Climate and culture survey to help Nashville public schools address expectations, academics

The majority of Nashville schools teachers view the district as having a favorable work climate.

But Metro Nashville Public Schools teacher opinion lags in how they view the effectiveness of school leadership and the resources they are allotted within the classroom, according to the survey.

The results are part of a Metro Nashville Public Schools push to better understand just what teachers, students and families think about its schools. Experts say by tracking that information, the district can place accountability on school climate and culture for the district.

The survey effort isn’t the first of its kind, but the new, ongoing report is more robust than in previous years, school officials said.

Special attention is being paid to how the district can better classroom environments to eventually impact academic outcomes. For instance, students across the district don’t often feel engaged in lessons, the survey shows.

“We noticed student engagement was one of the things that we see in our walkthroughs that is lower than we would like it to be,” said Tina Stenson, Metro Schools director of research. “We are talking about how to infuse opportunities for true engagement with students.”

The district has tallied teacher perception in past years

The hiring of Panorama Education for the survey cost the district $90,000, and the company and district are tailoring the survey to tell the district more about school perceptions.

Previous climate surveys were tallied by the district, but it didn’t include students and family perception, Stenson said.

Also, through Panorama, the district can look at how other teachers around the nation feel about their schools versus in Metro Schools. And the district can comparatively view the feelings of teachers at clusters of Nashville schools or within individual buildings.

Stenson said the district is working on understanding what works best within the district and nation to help inspire school changes. Nashville schools officials are also looking for disparities in opinions across the district.

“For example, even though there are areas that might be largely favorable in some schools when compared to other schools, it (might not be favorable),” she said. [Read More at Tennessean]