Train the teachers, get the best textbooks. Implement a well-designed curriculum. Add students. Put them all into a dingy, overcrowded, falling down building with no air conditioning and see how they do. School facilities aren’t generally considered a “key indicator” for school success, but the quality of a school's environment is critical to student learning.
How can you take stock of the learning environment at your schools? Start by paying a visit to your school’s bathrooms. Bathrooms? Yes! It’s one place where you can get an immediate sense of whether students at the school are respected and whether they respect themselves. Do the stalls have doors? Is there enough toilet paper and paper towels? Does the plumbing work? Are they brightly lit and welcoming, or do students try to avoid them? Earlier this year, Education Week ran a feature on school bathrooms (2/12/03), and the effort to clean them. It recounted how a student committee formed in one high school to inspect bathrooms and write up work orders for the principal. This example speaks to how bathrooms can become a starting point for student organizing.
 The Center for Community Change published Individual School Report Cards: Empowering Parents and Communities to Hold Schools Accountable, in April, 2001. To receive a free copy of this report, write to:
Jamaal Ferguson -- CCC
1000 Wisconsin Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20007
Phone orders: Call Jamaal Ferguson in the publications department at (202) 339-9338.
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Schools rarely report on the condition of their buildings. A couple of good models exist, however. In Hawaii, school profiles include a “Facilities” section that rates grounds, building exterior, interior, equipment/furnishing, health/safety, and sanitation on a scale of 1 (unacceptable) to 3 (Very Good). (See the Hawaii School Report Cards then take a look at the “Status and Improvement Report.”)
Connecticut report cards include the year of original construction of the building, the number of permanent classrooms, and the number of portables in use.
In our report on School Report Cards (Individual School Report Cards: Empowering Parents and Communities to Hold Schools Accountable), we argued that all school report cards should be required to report on overcrowding. We recommended that report cards display the “capacity of the school building,” (in other words, how many students the building was designed to house), and “the percent of capacity at which the school is operating.”
Other School Climate Issues
How can schools report on issues of student safety? A number of states include statistics on the number and types of incidents of violence at each school. But it is not clear whether such reporting serves a useful purpose or simply fuels public fear.
Another approach is for schools to survey students about how safe they feel at the school – since perceptions can have as much impact as reality when it comes to student learning. Hawaii surveys staff and students annually, and includes questions about school safety. To look at some of Hawaii’s “School Quality Surveys,” go to the site above. In a similar way, schools can survey parents and report on whether parents feel comfortable and respected at school.
Successful schools respect students as well as staff and parents. Monitoring school climate can help you determine whether the building, the facilities and the environment convey respect, or disrespect. Good luck!
