“Teachers Are Calm, Kids Seem More Calm”: School Climate and Student Enrollment at Philadelphia’s Renaissance Schools

• In Event: An Educational Renaissance? School Transformation, Turnaround, and Restart in Chicago and Philadelphia

Abstract

Objectives:
One of the early goals of Philadelphia’s Renaissance Schools Initiative was to dramatically improve school climate. This paper will examine the efforts of principals, charter managers, and the school district central office to improve school climate in the first cohort of 13 Renaissance schools, and the extent to which they were successful. Additionally, we look at issues of student enrollment in the schools, the characteristics of their students, and the challenges created by these factors in some schools.

Perspectives:
School climate can refer to the intangible tone or feeling inside a school building, or “the quality and character of school life” (Cohen, McCabe, Michelli, Pickeral, 2009, p. 182). While there is not yet widespread agreement on how school climate should be operationalized and validly assessed, this paper will focus on three goals commonly recognized in the literature as elements of positive school climate: (1) sense of safety, (2) supportive relationships, and (3) positive physical environment (Center for Social and Emotional Education, 2010). The paper will also examine student enrollment to determine whether the schools have continued to serve similar students to prior years, as is intended by the initiative.

Methods/Data:
This paper is part of a larger mixed-methods study of Philadelphia’s Renaissance Initiative. Qualitative data, collected between March 2010 and July 2011, include:
⋅ 133 Interviews and focus groups: central office staff, charter managers, school advisory council (SAC) chairs, teachers, principals, and other school leaders
⋅ 13 School visits
⋅ Review of relevant documents
Quantitative data include:
⋅ Surveys of 12 SAC chairs, 13 principals, and 86 teachers
⋅ School-level data on student characteristics and school climate indicators (e.g. attendance, suspensions) in the 2010-11 school year

Results:
We found that all 13 Renaissance schools made concerted efforts to improve relationships, safety, and facilities in the first year of the initiative. Midway through the year, improved school climate was reported in 11 of the 13 Renaissance schools, clear upgrades to the schools’ physical plants were evident, and student attendance increased at a rate higher than at comparable schools in the district. Challenges remained, however, and success in establishing a positive school climate varied across schools. The differences appear to be partly attributable to (1) differences in when teacher hiring was completed, and (2) the extent to which a school-wide system of climate-related interventions was in place from the first day of school. Additional results are pending further analysis.

Significance:
While existing research shows that establishing a positive school climate is key to making incremental improvements in schools over time (e.g., Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2010), little research has documented its role in more drastic turnaround initiatives. Understanding how the elements of school climate and student enrollment work together with teacher satisfaction and self-efficacy (see paper 4) and school-parent-community ties (see paper 5) in Philadelphia’s Renaissance schools, and the contextual factors that support or inhibit their success in these schools, will inform the national conversation on school turnaround.

Authors

• Deborah A. Good, Research for Action

• Michael Norton, Research for Action

• Eva Gold, Research for Action