Running head: STUDENT CLIMATE SURVEY

Student Climate Survey - Needs Assessment

Kalie Halpin and Lennox Balog

The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

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Introduction

Students spend upwards of 40 hours a week at school. The environment that schools

create have the opportunity to greatly affect students’ well-being and overall experience. It is

good practice to ensure that students are given a voice when it comes to their school climate.

This creates an opportunity for the school counselor to provide students with a chance to give

their input. A needs assessment was implemented at Jordan Matthews, a rural high school with

approximately 800 students. The survey was aimed at discovering student’s perceptions of their

school’s climate. The goal was to give students the opportunity to voice their thoughts and

opinions on the school environment and culture. These results inform the school’s administration

and staff of the potential areas for growth and can direct a plan of action.

Communication between student and faculty is not always clear and direct. Another

intention of this survey was to ensure that student and faculty perceptions of the current areas in

need of growth aligned. This gave students the platform to directly express their outlook on the

current school climate to the rest of the school community.

This school climate survey will be administered during all lunch periods and will accept

responses from students in 9th through 12th grade. The assessment seeks to answer several

questions, which include:

Is there a communication gap between students and faculty regarding school climate?

Is there a communication gap between students and faculty on the utilization and

effectiveness of school supports?

What do students feel is the greatest need in the school environment? How can staff best

provide support?
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Procedures

The procedure for this assessment started by first obtaining written consent from the site

supervisor at Jordan Matthews High School. After her consent was granted, further consent from

the principal was sought. The principal that it would be difficult to get surveys out to students

and staff in time, and suggested that we use the school climate survey that a student organization,

Peers Educating Peers in Siler City (PEPSC), was going to be using for Unity Day. After getting

in touch with the staff organizer of PEPSC, several questions were added to their school climate

survey regarding perceptions of student needs. By merging our needs assessment with PEPSC’s

pre-approved survey, students only had to focus on one assessment, and we were able to provide

the student services department with a broader look at student needs.

The human rights of the students participating are of the utmost importance. The first

way this was respected was by making the survey anonymous. The individual responses were

only be available to those administering the survey. These individual responses were not shared

or released. When findings are shared, they will be shared as a whole, not as individual

responses. This survey seeks to respect all of the participants and provide security in their

willingness to participate. Another reason for anonymity is to ensure honest feedback. The

survey did not ask for the participants’ names or any demographic such as gender, age, or

ethnicity, that could compromise the confidentiality of their answers.

An email was sent to the entire student body, informing them of the survey and inviting

them to take it at the laptop station that was set up in the cafeteria during their lunch periods.

Participation was voluntary, but all students were encouraged to participate. An email was also

sent to school staff to encourage students to participate. To further increase participation, we

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offered free earbuds with the Jordan Matthews logo on them for any student who completed the

survey. The survey took most students less than five minutes to finish. We had staff members

and a few trained student volunteers present in the cafeteria to promote the survey and answer

any questions that participants had. Kalie’s email was provided as well in case follow-up from a

student was needed. 194 total students completed the survey.

The questionnaire can be found in appendix A.

Findings and Recommendations

The results provided much needed information on student perception of the current

school climate. The most notable responses provided a strong focus on drug and alcohol use.

61.7% of students reported drug and alcohol use as a top presenting issue at their current high

school (See Appendix B). This issue surpassed other common school issues such as bullying,

pressure to fit in, and getting good grades by a significant percentage. A follow-up question

revealed that 71.6% of students believe that their peers are turning to drugs and alcohol as an

outlet for stress relief (See Appendix C). We feel that these results correlate to another response

of 46.4% of students reporting that they believe that more de-stressing activities at school would

be a helpful support (See Appendix D). Another notable factor is that 45.9% of these students

believe that greater school support from teachers and staff would greatly benefit their time at

school (See Appendix D). The combination of these results create a clear connection for this

school climate. Students believe that they are lacking stress relieving activities at school and are,

therefore, turning to drugs and alcohol as their own source of stress relief outside of the school

walls. The students have provided this school with both a problem they are facing and a potential

solution.
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At this high school, the student services department is working hard to provide students

with resources that will help them to be focused and motivated on their academics. On the

faculty end, student services have seen that anxiety and depression are major barriers for their

student population, and have therefore have prioritized connecting students to mental health

resources. Due to the outcome of this assessment, they are now aware that student drug and

alcohol use is over concern and it is reported as being in direct response to student stress levels.

In this sense, student services is on the right track with increasing mental health resources for

student, however, efforts could be more concentrated to drug and alcohol abuse. Student services

could provide a follow up assessment that focuses more primarily on how other stress relieving

activities could better be offered at school.

There are two key limitations to this study that need to be recognized. First, the survey

was school specific. This particular student body seeing drug and alcohol interventions as the

biggest need at school does not mean that students at every school will have the same opinions

and results. Second, the survey was given on a voluntary basis in the cafeteria. Not all students

eat lunch in the cafeteria, and not all are brave enough to walk up to a table and ask what is going

on. There may have been a bias in that the more socially inclined students were the only ones

filling out the survey.

Student voice is crucial to a well-functioning school. It is highly encouraged that schools

utilize a survey such as this one. Giving students a safe place to share their opinion on their

everyday surroundings will increase their feelings of support and belonging at school, leading to

better academic performance. By directly asking students about their environment, school staff

can strengthen understanding with students and identify where they can be better providing what
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students need. From here, school staff can identify what interventions need to be prioritized

within the school. Next, they can create an action plan and implement programs to reach the

goals that students identified. These are the next steps we would recommend.
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Appendix B
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Appendix C
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Appendix D