Busloads of high school students and parents from organizations statewide have trekked to State Board of Education meetings for two years, clamoring for changes they believe will improve school climate. In moving testimony, students described schools where they feel disconnected, misunderstood and often under-challenged.
“If you are serious about closing the achievement gap, and bringing equity to our most vulnerable students, don’t continue to neglect school climate,” Armon Matthews, a junior at Oakland High School, testified this month to the board. Matthews is a student leader with Californians for Justice, a statewide nonprofit that has led a school climate campaign under the Twitter hashtag #SchoolClimateIsTheHeart.
In the Local Control Funding Formula, the comprehensive 2013 state funding and school accountability law, the Legislature established school climate as one of eight priorities school districts must address. Others include student achievement, parent involvement and implementation of academic standards. The law listed student suspension and expulsion rates as a measurement of school climate, and the state board has included it in the California School Dashboard, the color-coded rating system of school and district performance.
Further underscoring school climate’s importance, the law also cited the value of surveys and other locally developed tools to reveal the perception of parents, teachers and students of a school’s “sense of safety and school connectedness.”
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