And all along you thought it was just me.

How students and teachers feel about the schools they attend, their perceptions on the learning environment, plays a major role in a student’s academic achievement.  If you’re not crazy about flipping burgers at McDonalds, you’re probably not going to be named employee of the month.  Based on the just released Hartford Public Schools Spring 2023 Culture and Climate Survey, HPS has many students on a path to flipping burgers at McDonalds, where they probably will not be named employee of the month.

The data from the report, presented to the Board of Education at a Workshop meeting this past week,  shows declines from the last survey (Fall 2022) across many key indicators of a positive school culture and climate, mirroring the drop in many measures of academic achievement for the 2022-23 school year. 

The poor results from the culture and climate survey does not bode well for the new district focus plan of the state and HPS that will, states Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez, move a priority focus off of the objective data measure of chronic absenteeism (39% for 2022-23) and give more weight to the subjective perceptions of a culture and climate survey (which asks for a response to such outstanding statements as: “I have friends at my school,” and where 35% of respondents are in grades 3-5).

Before getting to the details of the recent decline in culture and climate at HPS under Torrez-Rodriguez’s leadership, there are a few points to make.  The first being the time it took to bring the results to the public from a survey which was completed many months ago.  The fall 2022 survey was completed on November 18, 2022, and the results were shown to the BOE less than a month later, at a December 6th, 2022 board meeting.  Given the results of the latest survey, perhaps the district needed most of the spring and all summer and fall to script their spin.  And why have the fall 2022 survey results for students and staff been removed from the district’s survey links?

The presentation of the fall 2022 survey began with Torrez-Rodriguez celebrating data which showed that students, staff, and family felt that they have clean schools.  I’m not kidding, this was the big leadoff to the 2022 data presentation.  It was said that this was due to the Office of Talent and Management’s doing a great job in “targeting” the hiring of janitors.  Seriously, they said this.

However, since students and staff did not feel the schools were as clean during the spring of 2023 as they were during the fall of 2022, the superintendent did not begin this latest presentation talking about Chief Curtis’ ability to hire janitors.  Instead, the “celebration” slide presented by Torrez-Rodriguez consisted of the unbelievable missive that the data in the latest survey shows that folks at HPS “Care about student learning.”  Which is why independent surveys of teachers would most likely show that HPS must have new leadership.

So, with this knowledge serving as the backdrop for the latest culture and climate survey presentation, the BOE and the public ought to have had the feeling that things were not going to go well.  The district’s first hint that the data was not going to measure up to their rhetoric should have come when they learned that there had been declines in those participating in this bi-annual stunt.

Student participation in the spring 2023 survey fell 22 percentage points from the fall of 2022 survey, while “staff” participation fell 31 percentage points (when the word “staff” is used, this includes staff from central office and uncertified staff; only 54% of “staff” respondents were “certified teachers”).  Families, however, earned a gold star from the superintendent as the family participation number rose 8 percentage points to 48 percent.  Which we must take with a grain of salt based on their very poor turnout for an election on who will run their city.  Bethany Silver, Chief Performance Officer at HPS, called the survey participation numbers, “encouraging data.”  Seriously, she said this.

Torrez-Rodriguez believes the participation numbers were in part due to “survey fatigue.”  Or, it could be leadership rhetoric fatigue, which also may be why Board Member Escribano left the presentation after 15 minutes, why Member’s Johnson and Rigueur were late to the meeting and why Board Member Deristel-Leger left after an hour. 

Whatever the reasons for it, a decline in participation means that folks are just not buying what you’re trying to sell (after 8 years).  To cure this “survey fatigue” going forward, like Chris Cringle and Christmas, the district will administer the culture and climate survey only once a year, during February and March.  To avoid voter fatigue, public mayoral elections in Hartford will never be held again; only old, connected, white monied interests will pick the next outsider for mayor.

The biggest issues we find with this survey report are that students are not feeling this whole education thing.  Only 50% of student respondents said that they “like coming to school,” which is down 6 percentage points from the fall of 2022 survey.

Similarly, only 57% of students said that they “feel connected” to their school, down 5 percentage points from the fall 2022 survey and a decline of 1 percentage point from the spring 2022 survey.

Only 63% of students reported that they “like what I’m learning in school,” compared to 68% who said the same thing in the fall of 2022.

For the spring 2023 survey, only 58% of students said that they “belong” at their school, a decline of 6 percentage points from the fall of 2022 and down 3 percentage points from the spring of 2022.

Students who agreed with the statement that they have the technology to do their schoolwork declined from 88% in the fall of 2022 to 86% in the spring of 2023.

More students felt “safe from the virus at school” in the fall of 2022 (51%) than they did in the spring of 2023 (50%).

In the fall of 2022, “staff” reported that they felt that 68% of students are “capable of meeting grade-level expectations.”  This number has since dropped to 66%.

EducationWeek online magazine states that “research has found that a positive school climate can improve students’ academic achievement, attendance, engagement, and behavior, as well as teacher satisfaction and retention.”

The National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments states that  improving school climate is not something that happens overnight. It is not a “project” that you can do once and then move on. Rather, improving school climate is an ongoing process, one that takes time and requires the support of district leaders, who can help set the tone for continued improvement.” 

Based on the declining data from the spring 2023 survey, there has not been set a “tone for continued improvement” in the culture and climate at HPS by this district’s leaders after nearly 8 years, thus risking “academic achievement, attendance, engagement, and behavior, as well as teacher satisfaction and retention.”