied in school to manage student behavior
and the practices used to encourage self-discipline (Osher et al. 2010). Approaches to school
discipline range from positive (e.g., improvements in school climate and the use of restorative
justice practices) to punitive (e.g., suspension, expulsion, and corporal punishment) (Gottfredson et
al. 2005; Mayer 1995; Skiba et al. 2011). Emerging research supports focusing on the former more
than the latter, because punitive school discipline has not been shown to improve student behavior
or academic achievement (Fabelo et al. 2011; Rebora 2013; Shah 2011). Schoolwide positive
approaches have been associated with reduced disciplinary referrals and improvements in student
academic achievement (Lassen, Steele, and Sailor 2006). Using positive approaches when
discipline issues arise is hypothesized to reconnect students to their peers and teachers, improving
the school experience for the community.
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Appendix A.2
SCLS Research Base (references)
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(2006). Correlation between burnout syndrome and psychological and psychosomatic
symptoms among teachers. International archives of occupational and environmental
health, 79(3): 199–204.
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Schools on the School Behavior and Performance of Adolescents. Journal of Adolescent
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_web.
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of School Connectedness on Violent Behavior, Transport Risk-Taking Behavior, and
Associated Injuries in Adolescence. Journal of School Psychology, 49(4): 399–410.
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Chen, G. (2007). School Disorder and Student Achievement: A Study of New York City
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Jennings, G. (2003). An Exploration of Meaningful Participation and Caring Relationships as
Contexts for School Engagement. The California School Psychologist, 8: 43–52.
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Appendix B
Features of the SCLS Platform
The SCLS will not be used to establish a national data collection and reporting system. Through the
SCLS, school, district, and state education agencies independently administer the SCLS surveys,
which means that there is no one organization (e.g., NCES) overseeing the data collection and
ensuring that consistent procedures are implemented across schools. This lack of centralized
oversight has the potential to threaten the validity of the results and comparability to national
benchmarks. Therefore, the SCLS platform has been be programmed with a focus on building in
key features that should be implemented in a uniform manner across all collections.
B.1 Availability of Survey Link and Automated Dissemination of Username Credentials
The platform allows respondents to access their survey through a URL that can be accessed from
any location with internet access and from all standard operating systems and browsers; the student
surveys are more likely to be administered at schools.
To allow potential respondents to follow a link to the survey platform, the platform offers
education agencies the option to disseminate log-in credentials by e-mail directly from the
platform. The e-mails can be generated and sent directly from the platform, containing log-in
information for each e-mail address and/or a link to the log-in page of the survey (the link will be
the same for every respondent). Although email addresses are matched with randomly generated
log-in credentials, these email addresses are deleted from the database after the data collections are
closed and, therefore, will not be linked to respondents within the platform to protect respondent
confidentiality.
B.2 Informed Consent
The SCLS is designed as a voluntary survey and incorporates informed consent/assent procedures;
therefore, the need to obtain consent was considered during the development of the platform. For
adult populations, obtaining consent is generally a straightforward process by which respondents
receive information regarding the survey (including the purpose of the study, the extent to which
confidentiality will be maintained, and other elements of informed consent) and, upon indicating
their agreement to participate, begin the survey. For student populations, however, obtaining
informed consent can require additional steps. Local education agencies administrating the surveys
should follow the appropriate procedures regarding parental consent that are used for any kind of
surveys or testing in the school or school system. In the survey platform, students are presented
with assent language that is appropriate for their age. This assent process is built into the surveys;
similar to the adult populations, students are provided with information about the data collection
and asked to participate. Additional consent/assent language can be added to the platform by the
local education agencies based on their situations or practices.
B.3 Spanish/English Bilingual Feature
The SCLS platform offers Spanish and English versions for the parent and student surveys. The
SCLS platform allows these respondents to toggle between English and Spanish versions of
questions at any point in the survey, giving them the option to answer different questions in
different languages. The instructional staff and principal/noninstructional staff surveys are offered
in English only.
B.4 Survey Page Design
An important design issue of web-based surveys, with implications for question-level response
rates, is the number of questions displayed on each survey page. If too many questions are included
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on each survey page or if the questions are poorly formatted to accommodate different screen sizes
and resolutions, it is more likely that a respondent will be required to scroll down or across the
page to view the question; this in turn can increase the likelihood that a respondent will fail to
answer these questions. The SCLS platform contains only one question per page to allow for
responding to surveys on mobile devices such as smart phones or tablets.
B.5 Real-Time Submission Rates
The SCLS platform provides access to real-time submission rates at the school level. These
submission rates are determined based on the number of respondents in each population who have
logged into the survey and the education agencies’ reports of the number of expected respondents
in each population (i.e., the number of respondent usernames generated).
The need to maintain respondent confidentiality and data security means that the platform cannot
supply education agencies access to information about which respondents have completed the
survey directly from the platform. The platform does, however, allow authorized users to export a
list of usernames by completion status (e.g., a list of usernames not used). This information can be
used by education agencies that have linked SCLS usernames to respondents in order to determine
completion status at the respondent level and target non-response follow up as needed.
B.6 Data Export
To maximize the utility of the SCLS data, the platform allows authorized users to download
respondent-level data for all questions and scales. The initial log-in credentials are only included on
student data. Those education agencies that have created a crosswalk between log-in credential and
student identifiers can link individual-level student data to extant data (such as student
administrative records) for further analyses. The data download process requires that the SCLS
administrator read and acknowledge a statement that these data contain private, identifiable
information, and must be handled in accordance with applicable confidentiality and privacy
regulations. The data export functionality (and associated data import functionality) also allow
schools to send data to districts for the purposes of creating district-level reports, and allow districts
to send data to states for the same purpose.
B.7 Platform Features Considered But NOT Included
Based on key informant recommendations and requests and AIR staff experience in administering
school climate and other school-based surveys of students, parents, and staff, several design
features were considered for integration into the SCLS platform. These platform features were
considered advantageous but could not be implemented because they conflicted with platform
goals described above or were outside of the scope of SCLS objective. Below we briefly describe
these features, their potential advantages, and why they were not directly integrated into the SCLS
platform.
B.7.1 Preloading of Respondent Data
Education agencies may desire a survey platform that allows respondent data to be preloaded into
the platform rather than requiring respondents to enter the information. However, such a design
feature could not be implemented for three reasons. First, Risk to the confidentiality of responses
would increase if SCLS responses were linked to identifiable records within the platform. Second,
it gives the impression that the SCLS surveys and platform can be used to create a federal database
of identifiable student information, which if implemented, would violate federal regulations. Third,
accommodating preloaded data to be used during survey administration would require significant
custom programming—e.g., not all schools use the same staff role titles, so it would be difficult to
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ensure that all preloaded data would route staff to the appropriate role-based survey questions—
that is outside of the scope of the SCLS objective.
B.7.2 Reporting of Data by Detailed Respondent Subgroups
Enabling education agencies to break down the survey results by detailed respondent
characteristics (such as gender, grade, race/ethnicity, gifted and talented status, special education
status, and English language learner status) would allow agencies to assess perceptions of school
climate in more detail and potentially create more targeted programs and policies to improve
school climate. However, the potential for a breach in respondent confidentiality and data security
outweighs the potential benefit. Additionally, statuses such as gifted and talented, special
education, and English language learner may not be reliably reported by respondents. As such, the
platform is not designed to allow agencies to view survey results by limited demographic
characteristics, such as grade, gender, and race/ethnicity for student surveys. In order to maintain
respondent confidentiality and data security, only a limited breakdown of results by respondent
characteristics are allowed, and appropriate ED Data Review Board (DRB) standards have been
applied to resultant reports generated from the SCLS platform. If education agencies wish to
perform more detailed subgroup student reporting, respondent-level data can be exported from the
platform for this purpose, leaving the education agency responsible for ensuring proper
confidentiality protections.
B.7.3 Customization of Survey Content
Allowing end users to customize their survey administrations by adding, modifying, or deleting
questions may be an attractive option to obtain maximum utility from the SCLS platform and
surveys. However, modifying or deleting of survey content could potentially affect the
psychometric properties of the SCLS scales, thereby posing significant risks to the comparability of
results across education agencies and to national benchmarks. Specifically, the questions to be
offered in the SCLS are intended to produce psychometrically validated scales, and it is crucial for
the statistical validity of those scales that all questions remain in the survey. In the final version of
the released platform after the benchmark study, the platform will allow education agencies to add
questions, in the same multiple choice form, to the end of the surveys. The platform will not
provide any reporting on these additional questions. However, education agencies can export the
data files and perform additional analysis and reporting outside of the system.
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Appendix C
General Communication Language (e.g., District Communication About Pilot SCLS to
Schools)
Dear
is supporting the pilot testing of the School Climate Surveys (SCLS) platform, a suite of
four surveys (one each for parents, students, instructional staff, and noninstructional staff) that can
be administered to an individual school or a district. The SCLS platform, developed by National
Center for Education Statistics (NCES) on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education (ED), will
be freely available to education agencies, with no licensing or other required costs associated with
acquiring, installing, configuring, or administering the survey on existing network systems.
Following the pilot test, NCES/ED also plans to conduct a national benchmark study to provide
data for comparisons between school climate scores at the local and national levels.
School climate has been recognized as a potential lever in education policy since at least 1908,
described by Perry (1908) in his book The Management of a City School as the “esprit de corps.”
School climate encompasses health and safety, interpersonal relationships, instructional resources,
and facilities. Positive school climates are conducive to learning, whereas negative school climates
are a barrier. Our purpose in administering the SCLS is to provide with
reliable, actionable data that will afford us the levers needed to foster positive school climate(s).
Participation in this study is voluntary; however, we encourage your
participation in this phase of SCLS. The participation of your in this data
collection is crucial for the development of valid survey questions that will accurately measure
school climate and to develop a no-cost, user-friendly, high-functioning tool that schools, school
districts, and states throughout the United States can use at their discretion to administer the suite
of SCLS surveys.
If you have questions about the SCLS or your participation in this pilot test,
please feel free to call me at or send an email to .
Thank you for your support of this initiative.
Sincerely,
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Appendix D
One-Page Flyer
The one-page SCLS flyer is ideal for recruiting respondents and answering inquiries about SCLS
from interested parties.
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Appendix E
Confidentiality Pledge for Survey Proctors (sample)
I hereby certify that I have carefully read and will cooperate fully with the SCLS procedures on
confidentiality. I will keep completely confidential all information arising from surveys concerning
individual respondents to which I may gain access. I will not discuss, disclose, disseminate, or
provide access to survey data and identifiers. I give my personal pledge that I shall abide by this
assurance of confidentiality.
My signature below indicates I have read and agree to the Pledge of Confidentiality.
Signature:
Date:
Printed Name:
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Appendix F
Proctor Script for in-School Student Survey (sample)
Good morning/afternoon.
You’re here because the [school/district] wants to conduct a survey to hear your opinions about
your school. The survey will ask your opinion on questions ranging from student engagement, to
bullying, to the conditions of the school building itself. Your answers will be used to improve the
school experience for you, your fellow students, and your teachers. Your teachers, and in fact all
the staff in your school, will also have the chance to voice their opinions on similar surveys. Even
your parents will receive a survey and the chance to have their say.
Your [school/district] wants to hear from everyone, so your participation is very important. But it’s
also voluntary. You do not have to take the survey and you can skip any question you don’t want to
answer.
Please answer the questions as best you can. If you are unsure about the meaning of a survey
question, do your best to answer it on your own. In order to maintain privacy, I will not be able to
help you interpret the meaning of questions. Similarly, you should not ask other students or look at
their responses.
When you have finished the survey, please sit quietly and do not disturb your fellow students.
Now, take the username in front of you, use it to log into the survey, but do not begin the survey
until instructed. Once I have made sure everyone has successfully logged in and wrote down the
PIN displayed on the page, I will move to a part of the room where I cannot see anyone’s answers,
and at that time I will instruct you to begin.
…
Now that everyone has reached the PIN page, please begin.
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Appendix G
Consent Forms (sample)
Please refer to your state and locality’s informed consent laws in deciding which consent form to
use.
Appendix G.1 – Parent Consent Form I (Opt in NOT Required)
Appendix G.2 – Parent Consent Form II (Opt in Required)
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Appendix G.1
Parent Consent Form I (Opt in NOT Required)
[NOTE: While the italicized text may be modified to suit the needs of each school or district,
the non-italicized text should be kept consistent across all pilot study sites.]
Dear parent/guardian:
is participating in a pilot test of a voluntary survey about school climate. The survey
will be administered to students during regular school hours during the week of . It will ask students about their perceptions surrounding topics such as student
engagement, school environment, and school safety.
To analyze and refine the questionnaires, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) will receive
individual-level responses from participating schools and districts but without the names or other direct
personal identifiers of the respondents. All information received by NCES that in any way relates to or
describes identifiable characteristics of individuals is protected from disclosure by federal statute; it may be
used only for statistical purposes and may not be disclosed, or used, in identifiable form for any other
purpose except as required by law (Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA) of 2002, 20 U.S.C., §
9573). If you want additional information about NCES’s use of your child’s data please contact .
The data your child provides may also be used by their school and district to better understand the current
climate in their school. The only people who will see your child's answers to individual questions are
authorized personnel at their school and district (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99). Your child's answers
will be combined with the answers of other students at their school and district and used to create records
about the climate of their school. These reports will not identify any person or their responses.
| File Type | application/pdf |
| Author | Pate, Austin |
| File Modified | 2015-03-13 |
| File Created | 2015-03-13 |